Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Roborough Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bach, for his amendment, which seeks to introduce a consistent victim identifier for the collection and sharing of code compliance information.

The Government agree that data is a vital tool to help better understand victims’ experiences of the criminal justice system and whether and how they are receiving the relevant entitlements under the victims’ code. That is precisely why the Bill also introduces duties on criminal justice agencies to collect, share and jointly review code compliance information.

In addition, to respond to the questions and comments of many noble Lords, our existing Better Outcomes through Linked Data, or BOLD, programme is already exploring linking system data about victims’ interactions to improve our understanding of victims’ experiences. The BOLD programme is funded by HM Treasury’s shared outcomes fund from 2021 to 2024; it is a long-term project conducted by the Ministry of Justice to improve our understanding of victims’ experiences. BOLD has just received an extra year’s funding to continue exploring data and data linking until March 2025. It has been created to demonstrate how people with complex needs can be better supported by linking and improving the government data held on them in a safe and secure way.

The Ministry of Justice is leading on a victims’ pilot that seeks to share and link data to help improve outcomes for victims. We hope that it will unlock insights into supporting victims of crime, such as understanding their end-to-end journeys and experiences, the effectiveness of victim services and the factors behind victim attrition rates at different stages of the criminal justice system. This is a proof-of-concept research project, and findings on the BOLD victims’ pilot will be published in 2024 and 2025. The pilot has initially focused on exploring what data is available in both criminal justice system agencies and victim services, particularly at a local level through partnership with Synergy Essex, a partnership of rape and sexual abuse centres in Essex.

The pilot work is a necessary precursor to data linking, and this essential precursor work should be completed first. As BOLD shares findings and as the duties in the Bill begin to be operationalised by bodies, the emergent picture will inform future innovation on how data can be used to improve the victim experience. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, I say that this demonstrates the Government acknowledging and addressing the issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, Amendment 93 simply but crucially calls on the Secretary of State to

“issue guidance for relevant bodies”,

such as the police and police and crime commissioners,

“in respect of data collection to ensure that sex registered at birth is recorded for both victims and perpetrators”.

Just to note, the heading in the amendment is rather misleading when it says:

“Collection of data on victims of crime”.


Actually, the main confusion lies with the perpetrators, which obviously has an impact on the victims.

For the policies and proposals in the Bill to be effective, which we all want, many of them will rely on evidence. That means criminological research and official crime data, such as recorded crime and victim surveys, which will enable stakeholders, policymakers and researchers to analyse patterns in both victimisation and offending, and will allow interventions and services to be developed and resources to be targeted effectively.

As I pointed out in Committee, criminal justice data needs to be accurate, credible and consistent. However, data on a person’s sex is now not accurate, credible or consistent because agencies in the criminal justice system do not distinguish between sex, gender identity or self-declared sex. I will not repeat the detailed evidence collected by freedom of information requests that I cited in Committee, but police forces increasingly differ from area to area, recording crime statistics variously, some by biological sex but others by some other concept based on ever-fluid and subjective ideas about gender identity, which is often recorded as if it were sex.

The guidance I ask for in this amendment would clarify that gender should not be used as a synonym for sex, as it leads to confusion and conflation. In turn, this conflation of sex and gender compromises official statistics in terms of trustworthiness, quality, and value for policy and for public understanding. The guidance should untangle the vast array of muddled recording practices around government records, such as passports, driving licences, NHS numbers, et cetera, all of which can be changed, but no amount of documentation changing affects the need for a consistently applied legal identity that is fixed and unchanging from birth to death, registered with the state and necessary for the state to fulfil its responsibilities to citizens—no more so than in criminal justice. That is why data based on sex registered at birth is so important, as it is a fundamental demographic variable, reflecting the reality of sex-based differences between men and women.

Those compiling the guidance might look at other identifiers. For example, in the debate on my Amendment 18 on the previous day on Report, I discussed the problems of identity confusion in relation to safeguarding checks. Keep Prisons Single Sex has made an interesting recommendation relating to the mandatory use of national insurance numbers for DBS checks in relation to identity changes. National insurance numbers remain constant throughout an individual’s life. They are unique to each individual. They do not change and they are unchangeable—even, for example, when an individual obtains legal recognition of acquired gender. So even if someone is issued a GRC, the individual’s new details are listed against their existing national insurance number, which is unchanged and retained until 50 years after the individual’s death. It seems that the state does understand the importance of accurately recording and knowing who a citizen is, and their natal sex, when it comes to collecting taxes. Such seriousness is necessary in other policy areas.

We can see the dangers of confusion if we look at what the Cass review has to say about data in relation to NHS numbers; I am grateful to Sex Matters for its briefing on this issue. NHS numbers are the unique national patient identifier in the UK’s health and social care system, and are vital for clinical safety, record management and, of course, clinical research. However, it has been policy for some time that GP surgeries can change a patient’s recorded sex on their medical records at any time, without requiring diagnosis or any form of gender reassignment treatment, and request a new NHS number. Public Health England tells GPs that medical information on the person’s record must be gender neutralised and transferred to a newly created medical record.

The Cass review found that many children seen by GIDS had changed NHS numbers before they had been seen by specialists, and some were “living in stealth”—that is attending school in the opposite sex. The Cass review draws attention to the dangers this poses, which is helpfully analogous to the problems I am raising and that we face in the lack of clarity on crime data. Dr Cass raises

“concerns about children and young people’s NHS numbers being changed inconsistently, as there is no specific guidance for GPs”.

The review highlighted changing NHS numbers putting children and young people “at risk”—for example,

“young people attending hospital after self-harm not being identifiable as … on a child protection order”,

And, from a research perspective, creating difficulties in identifying

“long-term outcomes for a patient population for whom the evidence base is weak”.

In criminal justice, inconsistent data collection, due to the conflation between sex and gender, can similarly compromise safeguarding and especially distort research—as a consequence, potentially distorting the way the public access facts in relation to crime. Take the differing offending patterns between males and females. Males commit the large majority of offences per se, and some offence categories are only or very rarely committed by females, such as sexual offences or violent crime in particular. That means that even if only a small number of natal males who identify as females are recorded as women, this skews the female sex-offending statistics in a misleading way.

This amendment proposes that the Government use guidance to bring clarity to the situation. This is of democratic importance and seems an important part of the Bill, which means more accountability to and about victims and accountability to the public about the victims and perpetrators of crime. The truth is that the practices of criminal justice agencies recording self-declared sex as actual sex were introduced by public authorities without proper democratic debate, behind the backs of the public, depriving the public of clarity about what is measured in crime data. That then seeps over into misleading the public about precisely who commits crime when it arrives in the public sphere, via the media, for example.

I warmly welcome the manifesto for police and crime commissioners published by campaign groups Fair Cop and Keep Prisons Single Sex, and one section seems especially pertinent to finish with. It says that police and crime commissioners’

“Press releases and communication with the public must be written in accurate and accessible language. Suspects, and other persons of interest, must be described in a way that the public can clearly and quickly understand. Sex registered at birth is always information that must be shared with the public”


and not concealed. Beyond this official crime agency language and media reporting, police-collected data must not be allowed to erase measurable facts and objective reality.

I hope that this amendment will receive support across the House as a modest contribution to clearing up these confusions. I am hoping the Overton window has shifted of late, by the way. How welcome it was to hear Labour shadow Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood acknowledge that she agrees with JK Rowling that

“biological sex is real and is immutable”.

As well, I welcome her comments on the dangers of justice by hashtag and free speech. This amendment simply seeks to ensure that criminal justice data also recognises the immutable nature of sex. I hope the Labour Party will back me in relation to this. I am grateful as well to the Government and the Minister, who has organised for officials to discuss these issues with Kate Coleman from KPSS before Third Reading. It is in everyone’s interest that crime data is accurate, credible and consistent. At present, it is not. I beg to move.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for her Amendment 93, which requires guidance to be issued on data collection of sex registered at birth for victims and perpetrators of crime. I recognise the noble Baroness’s commitment to this topic, and I believe the House will return to the subject tomorrow. Many of the points I will make were made last week while discussing the noble Baroness’s other amendment that sought to require data to be collected. I therefore apologise for any repetition.

The Government recognise that accurate data and statistics on biological sex are important to good research and effective policy. For this reason, the Home Office issued guidance in April 2021 in the annual data requirement that sex should be recorded in its legal sense, what is on either an individual’s birth certificate or their gender recognition certificate. Gender identity should also be recorded separately if that differs from that. For consistency, this is based on classifications used in the 2021 census for England and Wales.

Since implementing this guidance, the Government have commissioned an independent review of the recording of sex by public bodies, which will report at the end of August 2024. The Home Office will consider this new guidance once it is available in deciding whether changes are needed to the recording of the sex of victims and perpetrators dealt with by the police.

However, we recognise that there are concerns in this area, and the department has committed to meet groups such as Keep Prisons Single Sex to hear their concerns. Legislation is not required for guidance to be issued on this area. We will continue to work with stakeholders and await the outcome of the review for whether further guidance is needed in this area. I respectfully ask that the noble Baroness withdraws her amendment.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, when I was at school, there used to be a tactic called sending people to Coventry, in which you were ignored as a sign of contempt. I am disappointed a second time that the Opposition Benches do not think it worth engaging on the issue, regardless of whether they want to engage with the individual who is putting forward the issue. I am very glad to hear the Minister’s words that the Government are taking this seriously. I genuinely hope that Opposition parties will take this seriously as well, because there is a problem. We heard the noble Lord, Lord Bach, talk earlier about the importance of accurate and consistent data and simplifying data. He made a good point, and I backed him up on it. I was rather hoping that this side of the House—the Labour Benches—might see that through and at least make some positive comments in relation to my amendment.

I will, of course, withdraw the amendment, but I do not withdraw the importance of the issue. I hope that the detail that will be brought by somebody who has got a detailed knowledge of this—Kate Coleman—to the meeting will help any guidance that might emerge in August and also ensure that we no longer carry on showing the public confused data and hoping that they can work their way through it. It is a democratic question, and I hope that, in future, democrats will take it more seriously than perhaps we have seen tonight. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Parents: Separation

Lord Roborough Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Bellamy) (Con)]

My Lords, few subjects can be more important than the one we are discussing this evening, and I rather doubt my ability to do justice to everything that has been said in the 12 minutes allotted to me. I thank my noble friend Lord Farmer for his opening remarks and for securing this debate, and all noble Lords who have spoken. I think we are all agreed that family separation can be extremely stressful and very damaging to the children, particularly if there is a prolonged period of lack of contact, as my noble friend Lady Meyer pointed out. In those circumstances, the Government are actively supporting, and improving support, for parents considering separation, and are adopting a number of measures to promote early resolutions.

The best approach is probably if I update the House on what we are actually doing, following our response published on 26 January to our earlier consultation on early resolution of family disputes. What the Ministry of Justice is doing, of course, is in addition to other work across government, including the rollout of family hubs. Again, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Farmer in this respect. Family hubs are led by the Department for Education. There is also funding from the Department for Work and Pensions for local authorities to deliver the Reducing Parental Conflict programme.

The House will have heard in the recent Budget that the Ministry of Justice has been awarded a further investment of £55 million, specifically for the family courts. That comes, basically, in three buckets—if I may say so. The first is one that a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, have mentioned. I pay tribute to her, not only for her distinguished past as a former chair of Cafcass and in other respects, but for the post-legislative scrutiny carried out in relation to the 2014 Act, from which we have all greatly profited. However, the three buckets are, first, greatly improved, facilitated, targeted online guidance and information, so parents know where to go and can find out, at a very early stage, all the sources of support out there. There are quite a lot of sources of support, but no one can find them or knows about them—they are not joined up. The first part of the funding will be for a new online resource that will serve as a trusted and accessible source of authoritative information, relevant to the needs of the family and the needs of the parents, providing options—which will include mediation, but not only that because there are other forms of dispute resolution away from court—with the support of guidance and expert organisations in the third sector.

To deal specifically with one of the points raised by my noble friend Lord Farmer, I say that I am quite sure that links between this programme and the family hubs will be an important aspect of it—family hubs among other means of support. Indeed, if the present process for online divorce does not refer people across to the appropriate support facilities, then it should. That is another very important area, and I am very grateful to noble Lords for drawing our attention to it. Specifically, just as we have been discussing in another context a child-friendly version of the victims’ code, I would have thought that a child-friendly part of this newly available information was a specific emphasis on how we keep children informed, not only about what is happening in their case, but the general availability of support for them. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby suggested, I am sure that would also be important.

I am hoping that this will be a major step forward in how we intervene as early as we can in family disputes, combining it, as I say, with the DWP’s Reducing Parental Conflict programme, the family hubs and other programmes that a number of local authorities are already running to support separating couples—or, indeed, couples who have not yet separated but who are going through a difficult patch, which is to go back to an even earlier stage.

We are championing the family hubs that the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, has been such a keen advocate of. There is around £300 million to develop family hubs in 75 upper-tier local authorities. There are now around 400 family hubs altogether, and there is further support for opening further family hubs in another 13 local authorities. That is an ongoing programme, and I hope that it will come to full fruition, in collaboration with the kinds of things that I am trying to explain from the point of view of the Ministry of Justice.

In addition, the second bucket of our new funding is indeed to tackle this point about early legal advice, which is so important and was raised by the post-legislative scrutiny committee and a number of others. What we are doing is piloting; government being what it is, you have to pilot these things these days—you cannot go straight towards just doing it. It is important to learn from the pilot how to do things. I shall come back to that point in the pathfinder context.

The purpose at the moment is to expand, with the additional money that we now have, a pilot for early family legal advice, probably initially in six areas. As noble Lords probably remember, we have 43 areas across the country that have a designated family judge in charge. We can now go to six areas initially; the details are being worked out, but I am hoping that this will be up and running by the autumn. By September we should have something in place. It will be very important, among other things, to promote it and make sure that people know that it is there and that they can access it easily. We had a pilot in the ministry a couple of years ago with support in family housing, which did not work because nobody knew that it was there so nobody used it. It was in Middlesbrough, and possibly Manchester, but it was not successful, so I am very conscious that we have to sell this as well as establish it, and those details are being worked through at the moment.

That is early legal advice. Then there is the diversion when people have had early legal advice, which may lead to more referrals to mediation, or other forms of court dispute resolution. We are continuing to support the voucher scheme for mediation; that demand has been strong, with 27,000 families so far, and has cost £23 million or so. By March 2025, we think that 44,000 families will have used the scheme, so that will continue to support mediation—and, at the same time, we are working closely with the Family Procedure Rule Committee to make the mediation information and assessment meeting, which has been mentioned, more effective. The new rules come into force on 29 April, next Monday. I hope that that will prevent MIAM from being, as it had become in some areas, a tick-box exercise.

Ah, the lights have gone out; I must have said something very controversial. I still have enough light to carry on.

That provision is proceeding, as are pathfinder courts. We of course support Cafcass, but those courts focus on the voice of the child. We have an early child impact report, we have support from domestic abuse agencies, we have a case progression officer and we have other things. It has been notably successful in reducing strife and the Government’s intention now is no longer a pilot, it is a project, and we are going to roll it out across the country. We have done Dorset and north Wales, we are doing Birmingham and Cardiff, but I am pressing very hard for a plan so that we change it across the whole country over the next year or so. My Whip is telling me to sit down, although I am trying enthusiastically to carry on. I will write to those noble Lords whose questions I have not been able to answer in the very limited time I have.

The President of the Family Division describes the pathfinder as the most important change in private family law that we have had for a generation, and that is going to be a very good thing and the right note to end on.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, we will now adjourn again to wait for a message on the Rwanda Bill. We will resume at a time to be shown on the Annunciator.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Roborough Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 16th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 17 and 18. It is interesting listening to the discussion that we have had this evening, because many people that I speak to, particularly women, assume that the consultation on the victims’ code or discussions on enhancing victims’ rights will mean better support for female victims, particularly in relation to service provision. All that Amendment 17 seeks to do is to clarify what I am sure is the intention of the Bill, which is to be supportive of, for example, single-sex provision for women and the appropriate service provision that can be given, and to ensure that we know what we are talking about.

It might appear that getting a commitment that police and crime commissioners, integrated care boards and local authorities will all work together to commission support services for, for example, victims of domestic abuse or sexual abuse, ensuring that they can access the services that they need, and lots of discussion about services by women and for women, would be clear enough. However, as I explained in Committee and in a much-appreciated and helpful meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, and officials— I back up what others have said about how it was refreshing to have a Minister, or someone from the team, who is prepared to talk to us quite openly—having heard from the charity Sex Matters, all is not as it seems. I fear that, if the Government do not address this by sorting out the language and clarifying matters, their aspiration to enhance female victims’ rights will suffer because of confusion over the law and over the definition of sex.

“By women and for women” might seem a straightforward proposition until we ask, “What is a woman?” In 2024, that has become a contentious question. Over recent years, we have lost clarity over what we mean by the categories “men” and “women”, and that can undermine women’s services. This has happened due to the insistence from some quarters—often very powerful quarters—that women’s services must be trans inclusive by including men who identify as women in what should be women-only provision.

For example, the terms of references for Avon and Somerset Police women’s independent advisory group—to use just one example—state: “In this group we use ‘women’ as a term that is inclusive of the legally protected characteristic of female sex and gender identity as well as gender expression and those who are perceived and treated as women and those who identify as women”. This is such an expansive, non-material, confusing definition of women.

The amendment is simply trying to ensure that, where the victims’ code talks about services for women or makes any assumption that there will be services for women victims, we use the clear category of “sex as registered at birth”, rather than that ever-expansive term in which women—as in biological natal women—are merely a subcategory of this newly expanded definition of women.

Sometimes we are told that, unless trans women are treated as women, it would be in breach of Schedule 3 to the Equality Act. The Government need to clarify the law in this regard because, in fact and in law, a service can be female-only as a matter of policy. Apart from anything else, the Equality Act requires public authorities to have due regard to meeting the specific needs of women.

Another misunderstood factor is that even when a person has acquired a different gender under the Gender Recognition Act, that does not affect the status of the person as a man or a woman in relation to the Equality Act. Indeed, it would be helpful if the Government could give clear guidance to people applying for GRCs that this change in documentation does not give them the right to access services or spaces set aside for the opposite sex. Such clear guidance would also be helpful for service providers and commissioners, and in relation to how people read the victims’ code.

I want to illustrate the negative impact of these kinds of confusions on women victims seeking help by citing a worrying but brilliant piece of investigative journalism. Children of Transitioners has collated evidence that there is no women-only service provision in Bristol. This mirrors exactly the situation in Brighton that I described in some detail in Committee. I have detailed examples from Bristol, but I appreciate that the House will not bear with me so I will not go through them. Needless to say, if you are a woman who has been raped or sexually assaulted or suffers domestic abuse and reports it to police officers in Bristol, they will suggest to these distraught women—these victims—where they can get further support. They may well be sent to “by women and for women” provision, which those police officers feel are safe spaces. It is just that when you actually look at the provision in Bristol, you will find consistently that women-only services are also accessible to and welcome trans women. Trans women are men who identify as women and should be provided with services as appropriate, but not in women-only services. So this provision is not actually women only; it is mixed sex.

I was struck by the fact that, when the integrated care board of Bristol lists a range of “by women and for women” organisations, an example it gives is Womankind. Noble Lords would think that, with a title like that, the clue would be in the name. Womankind calls itself a service for women and girls. Online, it displays lovely suffragette colours. What is not to like? Actually, in correspondence with Womankind, another story emerges. Womankind says that it is for women and for

“those who identify as such in a significant way, including those who experience discrimination as … for instance, trans women … and non-binary”.

Womankind confirmed, after the investigation was done, that there is not one abuse support service in Bristol for natal women victims alone. Its advice for those unhappy with the situation was to “try London”, which seems extraordinary.

I use these examples because I know from replies from the Dispatch Box and at the meeting that there is very much a feeling that this is not a problem that the Government have detected when meeting service providers and commissioners. It is important to dig beneath the language of saying, “There is provision available; what’s the problem?”. It depends on who you ask. Bristol Women’s Voice—an organisation that claims to represent women’s voices to the council and to the police—does not see a problem, so in that sense if the Government were talking to that organisation they would think that there is no problem. But Bristol Women’s Voice does not think there is a problem because it also has a policy of trans-plus inclusion in relation to its definition of what a woman is.

It would also be naive not to look at the evidence about layers of public bodies and local authorities being lobbied and influenced by ideologically driven NGOs such as Stonewall, which has been much in the news of late. Ministers also tell us that it is up to service providers to choose the most appropriate services. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Roborough, heard from the evidence from Helen Joyce and Maya Forstater in the Sex Matters report, Women’s Services: a Sector Silenced, that many of those who provide women-only services often self-censor to placate funders and to avoid being investigated, ostracised, disciplined or maligned as bigots, all of which are career-threatening.

In case you think this is all hyperbole and question what I am talking about, there is a very similar pattern here to those whistleblowing medics at the Tavistock Clinic whose stories of malpractice have now so vividly been exposed in the Cass review as true. They were maligned for raising them. It is to the credit of Victoria Atkins that her excellent Statement in the other place drew this out. Credit is also due to Wes Streeting from the Opposition, who also accepted that the Cass review was an important step forward. Kemi Badenoch made the point:

“Had those who warned that gender services in the NHS had been hijacked by ideologues been listened to instead of gagged, children would not have been harmed and the Cass review would not have been required”.


So, although I am making a fuss, I want to say to the Government that maybe they should listen to the warnings from whistleblowers in the women’s services sector who are explaining that we are denying women victims single-sex provision, causing great harm and trauma for vulnerable women who might self-exclude and might well not even seek support if services to which they are referred may include men identifying as women.

I will say something very quickly about Amendment 18, because I discussed it fully in Committee. This is an attempt to use the victims’ code to tackle a loophole whereby, if incarcerated or registered sex offenders change their gender, even just by a self-declaration, they are afforded enhanced privacy protection that allows their new identity to disappear from view in terms of criminal justice and normal safeguarding procedures and before criminal justice bodies. Through the sensitivity applications route, a sex offender who changes their gender identity can conceal their past identity and sex for the purpose of, for example, disclosure and barring services—DBS—checking processes. This means that a sex offender’s past name and identity are not displayed on any DBS certificates; they can have their self-declared gender identity instead.

In Committee, I explained that the reason I knew about this loophole was due to the story of Clive Bundy. He was imprisoned for 15 years in 2016 for sexually abusing his own daughter, Ceri-Lee Galvin, throughout her childhood, but was released half way through his sentence. Clive Bundy changed his gender before his early release and became a self-identifying woman, named Claire Fox. This is what drew my attention to this particular case.

This amendment tackles the anomaly that, due to Bundy’s enhanced privacy rights in relation to his gender change, Ceri-Lee, his victim and his daughter, had no right to know that he had been released as a woman called Claire. After his release, Clive Bundy, also known as Claire Fox, went to live in the same town as his daughter and her daughter. As Claire Fox, he could apply for jobs or to be a volunteer locally and work with children, including potentially his own granddaughter and no one would know. Any DBS check would not show up red flags and the family would not be forewarned. Amendment 18 wants the Government to look at whether they can do something about this loophole.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for tabling Amendment 17, which seeks to ensure that victims are able to access support from someone of the same sex, as registered at birth, and that women-only support service provision is confined to those registered as women at birth. I also want to thank the noble Baroness and Maya Forstater and Helen Joyce from Sex Matters for their time in discussing these matters with me yesterday, ahead of this debate.

From the outset, let me be clear that this Government recognise the importance of a victim feeling confident that they can ask for particular things, such as someone of a particular sex to make them feel comfortable and help them best engage with support. We also recognise that single-sex services can and should be provided in some circumstances. That is why we have written to providers who receive funding from our rape and sexual abuse support fund to make clear our expectation that they should take reasonable steps to provide spaces which exclude service users who are not biologically female or male, where that has been requested by a victim and where it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, in line with the Equality Act 2010.

Judicial Pensions (Remediable Service etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Lord Roborough Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roborough]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 13 November 2023 be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 10 January.

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy, I beg to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.

Motion agreed.

Arbitration Bill [HL]

Lord Roborough Excerpts

Second reading committee
Tuesday 19th December 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Lords, I have never spoken in the Moses Room in the two years since my return to the House of Lords and I am not familiar with the procedure, so if I go wrong, I hope that our Deputy Chairman or someone else will put me right.

I am in a rather poignant position, in that I am the sole surviving parliamentarian who took part in the 1979 Bill and the 1996 Bill. That is not to say that I am the only creature still alive who was involved in that Bill, because Robert Ayling was the assistant solicitor in the Department of Trade—the 1979 Bill was taken through partly by the Lord Chancellor’s Department and partly by the Department of Trade. As far as I know, he is alive and kicking; I have not seen him for a little time. Mark Saville, now the noble and learned Lord, Lord Saville of Newdigate, played a critical part in the 1996 Act, but he had not by then arrived in the House of Lords Judicial Committee, which he did a year later, and therefore he sat on the steps of the Throne. He was a very important person, but not a parliamentarian at the time.

Of the parliamentarians of the time—if we could remember them—there was Lord Maurice Peston, who spoke for my party throughout the Arbitration Bill. He mugged up on the subject very well and was a very good participant in our debates. Lord Peter Fraser of Carmyllie was the government spokesman to take through our debates. Alas, both have departed this world, as indeed have other prominent Members of the House who took a very active part, including Lord Mustill, Lord Donaldson and Lord Roskill. So here I am as the one surviving parliamentarian. There is another name I must mention at once—Mr Toby Landau. Not only is he alive and kicking but he is here in this Room to listen to our debate. At least somebody other than me is still alive and kicking.

As I said, I am not familiar with the proceedings in the Moses Room and I am ready to be corrected at any time. I have some memories of the 1979 and 1996 Acts which I think it would be valuable for the Committee to be reminded of. Therefore, I intend to take a little time in doing so. I am aware that this is very close to the Christmas Recess. If any noble Lord, particularly one who is listed to speak, thinks that I am going on too long, I would ask him not to suffer me but to stand up and, if needs be, cut back my words.

The foundation of this Bill, and indeed the foundation of all arbitration law, goes back to the Act of 1698. The Bill in its preamble was described as:

“An Act for determining Differences by Arbitration”.


Further on in the preamble, we have the words: now this Bill is

“for promoting Trade and rendring the Awards of Arbitrators the more effectual in all Cases for the final Determination of Controversies referred to them by Merchants and Traders or others”.

This important Act of so long ago established the support that was needed for the conduct and, indeed, the encouragement of the use of, arbitration as a means of settling disputes. Right up to the present time, our statutory law should create a balance between the courts and arbitrations. It should also be promotional for the conduct of arbitration in the United Kingdom. The importance of that comes out clearly in a briefing that we have just received from the Law Society, which calculates that currently there are no fewer than 5,000 arbitrations annually, bringing an income of £2.5 billion to the economy, so it is of importance. I would suggest that what we are doing today is of importance.

I actually doubt whether 5,000 arbitrations is the right calculation, when one takes into account the numerous LMAA and GAFTA arbitrations, and other arbitrations in the commodity field. Indeed, when I headed up an action group in 2000—I have its paper here—there were then more than 3,000 LMAA arbitrations. But whatever it is, the figure is very large and, I suggest, very important.

The 1979 Act was specifically directed to two matters. One was the setting aside and annulment of these two procedures: the “case stated” procedure and the procedure for setting aside awards for errors on its face, which was also being used. It was used by parties when they were not doing very well in an arbitration and who then sought to take their arbitration to the courts to cause delay, embarrassment and difficulty to the plaintiff or complainant.

Indeed, in the debate that I opened in May 1978 in the Chamber of this House, I read a letter from the general counsel of Raytheon, the massive defence producer of weapons and the like. In that letter, the general counsel said that, because of the way in which two of the major arbitrations were being sucked into the court by the case stated procedure, he had given directions that there should not be any arbitration agreement signed by Raytheon, carrying a London arbitration jurisdiction. That is how serious it was. Thanks to Lord John Donaldson, the 1979 Act effectively got rid of both the case stated procedure and the procedure of setting awards aside on their face. It also created what I believe to be the right balance between the law courts and arbitration, and that has been continued ever since.

When I was citing the 1698 Act, I should have mentioned that were other arbitration Acts in the 19th century, one based on the MacKinnon report. There was of course the consolidating Arbitration Act 1950, but none were developing arbitrations on the foundation Arbitration Act 1698.

The big challenge for getting the 1979 Act through was to get Lord Diplock on side. A former commercial judge—I think he was the first judge of the Commercial Court—he was a man, a judge and a Lord of great influence, and if we did not get him on side, we had no hope of getting the 1979 Act through. The second great challenge in 1978-79 was to get the Government to give time and support for what became the 1979 Act. We achieved the first, getting Lord Diplock on side. We were greatly assisted by Bob Clare, who was then senior partner of the very big American law firm of Shearman & Sterling. He walked Lord Diplock round and round the lake at Selsdon Park until he managed to get his support.

The other way of getting Lord Diplock on side was achieved by Lord Donaldson in creating special categories of arbitrations—those relating to admiralty, commodity and insurance—and setting those aside, so that they were not entitled to opt out of the new arbitration process. Lord Diplock felt very deeply on the subject; he described the commodity and admiralty arbitrations as providing the water in the fountain of the development of English commercial law. That was quite an achievement on the part of Lord Donaldson. Incidentally, at that time Lord Donaldson was the senior judge in the Commercial Court, and, in the very active way that he approached matters, he set up a special committee which issued a report. That was then given accord by the Government of the day, being made into a Command Paper, which was of great influence in getting the 1979 Act.

As for getting the Government on side, we really had to thank Lord Cullen of Ashbourne, who was a retired stockbroker. I won the ballot and therefore succeeded in having the right to open a debate on the future of arbitration in London. There are a number of noble and learned Lords behind me now; at that debate, there were a number of Law Lords in front of me. Lord Diplock took part—I am just trying to remember all those who did—as did Lord Scarman and Lord Wilberforce. This somewhat surprised the Opposition Benches. They could well have replaced Lord Cullen of Ashbourne with Lord Hailsham, who, for example, was close to arbitration law and took an active part in the 1979 Act. However, they remained loyal to Lord Cullen, which meant that we received the evidence from him of the loss of £500 million in invisible earnings, which is what the loss of income to the Government was called then. That was an astounding figure—probably close to £5 billion in today’s currency. The Lord Chancellor spoke to me about it afterwards and said, “Is it really that much?” I was quite sure that it was not, but just said to him, “I think it is a very large sum of money”. He then seized upon the opportunity to push forward that Bill, because the Labour Government were not doing awfully well and he thought it would be awfully good for them to do something that was wholly friendly to the City of London.

It was given the Rolls-Royce treatment—that was the term Sir Thomas Legg gave it, from the Lord Chancellor’s Department—but it nearly got into a disaster. I am going on a little but am getting quite close to my end. We nearly got into a disaster at the end of that because the Labour Government collapsed in March 1979. We had just had the Bill go all the way through the House of Lords and it had not got near the House of Commons. As a result, there was a happy trade-off with the House of Commons through the official channels, which was how the Bill was saved.

Onward therefore to the 1996 Act: it was a rather slow process, which caused Arthur Marriott to take up an initiative. That then brought about the setting-up of what was called the departmental—

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

I give a gentle reminder to the noble Lord that there is an advisory speaking time of 15 minutes. We have time, but if there are points he wishes to make—

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

I appreciate that, and I am not yet at 15 minutes, but there is nothing on the speakers’ list that stipulates a time of 15 minutes.