Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Monday 30th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I begin by assuring the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that Peper Harow, in the name of Childhood First, is alive and well. Indeed, my noble and learned friends Lord Woolf and Lady Butler-Sloss and I have the honour and pleasure of being patrons of the organisation.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

I apologise to the noble Lord. I remember it being burnt down and have not kept up with developments since.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

The house itself was burnt down, but the organisation is functioning in smaller houses, which is much more effective than having one large house.

I propose to speak only about Part 2 of what was already a vast Bill before other clauses were added during its passage through the other place. That is not to say that I do not have concerns about Clauses 1 to 5, which will add significantly to the work of the already overstretched Parole Board, about Clause 6, which appears to be a badly rushed measure on which the Minister in the other place was unable to provide information, either about its projected cost or its alleged benefits, or about Clauses 7 and 8, about which there must be doubt because the impact assessment seems to ignore the inevitable number of breaches of supervision by short-term prisoners, discussed many times during the passage of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill. I leave Part 4 to my noble and learned friends with great confidence, enhanced by their contributions to today’s debate.

My concerns about Part 2 began with the Government’s published response to the consultation on Transforming Youth Custody, in which I was disturbed both by the lack of detail about the proposed secure college and the phrase in the final paragraph of the ministerial foreword, signed by the Secretary of State and the Deputy Prime Minister,

“we are committed to delivering at pace”.

That suggests that this is a pet project of the Secretary of State, which he is determined to push through as quickly as possible whatever anyone says. My concerns were further fuelled by three things that the Secretary of State said at Third Reading of the Bill in the other place. First, he said:

“We are not a Government who legislate without taking into account the views of Parliament”.

That claims sounds a little hollow when I recall the deliberate denial of parliamentary scrutiny of the reordering of probation. Secondly, he said that,

“the rules that underpin the secure college provisions will be subject to public consultation. They were published during the passage of the Bill to benefit from the wealth of expertise within the youth justice sector”.

Bearing in mind their importance, as mentioned by the Minister, it is essential that this House sees and scrutinises those rules. I therefore ask the Minister why they have not been available to the House before we start work on the Bill. Thirdly, he said:

“I urge the Opposition to think again before they play politics with the future of young people”. [Official Report, Commons, 17/6/14; cols. 1070-71.]

Like many other noble Lords, I welcome the Government’s stated ambition of creating secure educational establishments where core learning skills, vocational training and life skills will be the central pillars of a regime focused on educating and rehabilitating young offenders. I also welcome the acceptance of the measures introduced by the Children and Families Act for the treatment of those with special educational needs. As an independent Cross-Bencher, my opposition to this proposal is nothing to do with party politics, but entirely based on my practical experience as Chief Inspector of Prisons, when I inspected every young offender institution, and many secure training centres and secure children’s homes, in England and Wales. I found good establishments and bad establishments. What united the good ones was that their governors were trying desperately to achieve what the Government state to be their ambition, while regretting that their attempts were hampered by a lack of resources, including time—the average length of sentence being a bare 78 days. My inspection experiences and my subsequent involvement with the youth justice system lead me totally to disbelieve the maths of the Government’s claims and to ask the Minister: first, whether there are any maths; secondly, on what they are based; and thirdly, why they have not been made available for us to scrutinise.

Having seen many wise, dedicated and experienced governors try and fail to squeeze more out of their pint pots, I have to admit that what I dislike most about this proposal is the presumption, based on no evidence, that private sector companies working for profit can come in and do what experienced professionals have failed to achieve, in larger establishments, with larger catchment areas and at less cost. Such a presumption suggests that no one has worked out the cost of essential custodial educational staff/offender ratios, because, if they had, they would have realised that the cost of ensuring there are sufficient skilled custodial staff is bound to have an impact on the provision of purposeful activity and vice versa. The risks that private sector companies take with staff numbers in adult prisons are simply not acceptable when they are responsible for safeguarding this vulnerable age group.

The proposal also confirms that pace has encouraged the rejection of the unanimous advice from experts that small establishments are far better and safer if anything is to be achieved with this particular group, and for the need to preserve the principles of maintaining closeness to home, development of good family contact and links to the local authorities of children in care. If pace means commissioning £85 million of limited funding on an unsubstantiated proposal before it has been scrutinised and approved by Parliament, without knowing whether it is possible to implement what is proposed, it is better described as playing with the future of young people.

The Minister said that the commission to build would not be confirmed unless and until the Bill receives Royal Assent. I submit that it is bordering on contempt of Parliament for the Government to announce the award of the £85 million pathfinder contract to Wates to build what they describe as a purpose-built 320-place secure college on a site at Glen Parva in the East Midlands before the Bill has completed its passage through Parliament and without any idea about the requirements of the educational contract whose delivery the build is meant to facilitate. Far from it being designed to satisfy secure college aspirations, Wates has been commissioned to build what was agreed for a young offender institution on the same site in 2009 but subsequently not built. The Minister’s mention of Titan prisons reminded me that it was Wates that told me of Jack Straw’s infamous direction that they were required “to hold as many people as possible as cheaply as possible”. I hope that the same has not been directed by the Secretary of State in connection with the proposed secure college.

Other noble Lords have mentioned paragraph 10 of Schedule 6, which allows staff to “use reasonable force” to ensure “good order and discipline”. I fail to see why this paragraph is necessary, because an independent review of restraint in juvenile secure settings chaired by an eminent adolescent psychiatrist produced admirably clear minimum rules that were accepted and published by the previous Secretary of State. Presumably they are not tough enough for Mr Grayling. I could go on but I will reserve my fire for Committee.

Before that I would like to make an appeal to the Secretary of State through the Minister. Bearing in mind that, thanks to the welcome reduction in numbers, largely achieved by the efforts of the Youth Justice Board, the nature of the child prisoner population has changed from its far wider representation into being a toxic mix of the most violent, troubled and damaged. That change gives him a perfectly valid reason for dropping his proposal and putting it into the aspirational basket. All would not be lost because he could then task the newly appointed director of young offenders, if paragraph 20 of the Government’s response to the consultation is to be believed, to conduct a deliberate and costed examination of what improvement and change was possible with the available resources, including quantifiable evidence to support his claim that secure colleges will reduce reoffending rates and show how such a reduction will be achieved in practice. Meanwhile, in the absence of proof, it would be irresponsible of the Government to ask this House to rubber stamp this proposal and responsible of them to prove that I am wrong by producing the evidence that justifies the pace with which they are pursuing their proposal with unsubstantiated ambition.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I support these amendments but have one cautionary tale for the Government. Before that, I echo the words of my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf towards the end of his speech, when he said that restorative justice is not for everyone. This I remember being made very clear to me some 15 years ago when I was introduced to restorative justice by Sir Charles Pollard, then the chief constable of Thames Valley Police, to whom all those interested in restorative justice owe a huge debt of gratitude for the determination with which he has followed it.

Not long ago, he asked me whether I would like to attend a restorative justice conference at HMP Pentonville, which was extremely ably chaired by a young policeman. The case involved three young women whose flat had been burgled by a young and chaotic man to fuel his heroin habit. During the early part of the conference it was discovered that this young man had been born of a teenage mother and had three young children himself by teenage mothers. He could not read and had an alcohol problem. The girls explained why they felt so strongly about their flat being burgled and everyone was in tears. The agreement was that the young man should be put through a drug treatment course, taught to read and put on an Alcoholics Anonymous course. As he left, and there was a spirit of hope in the room, one of the young women said to him, “Furthermore, will you write to us every month to tell us how you’re getting on?”, which I thought was an extremely good addition. They left in a spirit of hope and I then said to the governor of Pentonville, who was there, “How much of that can you deliver?”. He said, “None”. I said, “How dare you let those people go? Unless you can support what is being recommended, all the hope engendered by this process is dead”.

Therefore, if, as I hope, the Government accept these amendments, I hope they will add the rider that those who are responsible for staging the conferences and seeing that they happen must make certain that what is agreed actually happens, so that the whole process is not undermined.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, bearing in mind the cautionary tale of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, I nevertheless, like him, strongly support these amendments. First, these amendments seem to suggest practical effectiveness. Most of the crimes that we are concerned with in this general purview are committed by immature young men. The evidence for restorative justice is that it gives them a sharp wake-up call and makes a dramatic contribution to their growing-up process, which is a very good reason to use restorative justice techniques.

Secondly, restorative justice of the type that has been discussed is cost-effective. From my experience of practice, I can imagine many marginal custody situations of a kind that come before magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court every day of the week—common burglary, criminal damage, lower-level assaults and other offences at a similar level—in which effective restorative justice conferences might mean the difference between custody and a community penalty, and result in a substantial saving of money to the state.

Thirdly, I strongly support the view of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, that this should be put into statutory form. I have a feeling that we might hear that it is not necessary to do so because it is, after all, open to judges and magistrates to adjourn cases for good reasons in any event. However, placing this in statutory form will have a number of effects. Although judges try very hard not to make law whenever possible, they try even harder to respond to the law that has been given to them. If they see this kind of provision in statutory form, it will have certain—and I mean certain—repercussions. One is that the training of magistrates, from which the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, gave us some graphic illustrations earlier, will undoubtedly place greater focus on restorative justice.

Those of us who from time to time attend what used to be called the Judicial Studies Board, which is now called the Judicial College, know that immediately the Judicial College, in its search for new and interesting courses, introduces new modules on restorative justice because it is included in statute, there will not be a judge in England and Wales—magistrate or judge at every level—who does not begin to focus on the potential of restorative justice conferences and opportunities. It seems to me that the key to this measure in many ways is putting it into statutory form, as that would highlight its potential throughout the judiciary. I hope that we will hear my noble friend the Minister responding in a way that not only is positive about restorative justice—we know that he will be positive—but that recognises the advantages of putting it into the statutory form suggested.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Carlile of Berriew

Tuesday 20th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

My Lords, speaking as a liberal from the Liberal Democrat Benches, it is with regret that I say that I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. I support it with regret because I had hoped that we would not be in this position by the time we started Committee. Noble Lords will recall the Second Reading debate at which unfortunately I was not able to be present because I was out of the country. Since that debate there has been private and public negotiation, lobbying, a great deal of journalism and an expectation that we would move from the position that was expressed from the government Front Bench at Second Reading. However, I detect absolutely no hint that any concessions will be made. Indeed, I detect an air of irritated intransigence coming from the Ministry of Justice in relation to the Bill.

I would not feel driven to vote for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and to take the same position as my noble friend Lord Faulks from the Conservative Benches on the coalition side, if I felt that there was some movement in the direction of the general principle set out in the amendment. Furthermore, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, explained, this is not an expression of a new principle, nor is it an expression of a principle that is to be applied outside the context of this very Bill. It seeks merely to set out a principle that I believe every person in this House should embrace within the Bill’s in effect financial constraints, which are expressed in the amendment.

I, as a liberal and a Member of the Liberal Democrats, have understandably—like, I am sure, my noble friend Lord Faulks—been encouraged not to cause difficulties, not to intervene too much and not to obstruct the Government in getting their Bill through; in other words, I have been encouraged to support this coalition Government, which I would very much like to do. However, I have detected an assumption that Liberal Democrat Peers are to support the Government’s approach to this Bill, and I say to my noble friend Lord McNally that it is not sufficient to make us wait to find out later what concessions are to be made on the many representations that have been made.

I agree wholeheartedly with the Government that a great deal of legal aid money is being wasted at present. I believe that fervently, and I could identify, and indeed have identified when asked, areas in the legal aid system where savings could be made. However, arguments have been made for concessions in areas where access to legal services is required as the only way, in effect, to meet the needs of people whose rights have been adversely affected. If my noble friend wishes us not to support this amendment, I invite him to tell us when he replies to this debate the areas in which concessions are to be made and the general nature of those concessions, not the particulars. In other words, I am asking my noble friend not merely to assume our support from these Benches but to earn our support from these Benches. Without that, I am afraid that I shall remain dissatisfied and will feel free to intervene during these debates on the merits of these amendments.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I briefly support the amendment by echoing the words that have already been quoted—those of the Lord Chancellor, who said:

“access to justice is a hallmark of a civilised society”,—[Official Report, Commons, 15/11/10; col. 659.]

and those of my noble friend Lord Pannick, who has said repeatedly that access to justice is a vital constitutional principle.

At Second Reading, I regretted that the word “rehabilitation” had been replaced by the word “punishment” in the title of this Bill, and I fear that the proposed denial of legal aid to some for whom its provision is a vital part of their rehabilitation suggests that there are some in government who are allowing an uncivilised concentration on punishment to supersede their duty to protect the public. I know that this is a hybrid Bill and that Part 3 will concentrate on rehabilitation, but I wish I felt the same of Part 1.