Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Act 2020 (Extension of Operative Period) Regulations 2025
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Baroness Levitt) (Lab)
My Lords, the purpose of the instrument before your Lordships is to extend the powers to make regulations to implement private international law agreements for a further five years from 13 December 2025. This instrument may not have a very snappy title, but it is an important one because, if these powers are not extended, they will permanently lapse.
As your Lordships are doubtless aware, private international law rules are applied by courts and parties involved in legal disputes that raise cross-border issues. They generally apply in the context of civil and family law. In other words, private international law agreements help govern how we live, work and trade across borders. In the past, the domestic implementation of new private international law agreements generally required primary legislation, but most domestic provisions implementing private international law agreements concern technical matters and are limited in scope: therefore, implementation can appropriately be handled via secondary legislation. This is because policy issues are often settled when the private international law agreement is negotiated, so the implementation process focuses largely on the procedural changes needed to give effect to the policy decisions reached during negotiations.
The Committee will be interested to know that the Government have carried out a consultation with experts from across the UK. The vast majority of respondents considered that these powers have been used properly to date; that the safeguards are effective; and that the continued use of the powers is in the public interest because they provide a single, clear means of implementing private international law agreements and make proportionate use of parliamentary time.
The purpose of this instrument is to extend the powers to make regulations under Section 2 of and Schedule 6 to the Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Act 2020. Section 2 allows the “appropriate national authority” to make regulations for the purpose of implementing international private international law agreements; to apply those regulations to the UK’s different jurisdictions; and to extend these regulation-making powers for a further five years. The Scottish and Northern Irish national authorities can grant permission to the Secretary of State to make regulations on their behalf, including regulations extending the five-year operative period in their jurisdictions, as they have done in this case.
I very much thank those noble Lords who sit on the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for their review of this instrument and for their clear, concise summary in their 36th report, which I commend to the Committee.
I turn now to the reasons for extending the powers. We suggest that these powers provide a single, clear method for implementing private international law agreements. They protect the public interest by ensuring that parliamentary time is used effectively, and they retain the effective safeguards and limits on the powers provided by the Act. The powers are vital in ensuring the UK’s credibility with its international partners by reassuring them that private international law agreements can be implemented in a timely way.
By way of example, the powers were used to implement the Hague Judgments Convention of 2019. Without the powers granted by the Act, primary legislation would have been needed, thereby delaying implementation. Our ratification of Hague 2019 was warmly welcomed by the legal sector—and, indeed, by Members of your Lordships’ House—as an important step for international, civil and commercial co-operation.
The Government are now proposing that the powers would be used, for example, to implement the Singapore Convention on Mediation, which would allow cross-border commercial mediation settlements to be recognised and enforced more easily before the UK courts. Furthermore, in July 2023, the Government confirmed their intention to implement two model laws that had been adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law—UNCITRAL—of which the UK is a member state.
I will say a brief word about the consultation. The Act imposes a duty on the Secretary of State to consult such persons as he or she considers appropriate before using the powers. As your Lordships will be aware from the Explanatory Memorandum, the Government consulted targeted experts on whether to extend the powers for a further five years. These experts included academics, lawyers and professional bodies, some with very large memberships, from all parts of the UK; the vast majority agreed with the extension of the powers, for the reasons I outlined earlier.
On safeguards, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, doubtless remembers from his involvement in the passage of the Act, several noble and learned Lords raised concerns about the extent of the powers, which led to amendments introducing various safeguards. These include the prohibition on granting legislative powers, the banning of the creation of imprisonable offences and the establishment of a five-year extendable time limit, which is the subject of the instrument before your Lordships today.
In addition, most regulations made using the powers will be subject to the affirmative procedure or equivalent processes in the devolved legislatures. Therefore, Parliament and, where appropriate, the devolved legislatures retain the ultimate say regarding the use of the powers. I would like to take this opportunity to reassure noble Lords that this instrument does not affect those safeguards. I should also add that several consultees noted the proportionate use of powers to date, as well as the effectiveness of the safeguards, and judged that the benefits outweighed the concerns raised during the passage of the Act.
I thank the noble and learned Lord in advance for his contribution, as I cannot see anybody else present who looks as though they want to say something; I very much look forward to working with him. I beg to move.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction of the regulations, which extend the powers conferred by the Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Act 2020 in order that Ministers may implement private international law provisions contained in international agreements in accordance with our dualist system of law.
Private international law is, of course, a vital extension of our domestic legal framework. It enables businesses, individuals and families to operate confidently and lawfully across borders. That is why the previous Conservative Government championed the 2020 Act. It expands the sphere in which reciprocal legal treatment can be upheld, with flexibility and indeed a degree of agility, as indicated by the Minister.
The Act is also one of several measures introduced to address the legal and legislative gaps following our departure from the European Union, filling the gaps in a way that minimised the burden on parliamentary time while continuing to promote the UK’s commitment to international legal co-operation. At the time, concerns were raised, as the Minister indicated, by the then Opposition about the potential for executive overreach. In practice, however, the power has been used very sparingly—only twice, I understand, since 2020—and the requirement for parliamentary renewal every five years provides an important check on its use. Far from becoming a tool of unchecked executive authority, it has functioned within very clear and indeed limited boundaries.
If the instrument is to continue serving our interests, we must be confident that it is both effective and proportionate. I therefore ask the Minister whether the Government will consider undertaking a formal impact assessment to provide clarity on how they see the instrument being used in the coming years. Clearly, we must ensure that the instrument becomes neither a dormant provision nor a vehicle for unchecked executive action. I thank the Minister for her introduction.
Baroness Levitt (Lab)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble and learned Lord for his contribution to this debate. He is a lawyer of great distinction, and his comments were listened to carefully by me.
He made an important point about the necessity of ensuring that all legislation of this sort does not succumb to overreach or indeed become dormant but must remain both effective and proportionate. He asked whether we would consider an impact assessment. I may have to come back to him on that and write when there has been an opportunity to consider this. I will take it away and think about it carefully, because it seems that the points made are important.
As I set out, these powers are an important tool that will support a clear and effective implementation mechanism for private international law agreements. In turn, these agreements will provide greater clarity and confidence for UK businesses, families and citizens who work and live across international borders.
Education in Prisons
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Lord Timpson (Lab)
My noble friend is aware that we are very reliant on fantastic teachers and educators in our prisons. For me, they are some of the finest public servants. They come in, day in, day out, in often very difficult circumstances. The government procurement situation is something that I am still trying to get my head around, coming from the commercial sector. It takes a little longer and is often more expensive than I would expect. We have more than 500 suppliers delivering education services in our prisons; I want to ensure that they deliver them to a high quality and that we hold them to account.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, when asked last week why the Government were abandoning their manifesto commitment to reduce reoffending through access to prison education, the Minister replied:
“We are rebalancing because some prisons had an oversupply of education”.—[Official Report, 14/10/25; col. 165.]
Given that His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons has just found that education provision is atrocious, will the Minister now tell us how many prisons he believes have an oversupply of education provision?
Lord Timpson (Lab)
I met the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, yesterday, and we discussed exactly this situation. We discussed, for example, Manchester prison, which used to have over 1,000 prisoners and now has, I think, about 650 to 700. That is why we have reduced the amount of money being spent on education in prisons such as Manchester, because there are just fewer prisoners. The noble and learned Lord is correct that it is about reducing reoffending. We have to focus on that, and education has an important part to play. But it is not just about being in a classroom. When I go and visit prisons, what is more important to the men and women I meet there is them learning a skill so that, when they are out, they can get a job, which means they stay out of prison. Last week, I visited a workshop at Lowdham Grange, where they were making sofas—on which a number of Members of your Lordships’ House probably sit on a regular basis—and a fantastic bricklaying workshop. It is not just about education but about learning skills for jobs on release.
Prisoners: Reoffending
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Lord Timpson (Lab)
Having been to prisons in Holland before, it is clear that they have a different approach. With the Sentencing Bill, which will come to your Lordships’ House soon, the inspiration has been the Texas justice system, where they did things differently and crime has come down by 30% and they have closed 16 prisons. What is clear from going around our prisons—as I do most weeks—is that they are too full. Today is a good day, as they are 98.4% full. We see that as a really good result. It is very difficult for our hard-working prison staff to rehabilitate people in overcrowded conditions, but I could give your Lordships many examples of prisons that I am proud of, and the noble Lord would be proud of too, where our staff do a fantastic job, in prisons that are modern, of turning people’s lives around.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, there was a manifesto commitment to reduce reoffending through improved access to education in prison. It has just been reported that the new national management contracts for prison education involve real budget cuts on average of 20% and in the case of some contracts of up to 60%. Can the Minister explain why, as a Justice Minister, he is abandoning the Government’s manifesto promise?
Lord Timpson (Lab)
Education is absolutely vital. We want people to leave prison able to read and write, and far too many do not. The education budget is not being cut; we just get less value for money. We are rebalancing because some prisons had an oversupply of education, money and staff compared with others. I do not want to walk past classrooms in prisons that are half-full; they need to be full. We need to support people in prison with digital learning as well. It is not just about education; it is about how we get people ready for when they leave prison so that they do not come back. Education is an important part of it, but so is work, housing and their health.
Trial by Jury: Proposed Restrictions
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Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, the creation of a Crown Court bench division, as recommended by Sir Brian Leveson, must be seen in light of his related recommendations. One of the most critical to arrest the growing crisis in our criminal justice system is to provide a further 20,000 Crown Court sitting days. Do His Majesty’s Government accept that clear recommendation? If not, why not? If they accept it, what immediate steps are they actively taking to implement it?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government already have more sitting days than any previous Government. The central observation of both Sir Brian Leveson’s review and the earlier view of David Gauke is that one cannot sit oneself out of this crisis or build oneself out of it by building more prison places. There needs to be a systemic review encompassing both Sir Brian’s recommendations and the Gauke recommendations to stop the ever-increasing amount of people being sent to our prisons. It is that in that spirit that we will review Sir Brian’s recommendations. We will publish our review some time in the autumn, with a view to legislating on the matter in due course later this year.
Prisons: Early Release
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Lord Timpson (Lab)
The release scheme that we inherited from the previous Government was very chaotic. Far too many people left prison and were recalled very quickly, which meant that more victims were created. The SDS40 scheme was far more stable and organised, and probation colleagues had the time to find accommodation. The noble Lord is completely right: accommodation is one of the key factors in ensuring that when someone gets out of prison, they stay out. We have far too many people still leaving prison with NFA against their name, and that is totally unacceptable. The £700 million extra funding that we have secured for probation is important. A lot of that will go on accommodation, tagging, extra staff and technology.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, as I have suggested on a number of earlier occasions, the Government’s proposed policy on early release is flawed. Does the Minister now accept that the Government should expressly address whether technical or minor breaches of licence conditions by non-violent offenders should not result in recall to prison, whether for 28 days or otherwise? That would go a considerable way towards relieving pressure on our prison capacity.
Lord Timpson (Lab)
The crisis we inherited in the justice system meant that, had we not acted, we would have run out of prison places, on the basis that the previous Government built only 500 prison places when the population of prisons increases by 3,000 a year. That is why, by the time of the next election, there will be more people in prison than ever before. On recall, it is important that our probation professionals use their judgment based on risk. When people leave prison, we need to give them all the tools possible so that when they get out, they stay out. I do not want them having a return ticket back to prison; I want them to have a one-way ticket. That is why accommodation and all the support services we put around people will ensure that there are fewer recalls.
Criminal Justice Act 2003 (Suitability for Fixed Term Recall) Order 2025
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Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to the order. We must, of course, recognise the extent of the pressures facing our prison services. Prison spaces have reached capacity and recalled prisoners are a significant driver of prison place demand. Recall is a measure available to His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service to bring an offender managed in the community, following release from prison, back into custody. That is a point to which I will return. Under current legislation, recall is used when offenders breach their licence conditions, no matter how minor the breach of licence conditions may be, even in the case of a non-violent offender. It will also apply where their risk is elevated.
As indicated, at the end of March this year, 13,583 prisoners had been recalled into custody, together with a further 17 mentioned by the Minister. That is an increase of 10% since the year before and more than double the recall population in 2018. These figures are a matter for concern, and we recognise the Government’s intention to address the challenges through interventions of various kinds, but we have several concerns with the approach taken in this order.
First, we must recognise that if a prisoner is sent to prison for four years, re-releasing him back into the community after 28 days poses significant risks to victims and the wider public. The reforms introduced by the Government create considerable risk to the public and are required to be reconsidered.
Secondly, there are 10,500 foreign criminals in our jails and 17,000 people in prison awaiting trial—on remand—which, together account for almost one-third of the prison population. It is essential for the Government to reconsider the judiciary’s offer of extra court sitting days as a means of reducing prisoner numbers and to address the whole issue of remand and how it is approached.
Thirdly, we know that there is not one solution to fix the current prison population pressures, but we must be acute to the threat of re-releasing high-risk violent offenders to the public when they have a track record of poor compliance. Probation services are already struggling with unprecedented demands, and it is essential that the Government reconsider the implications of these reforms on both the victims of crime and the issue of wider public safety.
Fourthly, I quote Dame Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales, who said that she could not stress enough,
“the lack of consideration for victims’ safety and how many lives are being put in danger because of this proposed change”.
We must be responsive to the warnings made by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner. These reforms cannot safely exempt perpetrators of domestic abuse from the proposal, because they do not know how many domestic abusers are serving time in prison or currently being monitored by probation.
In conclusion, we recognise that the Government have difficult decisions to make, but they must do so with a rational approach, not one that proposes changes that further endanger lives. We urge the Government to reconsider their plans for recalling prisoners and choose the safety of the public over pressure on prison spaces. I look forward to hearing from the Minister on this. I do not expect him to respond to the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, that somehow the death penalty could be a solution; clearly, that was not his intended meaning. But I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lemos: the number of recalls as well as the period of recall is critical here. As I indicated in a previous debate in the Chamber, it respectfully appears to me that one ought to address whether minor licence breaches should, in the case of non-violent offenders, result in recall at all. There are alternative means of dealing with this.
Lord Timpson (Lab)
This recall works by using MAPPA levels 2 and 3, terrorist offences and so on, but, in the longer term, recall will form part of the discussions around the Gauke review and the sentencing Bill. However, it is important that we have recall as a tool for victims of domestic violence whose perpetrators are ignoring orders against them.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
I intervene to emphasise the point that I and the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, have made. In the case of offenders who commit a minor breach of their licence and have not been sentenced for a violent offence, there is surely a compelling case for not recalling them at all—there are other means of dealing with them through the Probation Service—so that we do not have a situation in which someone who has been in prison for fraud, for example, is stopped for a road traffic offence and sent back because they have breached the terms of their licence. It does not seem to make any sense in this context, and this could be done more or less immediately.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
I support the noble and learned Lord in that. There are recalls for failure to keep appointments, such as tagging appointments. If the Minister were to lay down a rule that people were to be tagged before they left prison and not wander around the countryside until they fail to make an appointment for that purpose, it would do a great deal of service.
Independent Sentencing Review
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Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, the measures announced by the Government on 22 May are presented under the guise of necessity, but they risk eroding public confidence in our criminal justice system. This country has always stood for a system of justice that is firm and fair and can be trusted by the public, yet some of the proposals fall short of that standard. If the Government are truly committed to ensuring that violent and repeat offenders are properly punished, it is entirely within their means to create the prison capacity required. Instead, we are asked to accept a series of deeply troubling changes on the grounds that there is no alternative.
What do these reforms entail? It is a reduction in time served, including a proposal for many offenders to spend merely a third of their sentence in custody. Let us consider just one example. A burglar sentenced to 18 months and entering a plea of guilty might serve just 11 weeks in prison. That is scarcely credible as a deterrent, let alone for a justice system. Such outcomes can only erode confidence in our penal system. And what is to replace custodial punishment? We have heard of an expanded use of electronic tagging. While we support the appropriate use of technology, let us be candid: electronic tags are not a substitute for custody.
As mentioned by my right honourable friend Robert Jenrick in the other place, the Ministry of Justice’s own pilot scheme showed that 71% of tagged individuals breached their curfew. Is that the kind of protection that we are offering a law-abiding public? Meanwhile, over 17,000 individuals are currently on remand awaiting trial, a number that is forecast to rise still further. In the light of this, will the Government now act on the Lady Chief Justice’s call for additional court sitting days so that these cases can be heard and justice delivered without undue delay?
What of capacity? Under the previous Government, we delivered the largest expansion to the prison estate since the Victorian era. The Government’s prison capacity strategy mentions the construction of a mere 250 rapid deployment cells. That is hardly adequate. When Texas undertook similar reforms in the 1990s—the very model on which this plan is said to be based—it built more than 75,000 prison places.
The Government’s present approach to justice simply cannot inspire public confidence. We must ensure, and indeed the public expect, that the most prolific and dangerous offenders face the consequences of their actions, so I will press the Minister on several critical points. First, following the announcements made in the other place on 22 May, can he confirm without equivocation that violent sexual offenders and those who have committed crimes against children will be excluded from the early release schemes?
Secondly, given the review’s emphasis on reducing custodial sentences, what assurances can the Government provide that public confidence in the justice system, particularly among victims and their families, will not be undermined by these changes?
Thirdly, does the Minister agreed that electronic tagging cannot substitute for secure custody, particularly in cases involving violent or high-risk offenders?
Fourthly, what assessment have the Government made of the capacity of our prisons in light of the sentencing proposals, and will they commit to a robust and credible prison building programme that reflects the scale of these proposed reforms?
Finally, it is deeply regrettable that the voices of victims and their families appear to have been overlooked in this review. Can the Minister clarify why the Independent Sentencing Review appears to have taken such limited input from victims’ groups? Will the Government commit to a public consultation to ensure their voices are heard before implementing these recommendations?
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, unlike the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, we welcome the Independent Sentencing Review. We also applaud the appointment of David Gauke to lead it. He was an inspired and independent choice and, despite some reservations with the report, we regard the tenor of the review as brave, principled and, most importantly, evidence based.
We also agree with the Government in their Statement that the previous Administration are largely responsible for the crisis in our prisons—our running out of prison space, the dilapidation of our prison estate, the ineffective approach to rehabilitation, to community sentences and to the Probation Service, and the continuing pervasive recidivism. These are the factors that got us into this mess, and they are largely the previous Government’s fault. The irony is that the previous Government claimed to be dedicated to law and order, just as the noble and learned Lord does now. Well, that is not their legacy.
Given the present position, on present trends and given the prison building plans—they are extensive, but there will inevitably be delays in their implementation—can the Government realistically hope to avoid the kind of stopgap emergency responses that we have found necessary over the last year?
Moving on, the proposals for three-part prison sentences and an earned progression model are persuasive. It is interesting that they originated in Texas—not a state known for soft liberalism. My understanding is that the Texan Government believed that these crime reduction measures would save the taxpayers’ dollar. Have the Government yet estimated the possible cost savings from these proposals overall?
We agree that we desperately need the increased investment in probation and probably even more investment. We regard the commitment to more tagging and community monitoring as clearly sensible. But I would be grateful if the Minister could say how far it is envisaged that tagged offenders will be confined to their homes, and what plans there are for work, education and training for offenders while they are tagged and under supervision.
Capping recalls to prison should prevent the use of recall to respond to relatively minor breaches of conditions with extended and disproportionate prison terms, but how will the individual length of these short recalls be determined? We on these Benches, along with the majority of experts in the field, have been arguing for years for a reduction in the use of short prison sentences, and I can see the argument for leaving some judicial discretion in place in certain circumstances. I see the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, nodding, and I know that he has had experience of short sentencing in his time as a magistrate. But we also agree that victims of domestic abusers and stalkers, and cases of breaches of protection orders, call for particular protection for victims. Nevertheless, may we have an assurance that, in practice, this reform will give the presumption against short sentences that we have long been seeking?
We accept the argument for making community sentences tougher and for intensive supervision courts, but we seek an assurance that the primary purpose of community sentences will continue to be to rehabilitate offenders and enable them to turn their lives around. We have concerns about the pilot of so-called medication to manage problematic sexual arousal, with its rather troubling overtones of chemical castration. Will the Government commit to careful monitoring of the long-term effects of such treatment?
Finally, we share the Government’s commitment to supporting victims, and that shines through this Statement. My noble friend Lady Brinton has been at the forefront of securing more compassionate treatment of victims, and the exclusion zones proposed will be an important new protection. But may we also have a commitment to making the criminal justice system more approachable and less traumatic for victims, particularly in cases of sexual violence? We have had some progress in this area but not nearly enough, hence the loss of so many cases. That would be a helpful complement for the Government’s principled commitment to ensure that women are less often sent to prison, and that women defendants are more compassionately treated by the criminal justice system.
Legal Aid Agency: Cybersecurity Incident
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Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, while the Government Benches may criticise the role of successive Governments in preventing cyberattacks, we must not lose sight of where the true blame lies. The primary responsibility for this deeply troubling incident rests with the malicious individuals who orchestrated it.
This was not merely a digital intrusion; it was a direct assault on some of the most vulnerable members of our society. The data accessed is, in many cases, highly sensitive—it includes medical and other personal records—and the scale and nature of the information compromised over a period, apparently, from 2010, may mark this as one of the more serious data breaches that the Government have suffered in recent years.
Given the gravity of the situation, will the Minister confirm how many individuals have been affected? How are the Government supporting the individuals whose data has been exposed? Is he able to confirm the possible motive and identity of the attackers? Has there, for example, been any form of ransom demand from those who perpetrated this act? We welcome the involvement of the National Crime Agency and the National Cyber Security Centre. Their expertise will be essential. Clearly, it is imperative that those responsible for this breach are held to account and brought to justice.
Significant concerns remain regarding the Government’s handling of this matter. I therefore seek clarity from the Minister on a number of issues. Why were Parliament and the public not informed immediately when the breach was discovered on 23 April? We now understand that the data access may include information dating back to 2010, as I said before, and that over 2 million records may have been compromised. The delay of almost a month before this was made public may have prevented individuals taking timely steps to protect themselves from potential risks. Was there a failure to properly appreciate the seriousness of this breach?
Further, can the Minister update the House on the status of the operational systems that are vital for processing legal aid and payments to legal professionals? If these systems are not fully restored, how can we expect to return to full functionality? It may seem odd to talk about payment of legal aid to lawyers but, of course, those working in the fields of criminal law and family law, which are severely underfunded in many respects, will find the cash flow from the legal fund vital to their continuing activities. It is therefore important that that issue should also be addressed.
We heard in the other place that the Government believe that the incident has been contained. How did the Government arrive at that conclusion, and could the Minister explain to the House what is meant by “contained”? Will he confirm whether the Ministry of Justice has conducted or intends to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment of its wider digital infrastructure? Will similar assessments be made in other departments to safeguard against future vulnerabilities?
I also ask the Minister to ensure that Parliament receives regular and transparent updates as the investigation progresses. It is critical that we and members of the public should be informed clearly and promptly about the consequences of this breach and how it is being addressed. The breach itself represents a significant failure in the protection of our justice system’s digital infrastructure. That is liable to undermine public trust and raises serious concerns about data security and transparency, so I ask the Government to respond with urgency and openness to this issue.
Finally, I will raise a question about the devolved Administrations. For example, Scotland has its own legal aid structure, as, I believe, Northern Ireland does also, but those structures in turn depend on data from the United Kingdom—for example, access to social security data. Have they been impacted by this event? If so, what liaison has there been with the devolved Administrations to try to minimise the difficulties that they may have been caused by this data breach? I am obliged.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, this cyberattack and its result have exposed the lamentable insecurity of the Legal Aid Agency data systems. The ramifications are serious. The personal information that goes into legal aid applications and is held by legal aid providers includes much highly confidential material, which can be used by criminals not just to embarrass but to defraud and, in some cases, harass applicants for legal aid. We are told that the attackers in this case accessed residential addresses, contact details, dates of birth, and employment and financial data—indeed, much of the material that identity checkers seek and criminals could profit from. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, said, it appears to have affected 2 million items of data and legal aid applications going back as far as 2010. In addition, as became clear in the House of Commons, that information would have included sensitive medical information. Indeed, that must be right, because many applicants for legal aid would include such information with their applications. Can the Minister say whether there are plans to establish a dedicated helpline or other support systems, and if so what support systems, for individuals who may seek advice or protection in the light of this attack?
Of course, our first condemnation is for the callous criminality of the attackers, whose actions exposed so many vulnerable individuals to risk. These cyberattacks appear, according to the Minister in the other place, to have come from organised crime. It would be helpful for the Minister, so far as possible and without jeopardising security, to give an account to the House of what steps the Ministry of Justice takes routinely and has taken in the light of this case to protect the data of those seeking to access legal aid.
This question is similar to one asked by the noble and learned Lord: will the MoJ carry out a full independent inquiry into this attack, and what can be done to restore public confidence in its future cybersecurity arrangements? We understand the need for the Legal Aid Agency’s systems to go offline in the short term, as they have, but can the Government say how long the shutdown of online services is likely to last and how far the legal aid system will be impacted through delays and in reduced ability to deal with its workload?
We should not underestimate the degree to which the MoJ’s IT systems are antiquated, inefficient, insecure and, frankly, unfit for purpose. We on these Benches agree that that results from a neglect of the system over years under the preceding Administration. As the Statement rightly points out, the Law Society has been complaining for years about the outdatedness of our legal aid IT systems. The £20 million promised for updating the agency’s systems will help. However, regrettably, I worry that there is some complacency about the sentence in the Statement that reads:
“At this stage, we believe that the breach is contained to the Legal Aid Agency’s systems; there are no indications that other parts of the justice system have been impacted”.
Can the Minister say whether the Government will now institute a survey of current IT systems across the department to consider their security? Will the department also institute a system of regular cybersecurity audits for the future, to ensure robust defence of its digital systems and to prevent recurrence of this breach?
More widely, this event should act as a wake-up call for government as a whole to investigate how far its IT systems can provide the public with a high standard of data security. We hope that the promised cybersecurity and resilience Bill will bring some improvement, but we will not keep citizens’ data secure without investing the necessary resources. The reality is that we are working with old and inefficient systems that, frankly, grow creakier and creakier, just as the ingenuity and criminality of the potential attackers becomes ever more sophisticated, not least as the value of personal data rises and the potential for its abuse becomes ever greater.
The Statement rightly reminds us that every organisation is at risk from this kind of criminal behaviour and government is not exempt. As a vital part of the social compact, it is a responsibility of government to keep the personal data it holds on individuals secure. If government fails to live up to that responsibility, it rightly forfeits public trust and we concerned are to know, from the Government, how they intend to retain that trust.
Criminal Cases Review Commission
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Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
There has actually been an increase in resource for the CCRC over the past five years or so, partly to meet the point on forensics that I made in answer to an earlier question. If there is a disproportionate extra amount of work because of the particular case to which the noble Baroness refers then I will make sure that the authorities within the MoJ are aware of that but, as I say, there has actually been an increase in resource for the CCRC for a number of years now.
Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, any miscarriage of justice has tragic consequences, not only for the wrongly convicted but for the victims of the original crime. It is also liable to undermine public confidence in the justice system. We have seen recent cases where innocent persons have spent tens of years in prison despite repeated applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. There is a concern that the commission has been overly cautious in referring cases back to the Court of Appeal, so what measures will be taken to address that concern? Will they include a question over the composition of the commission, and not just its chairmanship?
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
The short answer to the noble and learned Lord’s question is yes. The review, which, as I said, will take about 18 months, will indeed look at the CCRC’s composition. Of course, the Law Commission is due to produce its report next year, so with the combination of these activities we see some radical reform of the CCRC on the horizon.
Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits
Lord Keen of Elie Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Keen of Elie (Con)
My Lords, the Victims’ Commissioner has warned that freeing offenders after only a 28-day recall will place victims and the wider public at an unnecessary risk of harm. Indeed, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner has said that the scheme is “simply unacceptable”. It amounts, in essence, to a transfer of a problem from prisons to the public. Does the Minister agree that he has got this proposed policy completely wrong and that the proper approach should be to address the matter of licence conditions, which are prescriptive?
If we address licence conditions sensibly, we will find that where violent offenders breach their licence conditions by reason of a further violent offence, they may be returned immediately to prison, but where a non-violent offender breaches a licence condition—for example, by not attending supervision, not going to a specified place of abode, or even by reason of a minor road traffic offence—there should simply be a points system, as there is for a driving licence. They would receive one, two and three warnings about a breach of their licence; they would get three points for one, three points for another, three points for a third; and if they persisted in breach of their licence conditions, then, like a driving licence, it would be revoked and they would return to prison. The vast majority of prisoners allowed out on licence are not violent offenders; the latter should return to complete their sentence. Does the Minister agree that the Government have gone off in the wrong direction with this proposal?
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Timpson) (Lab)
My Lords, our mission is to protect the public, support victims and reduce crime. The worst thing that could happen for victims is for us entirely to run out of space in our prisons. That is forecast to happen in November, if we do not act now. The change announced last week to recall will create approximately a further 1,400 prison places and give us the time to carry out sentencing reform which, alongside prison building, will bring an end to the prison capacity crisis.
The reasons for that are clear. We have had 11 Justice Secretaries in 14 years. The previous Government built a net 500 prison places; we have 2,400 open already. Probation is a fantastic service that is really struggling. We recruited 1,000 extra probation officers last year and 1,300 this year. However, that is not all; we also have a big problem with drugs in our prisons. However, I can assure the House that offenders who pose the most risk and are actively managed by multiple agencies will be excluded from this measure, as well as those who commit serious further offences. We will publish details of that SI shortly, when we bring the measure before the House.