EU Referendum and EU Reform (EUC Report)

Lord Judd Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, like others, I thank most warmly the members of the committees whose reports we are discussing. I particularly thank the leadership of those committees. The noble Lord, Lord Boswell, made a fine, outstanding, balanced and telling introduction to this debate. I have been privileged to serve on a Select Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Earl, Lord Selborne. I remember and treasure that experience because he was a particularly effective chair, not least because of his open-mindedness and his firm views about where the committee should be going.

Those of us who come down in favour of remaining, as I heavily do, must not run away from the realities that surround us in society as a whole. There are real anxieties, however well or ill-founded, among the people of Britain. I shall pick two which in our future in the Union, which I hope we will have, we must take very seriously. The first is not so often expressed, but I am certain it is there. It is resentment at what people see as elitism in the working of the community, an arrogant bureaucracy which is, for many people, underlined by its very expertise. They do not feel involved in that expertise or relate to it, and therefore it can come across, however unfortunately and however far it may not be true, as a kind of institutional arrogance. What is more, those of us who have been caught up—and I was a Minister working on European affairs way back in the 1970s—become part of that in club. We will have to tackle that issue resolutely in our future in the Union. It is unfortunate that we ever moved away from indirectly elected assemblies, as they then were, because with the large impersonal Parliament we have, there is a tendency for it to be remote from the people, not to have to take as seriously as it should the real issues and anxieties being debated in member countries and their Parliaments and to breed national Parliaments that do not have a feeling of responsibility for European success. From that standpoint, it was sad that we did not remain with an indirectly elected assembly.

The other big issue has hardly been mentioned in today’s debate. It is immigration. I live in Cumbria. All the social surveys done in Cumbia find that it is one of, if not the, counties with the smallest amount of immigration. They also find that it is one of the counties with the highest rate of anxiety and prejudice about immigration. That is interesting. National Parliaments and Governments have been responsible for greatly neglecting the realities of how immigration works. We have not been giving priority to the housing, schools, hospitals and infrastructure of the areas in which the majority of immigrants settle, and therefore existing issues of deprivation, the unequal provision of services and the rest become underlined. We should also help with positive social policies on integration and on how people can be helped with language and, let us face it, behaviour to become part of the traditions and realities of the society in which they are living.

If we are speaking of immigration, the point that must be made very firmly is that anything we are encountering and the pressures we see today are small compared to what is going to happen. It is certain that with climate change and the other issues, not least the associated political problems that will arise from them, we will see the issue of immigration growing all the time. Let us remember that countries such as Lebanon and Jordan already have migrant populations that almost equal the size of the population of the country concerned. We will have challenges ahead.

I have said before in this House that I am not ashamed of putting this as a father and grandfather, although I think it is true for our generation too. The overriding reality is that whether we like it or not or may wish it were not the case—I happen to enjoy it—we are part of a totally interdependent world. That cannot be escaped. It is true economically, in terms of security and increasingly in terms of health and in almost every dimension of life that one can think of. The challenge to us as politicians in various countries is to find a way of meeting that challenge of interdependence and a means of governance that can make a success of an interdependent community rather than turning into a frightened, paralysed international society. What worries me is that within so much of the Brexit debate there are—I am sorry to put this bluntly—all the manifestations of insecurity and inadequacy.

Do we want a Britain that is self-confident, outward-looking, sees and accepts the challenges and says, “It’s exciting and fulfilling to meet those challenges”, or do we want an introspective society frightened of the world and becoming, in its language and in other ways, increasingly aggressive in its defensiveness—a kind of raft floating out into the Atlantic, almost sinking under the weight of the missiles, defence systems and bureaucracies that will then become necessary? I want to belong, and I want my children to be able to belong, to a self-confident, outward-looking Britain that sees itself as part of the world, sees its challenges and says, “We are determined to play our full part in meeting those”. Of course Europe is not the total solution—after all, the size of the issues we face is global—but it is a very good starting point for playing a full part, together in Europe, in the wider world.

European Union Referendum (Date of Referendum etc.) Regulations 2016

Lord Judd Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, in an awful lot of the debates that have gone before today’s debate in the House, I found it mystifying when people argued that they always saw the relationship with Europe and its institutions in terms of what we could get from it to strengthen our economy, and that they were completely against the concept of wider political activity and commitment within Europe. Why do I not understand that approach? It is because I was a young man in the post-war period and remember that the atmosphere, right from the beginning, was highly political. When the European Coal and Steel Community was established, it was not an end in itself. It was established because those who did so desperately wanted a peaceful, stable Europe—and with that, the opportunity to make a contribution to a peaceful, stable world.

When we moved into the Common Market, that was true, too. For many of the statesmen who brought it into existence, it was not an end in itself. It was a means of achieving the reality to which they all aspired. I say to those on the other side that, as a committed member of my own party, I was always inspired by Churchill on this. He had a vision that our future depended on working with the world, and that if we were to establish one that was peaceful and stable we would need the institutions with which to do it. I have always therefore seen this as a story of evolution but if that evolution was to be successful, it would depend above all on visionary leadership. What has been wrong with our participation in the European Union is that we have played the game badly. We have always put a sort of defensive position to the British public.

I was a Minister responsible for Europe, way back in the 1970s. When I was fulfilling that task, there was an attitude that what you really should do as a Minister was come out of your negotiations in committee saying, “My God, in spite of all the pressures, dangers and threats coming from Europe in this context, I have secured these safeguards for the British people”. I really believed in those days that we needed some Ministers who would come out of committee saying, “We’ve had a terrific tussle with this issue”, then explain what the issue was and say, “As a result of that tussle and argument, we have achieved this solution in the interests of the European people, and in their interests we are looking to the interests of the British people”. In the world in which we live, we cannot separate the well-being and security of the British people from those of the wider European community, so we need that kind of leadership. Our problem in persuading the public now is that we have played it that way and have not demonstrated consistently how effective and indispensable Europe is for achieving the very aspirations that are dear to their hearts. I make this point because, if those of us who believe that we should stay in succeed in the referendum, we cannot sweep under the carpet that task of leadership not only within the community but for the British public in terms of what it is all about and how it is relevant to those issues.

There is another issue—I know that I tread on some toes when I say this—but, because of the complexity of the task, a centre of expertise around Europe has built up, and with that has gone a culture of elitism that has alienated people. I have often thought that was unfortunate, because we have to enable that elite itself to understand how dependent it is on the good will and positive identification of the people of the countries that are members. We have to take that issue very seriously—as we should with our own committee system on Europe, in seeing how far we can make it more real for ordinary people in the kind of witnesses we call, and so on, so that it is not again seen as part of an elitist game that does not relate to them.

I conclude by saying how glad I was to hear the opening speech from our side by my noble friend Lady Morgan—and, indeed, the speeches by the noble Lords, Lord Howell and Lord Ashdown, who is not in his place at the moment. They spelled out which issues are facing the world and how we simply cannot face them without working together with others. We may not be doing it perfectly, but the challenge to leadership is how we get it right, not how we walk away from the collaboration and co-operation and bury our heads in the sand. The challenge is to say that we cannot have a peaceful world without co-operation and we must have the institutions within which we can co-operate. Our role is to provide leadership and moral inspiration, showing the importance of tolerance and human rights, not just as an end in themselves but as a manifestation of the tolerant and inclusive kind of civilisation that we not only want but is indispensable to humanity’s future.

Prison Reform

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I have long been an admirer of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and his contribution today has done nothing but strengthen that admiration. However, there have been many other important contributions to this debate. The contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, was crucial. What he described is a disgrace and a blemish on all our claims to a commitment to justice in our society. I draw particular attention to the words of my noble friend Lord Harris. In my view, his report is compulsory reading, and all of us who take these issues seriously should read it if we have not already done so.

I say to the Secretary of State: be careful. We live in an age of unprecedented cynicism about the political system, partly because large sections of the public see politics as a game of rhetoric without real commitment to, and fulfilment of, the needs of society as a whole. The excellent priorities that he has set out on rehabilitation could too easily become part of that accelerating cynicism if they prove to be nothing more than rhetoric. We all have to realise that when commitments of this kind are made, it is necessary to face the discipline of the resources that are required. These things cannot be done cheaply. They cannot be motivated by a desire to have social provision, wherever it is, on the cheap; they must be motivated by the determination to make the resources available.

We talk about rather abstract statistics and figures when we discuss penal reform, when we should all be thinking of the huge number of terrible human experiences that individuals have within the system, with so many broken lives and nightmare experiences. It is not a great credit to us that all we can do in response is lock people up.

The first thing to do is to decide what we are trying to do and then say what is necessary to do it. Large warehouse prisons are certainly not the way to do it; what we need are far more well-designed individual establishments appropriate to individual needs. Almost nothing in this is more important than the mental health dimension.

Women are a particular challenge. I remember being told by a prison officer in Holloway, in absolute exasperation, “What are we supposed to be doing, particularly with women on short sentences? Their life is one of unremitting chaos, and with short sentences we are only adding to that chaos. Sometimes, I think the best that can be said for what we contribute is that we give them relief for a few days from the pressures that are ruining their lives outside”. What a commentary.

That brings me to my last point. When I was president of the YMCA in England, I tried to give as much time as possible to the work with offenders. I was glad that in the leading councils of the YMCA we had a very experienced senior police superintendent from the north of England, who was a very effective policeman and very down to earth. He said, “I often feel that it is at the moment when the person is being sentenced and sent down that there should be someone at their elbow saying, quietly but firmly, ‘What a terrible mess this is in your life. How are we going to sort it out?’. Such a person should take the sentenced person through the experience of imprisonment and back into a rehabilitated life outside. Without such an approach, we are just playing mechanical games that are destined to fail”.

British Bill of Rights

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

The repeal of the Human Rights Act is part of a manifesto commitment; it does not in any way diminish our respect for the importance of protecting human rights. What we are concerned with is the overreach of the Strasbourg court and the relationship between this Parliament, the Supreme Court and the Strasbourg court. This does not mean that there is any diminishing of our respect for the protection of human rights.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

Does the Minister recognise that while he keeps referring to our good record in this respect, Russia has a very bad record and is introducing legislation to try to give effect to its dissent? Does he not understand that it would have an historic significance if we were to withdraw because it would lend credence to the present moves within Russia and, indeed, encourage such activity elsewhere?

[Lord Faulks]

As I indicated to the House and the noble Lord, it is not our intention to withdraw from the ECHR, although, as the Secretary of State said, we cannot rule it out absolutely. We are confident that we can realign our relationship with the Strasbourg court in a satisfactory way, which means we comply with our international obligations and bring some common sense back to the business of human rights.

Legal Aid

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate my noble friend Lord Howarth on having secured this debate. I particularly liked the measured and thoughtful effectiveness of his speech, which is so characteristic of his contribution in this House. I also want to put on record how glad I am that my noble friend Lord Bach is replying for this side of the House. He has done fantastic work in recent years—his unflagging commitment is a challenge to us all.

We need more modesty than we usually display when talking about the United Kingdom’s record and position in the world on these matters. In my formative years, I faced the reality of the revelation of what was, for example, going on in Hola and in Kenya, which has now come to light.

We would have a much stronger position in the world if we talked about our leading role in the struggle for the emergence of what we see as justice and our commitment to it. In that vital struggle, I also want to put on record how much I admire the legal profession and those courageous members who have certainly led the world in consideration of the issues.

I also think that we must discipline ourselves into thinking more clearly about the difference between law and justice. Justice is what we seek as the principle for a healthy, effective, self-confident society. We constantly repeat that we are seeking to advance the rule of law across the world, but we should be emphasising more heavily that we seek to lead the world in the fight for justice. Law must be judged by how far it advances justice—and how far it does not. If you are considering law, what is the law? What is its validity? What principles is it based upon? Law is not automatically synonymous with justice and we are foolish if we ever forget that.

I became very convinced—even more convinced than I was already—about the importance of justice for the future of humanity during my time as director first of VSO and then of Oxfam. It is not a struggle just within Britain; it is an international issue of which we are a part. Repeatedly in that work, I saw that the real issue was justice. If you were dealing with greedy landowners and land grabbers or if you were dealing with corruption on a massive scale, what people needed was justice. With justice they were able to prosper and tackle the task of their own development. Without it they were so often set back. That must apply in our own society—of course it must. Justice is central to our security, in containing the wickedness of extremism and terrorism, and also in having the healthy, self-confident society to which I referred earlier.

In my young political days, the controversial political figure, Gerald Nabarro, went through a very controversial and long-running saga of what I shall call a “car incident” to which he was central. I thought he was very wise when, at the end of that case, referring to his experience he said that British justice was great for those who could afford to pay for it. Do we want to live in that kind of society? Do we not see the hallmark of the society in which we want to live as one in which everybody has access to justice? I am not against looking at the effectiveness of the institutions that we have for ensuring this. Nor am I against the principle of cost-effectiveness, because the absence of cost-effectiveness means that it is not effective. Cost-effectiveness is central to effectiveness. That is very different from having the principle that dominates—or has come to be seen to dominate—the argument, which is, “How do we cut the costs of access?” That inevitably advances the reactionary move towards injustice.

European Union Referendum Bill

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I have listened to this debate with fascination. It is, of course, crucial. It raises huge issues and takes us right back to the origins of the move towards having a referendum at all. In the end, what we need in this country is leadership and people who stand up for what they believe in and argue for it. This vision of nurturing an imaginary world in which somehow the provision of passive, impartial information will enable people to make up their minds is naive, as has been said. What enables people to make up their minds is an argument of real substance adduced with passion and conviction. That is the issue.

I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has given us an opportunity to have this debate although I have slight anxieties about how you can spell out the consequences of this situation. That seems to me a very absolute understanding of how human affairs are conducted. I do not know that you can say what the consequences are. However, you can say what the implications are and they can be well argued and substantiated, and a report of that kind would be helpful.

Having had the privilege to serve on the home affairs sub-committee of the European Union Committee, I know that the sense of urgency behind our deliberations has not been neglected. The sub-committee looked at the implications of change in the home affairs role and at crime and security. One thing was absolutely clear in those deliberations—modern crime is completely internationalised. Indeed, one thing was devastatingly clear—terrorism is totally internationalised. There can be no one in this House who does not lose sleep over security issues. We took evidence from people in the front line with practical, in-the-field responsibility in these spheres. It is worth noble Lords looking at not just that report but also the evidence because what came across to me as we listened to that evidence was that virtually without exception those with operational responsibility said that, unless we had gone mad, we must realise that we could handle this situation only with effective international arrangements in place. They had not a shred of doubt that we would have lost our marbles if we ceased to co-operate within the context of Europe. It is there in the evidence. Noble Lords should not listen to the opinions of fellow Peers but should read the evidence. However inadequate, however much there is need for change and improvement in the relevant arrangements, the European dimension has become indispensable to work in that sphere.

I think that a timescale of at least 12 weeks before the referendum is incredibly short for consideration of any report, but I also think that it is awfully luxurious in terms of how much time would elapse before such a report was available. If we are talking about the safety of our families and this nation and the protection of our industry, given the cyber issues that have been raised, we need factual information from the people in the operational front line about what we are luxuriously contemplating. The immediate security issues affecting our people today—tonight—demand that we know what we are going to do and how we are going to achieve that if we withdraw from the European Union, and how we ensure that the co-operation which those in the front line see as indispensable is maintained.

[Viscount Trenchard]

My Lords, I will not detain the Committee by going over all the arguments that have been made. I, of course, agree with those noble Lords who think that the information and any statements that may be produced should inform people about the consequences of remaining in as well as leaving the European Union. However difficult that may be, at least the Government should say what kind of association with the European Union they think would be desirable for the United Kingdom to pursue in the event that it votes to leave the EU.

My noble friend Lord Forsyth commented that under the Bank of England bank deposit guarantee scheme the maximum amount that is guaranteed has been reduced from £85,000 to £75,000. It is clear that that is because the euro is the currency of the European Union and all monetary values are determined in euro amounts. I suspect that this has happened because the sum was fixed at €100,000, which was approximately £85,000 and is now approximately £75,000. That is why the Bank of England has reduced by a significant percentage the maximum amount available under its guarantee scheme.

I also noticed that, according to the Daily Telegraph, Cabinet sources have informed that newspaper that the Prime Minister’s thrust for substantial alterations to our terms of membership will cover four main areas, and that he is asking for an explicit statement that the euro is not the official currency of the EU, making it clear that Europe is a multicurrency union. From that it follows that if Europe is to be a multicurrency union, it would not be possible in future for the Bank of England arbitrarily to reduce the maximum amount under its guarantee scheme in the way that it has, or to increase it, should the currency movement be reversed.

Prisons: Young People

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I warmly thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for this challenging report. I found it extremely timely and urgent, and he was right. The way he spoke this afternoon reinforced that.

There are of course all the individual relationships and how they are handled, to which speakers in this debate already referred. However, we cannot overlook what comes to me from this report. It is an indictment of society as a whole and its leadership—that cuts across party lines; I am not making party points here—that we can have a situation of this kind in 2015, in a country that keeps talking about how successful it is, if perhaps not always, as an economic force and of all the material achievements of our society, while in the face of all that is this story which society chooses to push under the carpet and refuse to acknowledge as a grave challenge which cannot be tackled with enough urgency. I thank the noble Lord for giving us the opportunity to see this so clearly.

I had for a number of years the privilege of being the president of the YMCA in England. I got very fascinated by its work in detention centres, particularly for young people. I was interested in all its work, but I was very interested in its important social housing programme for the young and vulnerable. Let me give two examples of perturbing situations I came across. One was a retired chief constable with quite a reputation who worked as one of our volunteers in a detention centre. He had a story about talking to a young chap with whom he had been dealing in the centre. This chap began to cry and he said to him, “But why are you crying? You are about to be released”. The youngster said, “That is why I am crying—I am so frightened of the world outside. Whatever I might have encountered here, I am terrified of going back into society and all the immediate pressures and realities that will face me. I am just not equipped to handle them”.

In the context of this consideration, the issue of mental health comes out. Of course, it comes out throughout the whole penal system and in much else of society. Here I must declare an interest because one of my daughters led a team of counsellors for a number of years working with women with mental health problems in deprived communities. The thing that repeatedly infuriated her—she used to get really worked up—is that her work was officially recognised and appreciated, and she would be sent more and more people from border authorities, the health service, the police and all sorts of sources. They were asked to cope with the situation. However, the money did not come, too. She said, “If you look at mental health practically here, and the work I am trying to do with my team, we see ourselves as the forgotten factor in the health service and the rest”. That is a social responsibility that comes home very strongly.

The other example is simply that I went to visit a team working in quite a big young offenders’ institution in the Midlands. They were very worried because their contract—I am uneasy about this contract culture generally—was to get people into jobs. Working with youngsters, they very quickly recognised how complex the situation was, and they would say, “For some of these youngsters, the very last thing to do is to push them into a job—they are not equipped for it. They need help and support, and they need preparation to work outside”. That threshold between the institution and the outside world is terribly important, but they were told in firm terms that their contract was to get people into jobs, and they were not to start using the money on consultation work and discovering that people were not ready for jobs. That was not their job. They were told explicitly that if they did not concentrate on that, somebody else would get the contract who would. That kind of situation has to be faced.

It is good to hear the noble Lord emphasise the fact that we need a total culture change in our penal system. The culture should not be dominated by considerations of custody, although of course that is important, or by considerations of punishment, although of course we need to make it clear that some activities and practices are not acceptable. It should be dominated by a culture of rehabilitation.

To go back to the YMCA for a moment, we had a chap that I liked immensely, a senior superintendent in the police in the north of the country, who was central to many activities of the YMCA, not only in the north but nationally. He once confided in me, saying, “I always think that the moment when a person is sent down is absolutely crucial—it is a very lonely moment indeed. People react in different ways, some with bravado, some with fear and apprehension, and some clearly totally broken at that point. In an ideal society, that is the very moment when somebody should take the elbow of the sentenced person and say, ‘Come on, this is a terrible mess, how are we going to sort it out?’”. The right reverend Prelate made the vital point that what are indispensable are friendship and support—to have an identifiable friend, walking with that person through the sentence and the threshold and back into the world, and back into a full and positive life. These people are so often victims themselves. When I talked to them, I thought that it would be amazing if with such a nightmare story they were not in trouble. So why are they in this situation, and how do we help to rebuild?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Faulks) (Con)]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, in thanking all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I especially thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, for convening it and I welcome it as an opportunity to highlight the Government’s approach to the important issues which his report raises.

I also specifically thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody for its review into the self-inflicted deaths in custody of 18 to 24 year-olds, which was published in July of this year. I pay tribute to its thorough and comprehensive work. The noble Lord and his colleagues have given the Government a great deal to think about by their recommendations, which are being considered with the utmost care. As the noble Lord stated, there are no easy answers to these questions and the recommendations require a considerable level of care and attention.

Noble Lords may be aware—the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, referred to this—that the recommendations are being considered in the context of a Justice Select Committee inquiry into young adult offenders in the criminal justice system, announced in July, as well as the Secretary of State’s wider prison reform considerations. The Government will respond to the recommendations of the Harris review once the interim chair of the panel on deaths in custody is in position.

This debate is not the forum for the Government’s response to the review, but what has been discussed today will certainly contribute considerably to the Government’s ongoing considerations. The Government have been clear in their commitment to make prisons places of reform, rehabilitation and redemption. In the future, prisons will not merely be places of punishment but will give those who find themselves incarcerated the chance to change.

This debate has ranged far and wide, dealing not simply with 18 to 24 year-olds but with the life journeys of many young offenders before they reach that age. It has dealt, to some extent, with older offenders, who now make up an increasing proportion of our prison population. As the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said, this House represents a significant source of wisdom for the Government.

Crime is falling overall. Nevertheless, we know that more must be done to divert individuals even before they enter the criminal justice system. Progress has been made on this front. The newly expanded troubled families programme is now gearing up to work with another 400,000 families during this Parliament. The programme helps families struggling with multiple issues, which now include parental offending, by co-ordinating services better to get to the root cause of their problems. Where crime is an issue in these families, it means we are getting a better idea of the reasons behind it, and thus a better chance of intervening early to try and stop it happening again. I note the comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Harris, about the focus being perhaps on troubled adolescents as much as on troubled families.

We know that 41% of prisoners observed domestic violence as a child and that 24% had, at some point, been in care as children. The noble Lord, Lord Adebowale, emphasised the problems that those who have been in care can encounter and the fact that they so often find themselves in prison. He will be aware that the noble Lord, Lord Laming, is currently leading a Prison Reform Trust review into care leavers, and we are expecting that report in 2016.

I also pay tribute to the work done by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, in the Young review, published in December 2014, which looked at improved outcomes for black and Muslim young men. I am glad that she had a satisfactory meeting with my ministerial colleague Andrew Selous and note her observations about the importance of statistics to inform trends. The next publication of statistics on race and the criminal justice system is scheduled to be released on 26 November 2015. We value the scrutiny that these figures encourage into this crucial area, and I agree with her that without examining and understanding these figures in an open and transparent way, we will not be able to make sufficient progress.

The percentages I referred to demonstrate the significance of the work, which has been led by my colleague, the Minister of State for Children and Families, aimed at improving child protection, supporting children in care and speeding up adoption—all measures which in the long term will be likely to impact positively on rates of offending, by reducing the conditions in which we know that offending behaviour flourishes.

Once an offence has been committed, diversions away from the criminal justice system may apply. Liaison and diversion services, now operating at police stations and courts across half the country, identify people of all ages who have mental health issues, learning disabilities, substance misuse issues and other vulnerabilities such as debt or homelessness when they first come into contact with the criminal justice system. Here, I pay tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Bradley. As he knows, and by way of response to a question posed by the noble Baroness, Lady Healey, this is being trialled across more than 50% of England. Further rollout is under consideration, and similar services for referral to mental health and learning disability services have been developed in Wales.

Reports from liaison and diversion services help to inform charging or disposal decisions by the police and inform magistrates and judges when sentencing. One theme that has emerged from the debate is the importance of continuity of information and the efficient transfer of information about individuals, so that those sentencing or dealing with young offenders have all the information at their fingertips. Liaison and diversion services can also identify the available treatment and support options, which may allow diversion away from custody.

I turn to reducing the prison population—a theme mentioned by several noble Lords. Many offenders are not subject to those diversions and, unfortunately, end up in front of the courts. I should confirm that the principle of judicial independence is vital and sentencing decisions must lie in the hands of magistrates and judges alone—although, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, emphasised, it is most important that timely information is available for sentencing tribunals to enable them to sentence on the best possible information. It is not appropriate for Ministers to influence the decisions in individual court cases, beyond setting the framework within which courts operate.

The noble and learned Lord sentenced a number of people for long periods in his distinguished time as a judge. As a much more junior judge, I have sentenced offenders to prison for shorter periods. He correctly identifies that sentences have been getting longer. There are a number of reasons for this. There is the possibility of media pressure. I think that there was also something of an arms race between political parties on the matter. No political party can claim innocence of that. There was a stress on trying to be tough with offenders. I think that it is probably safe to say that at the moment there is not an inappropriate battle between parties to sound unnecessarily firm on offenders. I genuinely think that there may be an opportunity for there not to be an undue escalation of prison sentences simply to respond to some perceived political imperative.

However, we recognise that judges and the public need to have confidence in community sentences. Where offenders are assessed by courts as being of no danger to others, we will aim to increase the use of electronic monitoring. We are committed to delivering a new generation of GPS tags, the technology for which is currently being tested. A comprehensive review of the electronic monitoring programme is under way to make sure that an efficient service is delivered. We are confident that the resulting system will provide the highest levels of technology available. The ability to locate and track offenders will be a valuable tool, allowing us to keep a closer watch on them without having expensively to imprison them.

The law makes it clear that custody should always be the last resort for a sentence. The custody threshold test, which all recorders and magistrates are taught about and is set out in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, requires a court to be satisfied that the seriousness of the offence is such that only a custodial sentence is appropriate. Only if community orders or fines are considered inappropriate can the court impose a custodial term.

The noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, made the point that sometimes sentences are too short and that in the time when a young offender is in prison, nothing much can be achieved. At various times, Governments have tried to specify the length so that it is not too short or too long, but it is a relevant factor and sentencing tribunals should very much bear it in mind.

When an offender does go into custody, it is important that we rehabilitate that person so that they do not return to prison. That is why the coalition Government took steps to introduce supervision for offenders released from short sentences. In the past, such offenders were released at the halfway point of their sentence with no supervision and no support. It is perhaps not surprising that this group had high reoffending rates. Following the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, these offenders are now subject to a year of supervision in the community, designed to break the cycle of offending that leads to short custodial sentences in the first place.

I entirely accept what the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, said about the importance of self-respect in young offenders and what the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, said on the importance of someone showing a bit of interest, as in the case of David which he told the House about.

There are some hopeful signs about young offenders. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, spoke of the significant reduction in the number of young offenders in custody at the moment. Probably, the general population would be unaware how small that population is: 1,000 of them, with a very small number of young girls—approximately 50. So there are hopeful signs.

Noble Lords discussed improving conditions within prisons. Where the courts consider the crime to be serious enough, of course prison must be the punishment. When offenders are punished by being sent to prison, the loss of liberty is the punishment. However, we have a duty to make prisons safe, secure and dignified so that offenders can be rehabilitated within them.

I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to the work of the Prison Service. I am grateful for the observations of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth in that regard. In challenging conditions, the men and women who work in and for prisons do a fantastic job, keeping society safe from those who would pose a danger and rehabilitating inmates so that they can once again contribute to society.

In the context of the report of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, it is of course a tragedy if any young person commits suicide. It is also a real shock to the staff who work in these young offender institutions. They take a long time to recover from these instances, often knowing the young offenders well. The work they do goes unnoticed, but it is absolutely vital to the function of our criminal justice system and deserves recognition.

The noble Lords, Lord Carlile and Lord Fellowes, referred to improving conditions, and we know that there is much to do. The Secretary of State set a clear direction in this area. Major estate reforms will remove those facilities that no longer suit the needs of a modern Prison Service from our estate and free up funds for the construction of modern prisons. In these new builds, we can design out the flaws in existing structures that facilitate drug-taking and violence. Such a project is already under way in north Wales.

Furthermore, we continually work to make prisons as safe as possible for both offenders and staff. One improvement in this area is the Serious Crime Act 2015, which brought in two new offences: being in possession of a knife or other offensive weapon in a prison without authorisation; and the throwing of items over a prison wall without authorisation. The Act will reduce the incidence of violence in prisons and increase our ability to safely and securely rehabilitate prisoners.

We also recognise the significant problems caused by psychoactive substances known as “legal highs” in prisons. They have been linked to specific acts of violence and erratic behaviour. Therefore, we introduced a number of measures to tackle the use of psychoactive substances in prison. Operationally, we deploy a robust range of security measures to reduce the availability of legal highs. More than 500 specialist dogs work in prisons, searching cells, visitors and perimeters. Closed visits through a glass screen may be used and we are exploring the use of body scanners to reduce the threat posed by drugs smuggled into prisons, including the threat presented by so-called plugging. There has been a major push on communications to ensure that governors and staff are aware of the associated dangers, and that prisoners are aware of the consequences of taking psychoactive substances.

The Secretary of State clearly set out his commitment to liberating offenders through learning. Time spent in prison must be used advantageously. We must offer prisoners the chance to obtain the qualifications and skills that will equip them to lead successful lives outside prison. This is a vital part of the Government’s reform agenda. We know that one in five prisons has an inadequate standard of education and two in five require improvement. The Secretary of State commissioned Dame Sally Coates to chair a review into the quality of education in prisons which will report in the spring. In the mean time, we have a number of steps and measures under way to improve support for prisoners with learning disabilities, develop more creative teaching methods and collect better management information.

Supporting offenders into meaningful employment is a vital aspect of the Government’s approach. This supports those who have committed a crime to provide an effective contribution towards society, helping to break the cycle of offending. Of course, we do not want to push them into a job, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, but we are keen to increase the number of employers who engage with prisoners and offenders to offer them employment opportunities. We hold an Employers’ Forum for Reducing Re-offending, chaired by the CEO of Timpson, James Timpson, which brings together employers who support the employment of offenders to share their experiences and promote the benefits of employing offenders to other businesses. We have also built up a relationship with Halfords that is also worthy of note. I have had a chance to meet representatives from both Halfords and Timpson, and they both stress how often these employees turn out to be extremely good, very keen to have the job and stick at it and soon completely absorbed into the working community.

[Lord Judd]

I am very grateful for the Minister’s response on that point—and of course a lot of positive work is done and results are achieved. However, would he pick up the point that one must not drive out the imperative of recognising that some of these youngsters are just not prepared or ready for work and need expenditure in terms of the support that needs to be provided to enable them to join the workforce?

[Lord Faulks]

I entirely accept that—not everybody is ready for that sort of job, as is recognised by the potential employers. But some are, and if they are it is certainly an advantageous step to take.

Before I turn to the subject at the heart of the report from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, I would like to deal with the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes, about prisoners’ votes, but it is a complex one. I hope he will accept the fact that, at the moment, the Government do not believe that prisoners should have the vote, but I recognise that there are different views on that issue.

As to the subject at the heart of the report from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, whenever a prisoner, of whatever age, takes their own life, it is a dreadful and tragic event. We recognise that prisons hold a particularly vulnerable population, so the prevention of such deaths is a priority for the Ministry of Justice, and NOMS. Staff do an incredible job of keeping prisoners safe and prevent many prisoners from taking their own lives. Every day, prisons manage around 2,000 prisoners deemed to be at a heightened risk of suicide or self-harm. We know that the factors that are associated with self-harm and self-inflicted deaths can become more pronounced in prison, but there is no single factor which explains why self-inflicted deaths in prisons have increased, and no simple solution to solve it.

All prisons are required to have procedures in place for the identification, support and management of those at risk of harm to themselves, known as the ACCT process. I note the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, on that matter; a review of the process will report by the end of this month. We work closely with health providers to support prisoners with mental health conditions. NOMS has a long-standing and close partnership with the Samaritans, whose volunteers support prisoners to become listeners, providing trained peer support to fellow prisoners who are experiencing distress. On the issue of mental health, NHS England has developed national specifications for health and justice services. All health services for prisons must focus on delivering improved health and well-being for offenders. Learning lessons is crucial to reducing self-inflicted deaths. We welcome the work of the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.

There is a great deal more to be done, and a great deal more that I should like to say in response to the report, but time is against me. The report from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, requires and will receive a detailed response. It is unfortunate that the final review could not be presented at the recent ministerial board—he referred to that in opening—but I understand that the two members of the review team were present, and there was a long discussion on deaths in custody, with contributions from the director of NOMS and an external expert on suicide. I assure the noble Lord and the House that the Secretary of State has given the review careful consideration and the contents of his report and what noble Lords have said in this valuable debate will greatly assist the Ministry of Justice. I thank all noble Lords.

Probation

Lord Judd Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

This is an important issue and there are no absolute answers to particular problems. However, all those involved, by their contractual obligations and their general responsibility to adhere to good practice, will try to maintain continuity where possible and ensure that there is not inappropriate transfer between the various categories.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord has emphasised that robust measures will be in place to ensure the safety of the public. However, does he not agree that the ultimate objective of the probation service is to enable people to become rehabilitated, good citizens? Will robust measures be put in place to make sure that the deliverers of service have got their eye on this, and not just on the profit?

[Lord Faulks]

I entirely agree with the noble Lord. What this transformation is achieving for the first time is the ability for offenders who have received sentences of imprisonment of less than 12 months to receive through-the-gate support for a period of 12 months and assistance before their release from prison, as opposed to being released with a mere £46 in their pocket and no support. This should be celebrated on all sides of the House and provide genuine rehabilitation, reduce reoffending and enable offenders to take their full part in society.

Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Judd Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, no one who has sat through this debate could possibly imagine that there is not an immense amount of work to be done in Committee. The complexity of the issue has become increasingly clear. The sincere and convincing convictions of people on both sides of the argument have been very forcefully expressed. Like many others, I have wavered on this issue. I have given it a great deal of thought and, indeed, it has caused me a certain amount of anguish. However, at the end of the day, two prevailing principles have swayed me firmly to support the Bill. First, if you believe in the right to life and that it must be protected at all costs, you cannot dodge the secondary question about what life is. If a person has reached a stage at which they say, “What I am going through and experiencing cannot be described as life, as I understand it”, how can those of us who believe in life, if it is to have any sense, meaning or fulfilment, possibly reject that request? That is one of the arguments.

I have toyed very much with the question of whether I should present my next argument. I regard myself as being at the social end of Christianity. My Christian values affect very much what I am about in life. To me, what is really important in those values is love. There have been honest and brave references to love—not just compassion, but love—in this debate. As someone who takes second place to no one in the argument about the importance of love in our society, I say to those in the Christian church who have come to a different view that it is because of how I understand love that I have come to the conclusion that the situations with which we are dealing will sometimes demand the action which this proposed legislation envisages.

We have to return to the front. We have all had a mass of correspondence from people on both sides of the argument and I have been very impressed by it. Noble Lords will know how, when you are getting such correspondence, one letter particularly hits you and stays with you. I want to read one letter that I received. It states:

“My uncle, a foreman toolmaker and a strapping six-footer who played football for the works team, developed cancer of the spine. He screamed until all his strength was gone, then he whimpered like a puppy. Twenty-four hours before he died his wife implored their GP to stop his pain. The GP replied: ‘I dare not give him any more morphine. It would kill him’. Twenty-four hours later the cancer had killed him”.

These are some of the harsh realities in the front line of what is happening. I have the privilege to be deeply involved in the work of Hospice at Home West Cumbria, of which I am president. I was having a conversation with the chairman last weekend about some of the issues we face and the things we want to do. I asked him about the Bill. He is a fine man, a doctor with years of wide experience and deeply committed. He said several things and I asked, “Can I quote you?”. He said, “Yes, of course you can”. He said, “First of all, the devil is in the detail”. That is why your Lordships’ scrutiny in Committee will be so important because, in the end, does the Bill really do what we want to do in the way we want to do it? “Secondly”, he said, “I am worried about this mental capacity issue. In terms of my experience, how certain are we that people have the mental capacity in their situation in order to make a rational decision?”.

In this debate, we should have been talking far more about palliative care. I have limitless regard for the quality of work being done in hospices across the country—the dedication, devotion and effective work by so many volunteers and staff. However, one of the things that is so crucial, which we have come to see in west Cumbria, is that part and parcel of the care for the patient is also the support work and counselling for the family. If we are taking this Bill seriously there has to be a real choice for the people about whom we are talking. That means: is there a convincing alternative that meets the situation? We all know that palliative care is patchy in this country. Some of it is very good and very advanced but it is not available to everybody on the scale it should be. That should be a priority, as should be the training of doctors who in the course of their work will spend an increasing proportion of their time dealing with the dying.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Judd Excerpts

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton]

My Lords, I am happy to support the amendment. I mentioned at Second Reading that it was through my long association with the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders that I came to be sensitive to the issues behind the amendment. It was NIACRO, I think, that first coined the phrase, “the silent sentence”, which described in those few words the impact on families of the imprisonment of a parent or person caring for children.

It is highly significant that 12 or 13 NGOs or charities have come together to launch a campaign called the Families Left Behind. They point out:

“Children of prisoners are disproportionately represented amongst young offenders, the care population, children in poverty and children with mental health needs. Parental imprisonment is correlated with a range of other family problems including domestic violence and drug and alcohol misuse”.

It is significant that two-thirds of boys whose fathers have been in prison go on to offend. We should note that 66% of women currently in prison have children.

I shall give a little history of what has happened in the past two years. In 2011, Action for Prisoners’ Families together with Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service—a significant combined action by a voluntary group and a statutory body—published a range of resources aimed at promoting good practice in relation to children or dependent adults whose primary carers had been sent to prison. These resources included new guidance asking magistrates to check that there are no immediate welfare needs concerning children or dependent adults. However, the sad fact is that many courts have not followed this guidance and therefore seem still to be unaware of the issues concerning the welfare of children and vulnerable dependants when the carer is placed in custody.

The amendment is quite right to place the responsibility clearly on the court making the sentence. This will be, I am sure, a matter to which we shall return on Report. Meanwhile, I look forward to the Government’s response.

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment. I remember, on a visit to Holloway, being tackled very forcefully by a prison officer, who said how outraged she was, fulfilling her duties, sometimes quite late at night, of receiving and processing people who were being taken in to that prison after court proceedings, that only at that stage did the staff discover that there was somebody vulnerable at home. It is outrageous in any decent society that there is any possibility of something like this happening. I think sometimes that we just do not think through the consequences. Apart from the possible inhumane results, not that infrequently a vulnerable person in that situation will have been in the care of a woman or a man—it is not exclusively a matter for women—in a home that has had more of its share of disrupting influences on that child. For the child suddenly to be left in this predicament only compounds the insecurity that that child has faced in life and, indeed, could well accentuate a tendency to anti-social behaviour at a later stage.

If we are trying to reduce crime and encourage the young to forgo the possibility of delinquent behaviour, a demonstrable sense of care by society is very important. From that standpoint, it seems to me that this amendment is crucial. I will be very sad if the Minister feels unable to accept it, because I am quite certain that it must be pursued on Report. For a prison officer, who was deeply concerned, to raise the matter with me brought the point home to me all the more forcefully. It is quite shocking that this sort of situation can occur. The sooner we eliminate that possibility, the better.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I can well understand the problem that individuals facing sentence may be in denial about the consequences. In what I think is a parallel example, working on adoption through the Select Committee earlier this year and talking about placements of children and whether it was right for a child to be placed away from its birth parents, we were told time and again that it was at a very late stage that other members of the birth family would come forward offering to care for the child. I do not want to leap to conclusions on how this proposal might operate, so I ask the noble Lord whether he or those involved with this campaign—I regret that I have not seen the detail—have consulted, first, the courts and, secondly, the Local Government Association about the operation of such a scheme.