Crime Reduction Policies

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Thursday 22nd January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I normally start Thursday afternoon debates by saying that we make up in quality for what we lack in quantity. At one stage, it looked as though it was going to be me and the Minister, which would have tested that view to destruction, but fortunately we were joined by the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), and the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), so we can be assured of a forensic and testing debate, but also, I hope, a well-informed one. I commend both of them on their speeches, made on the back of their report.

We welcome the aims of the report, which are to

“to examine the nature and effectiveness of crime reduction policies”

under this Government. It is an authoritative report, and the Opposition are studying it carefully with a view to implementing parts of it if we have the opportunity later this year. Although I welcome the hard work put into the report by the Committee, after reading the Government’s response, I fear that a lot of it might be falling on deaf ears at the moment.

We know that the current Lord Chancellor has a way with words, but yesterday he excelled himself when he suggested that his lack of legal training enables him to “take a dispassionate view” of matters. That undermines the legal profession and writes off genuine concerns about the effect of his legislation as mere self-interest. That is not helpful. Probation workers, lawyers, prison officers and magistrates are all let down when this Government take that sort of attitude, and particularly by the Lord Chancellor’s approach.

Ministry of Justice policies over the past four years have not been well evidenced and are guilty of a distinctly short-termist approach. The Government were warned repeatedly that their probation reforms were rushed and concerned more with structure than with outcomes. If probation is in a state of chaos, our prisons are in a state of crisis, as we have heard. The quality of prison provision has deteriorated rapidly under the current Justice Secretary.

I note that page 14 of the Committee report points out that reoffending was falling in 2010 but has flatlined under the current Government. Page 6 of the report says that we are still lacking a

“lack of rigorous assessment of where taxpayers’ money can be most effectively spent in cutting crime”.

That is quite an indictment: after almost five years of coalition Government, the Government still cannot define where they are spending public money. They could not even tell MPs how much the Transforming Rehabilitation plans would cost when they asked Members to vote it through the House.

As the report notes, the Secretary of State published no modelling or projections to support his claim that Transforming Rehabilitation would save money. That raises obvious concerns that savings will not be made and the Government will therefore not be able to afford to fund probation for offenders serving under 12 months. Those changes—that is, the creation of the community rehabilitation companies—were not driven by cost-effectiveness but by what the Secretary of State called his gut instinct to privatise the service and see what happened next.

We agree with the Select Committee that crime reduction needs to be a cross-departmental priority, but by the time someone reaches the criminal justice system, it is already too late, in many ways: somebody has already been a victim of crime. Our approach, through a victims taskforce, will be to recast the criminal justice system as a criminal justice service fit for victims. A lot of good work is going on; I pay tribute to the work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) and Sir Keir Starmer, alongside the shadow Lord Chancellor and Baroness Lawrence.

The previous Labour Government were building strong cross-departmental practice in work on female offending prior to 2010. That included working with women at risk of offending, to prevent crime before it happened. Unfortunately, as the Committee noted in its previous report on Corston, the current Government disbanded the cross-departmental structures working in this area, which I am afraid is evidence of more short-termism.

We have pledged to appoint a Minister with responsibility for mental health in the Ministry of Justice, to join up the health and criminal justice agendas. We agree with the Committee that it is important for probation to be represented on health and wellbeing boards, and we look forward to the Minister’s response to the Committee’s recommendation that that representation should be statutory.

[Mr Graham Brady in the Chair]

Labour welcomes the work being done on liaison and diversion. The intention to divert offenders with mental health or substance misuse problems into treatment, or to ensure correct support through the criminal justice system, is laudable, and it is supported by Members from all parties. I hope that the Minister can give us an update on the roll-out of liaison and diversion services.

I will move on, briefly, to Transforming Rehabilitation. The Transforming Rehabilitation plans were rushed through and they were based on no evidence of what works to reduce crime. The Government did not test them to check if they worked at all before rolling them out; I think one of the first acts of the Justice Secretary was to cancel the piloting. Now probation services are firefighting and having to deal with additional strains on the system caused by the rushed fragmentation of the service, rather than focusing on reducing crime. As one witness, who is quoted on page 36 of the report, said of every time that providers change:

“We have…to take a few steps back and start again.”

Furthermore, despite the Justice Secretary arguing that the point of all this activity was to allow for supervision of offenders serving less than 12 months, the sell-off has been rushed through and there is still no certainty about how the increased supervision will work.

Later, I will refer to the views of the Magistrates’ Association, but one thing that I picked up from yesterday’s meeting of the all-party group on the magistracy is that there is a lack of clarity as to exactly when the new proposals will start. I do not know whether the Minister can confirm the start date today. What we were told yesterday was that offenders sentenced from February onwards will be subject to the new regime when they come out of custody. If we are talking about very short sentences, that could be in February itself, although it seems unlikely that we will see the results of this policy before the general election.

The successful bidders for the community rehabilitation companies are due to take over on 1 February and contracts are about to start. Labour has expressed numerous concerns about the various “sweetheart deals” and “poison pill” aspects of the contracts. Frankly, it is ludicrous that Ministers have tied the hands of future Governments to multibillion-pound contracts for a decade or more. There was no testing or piloting to see if this system would work. It means that every IT problem and failure in communication is now being dealt with on a national scale.

What is even more concerning is that the fragmentation of the service has built new problems into the system, as the Justice Secretary was warned it would. The chief inspector of probation found that processes are slower and more complicated than they were before. Staff are worried that the service is now less readily responsive to risk, and less able to protect the public from repeat offenders. However, the concerns of experts and probation staff have been ignored.

The situation is no better in our prisons. Despite the Justice Secretary’s protestations, prisons have been badly managed by this Government and are undeniably in crisis. Let me give an example. Last autumn, there was a report into the prison in my own constituency, Wormwood Scrubs. The outgoing chief inspector’s report revealed that Wormwood Scrubs is not a safe place to be and does little to rehabilitate prisoners. That is bad not only for the inmates themselves but for the whole of society, because eventually the inmates are put back on the streets without the means or attitude to reform or improve their lives. Those are some of the headlines from that report, but I am afraid reports of that kind are now published almost weekly or monthly.

The report showed that Wormwood Scrubs had declined significantly in almost every aspect. It was not safe enough, with 22% of prisoners saying they felt unsafe at the time of the inspection; over a third of prisoners reported victimisation by staff; there were five suicides in 2013 alone; almost half the prisoners surveyed said they had felt unsafe at some point during their time in the prison; only one in 10 prisoners said that they had been helped to prepare for release; during the previous three months, more than a fifth of prisoners had been released without a suitable address; many prisoners were allowed out of their cells for only two hours each day; more than 40% of prisoners were locked up during the working day, with nothing to do; there were too few activity places, sufficient for only half the population; and administrative failures meant that many prisoners attending learning and skills activities were not paid for long periods. And yet, during the same short period the population of the prison increased by 8%, from 1,170 to 1,258. Earlier this month, I received a petition from prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs, protesting about the fact that the excellent art and design department is to be closed.

The “rehabilitation revolution” that the Government promised is proving as illusory as their being the greenest Government or building the big society, or, in the case of the Liberal Democrats, abolishing tuition fees.

Page 45 of the Committee’s report shows how the chief inspector found that the overall prison system was under “strain” and that

“activity outcomes were poor and falling; too many prisoners spent too long locked in their cells, and evening association was increasingly curtailed”

and

“there were too few activity places”.

Tragically, since that report was published, things have got much worse. Page 21 refers to “prison population projections” that suggested the population was going to fall. In fact, in the week that the report was published the Government had to instruct already overcrowded prisons to take in even more prisoners, because they had closed prisons—17, I think—and were taken by surprise by the rise in the prison population.

The Justice Secretary’s prisons are not doing enough to challenge criminal behaviour; in fact, prisons themselves are increasingly violent places. Also, rehabilitative work is being cancelled because there are not enough staff to safely unlock prisoners and escort them to rehabilitation programmes.

[Sir Alan Beith]

If we are to deal with the kind of problems that the hon. Gentleman described, which exist in many of our prisons, does he accept the Committee’s general contention that we ought to use prison only for those whom it is essential to lock up for significant periods, and that we should make more use of robust community sentences rather than continuing to increase the prison population?

[Mr Slaughter]

Sentencing has to be appropriate. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there is a need to ensure the safety of the public. That is what indeterminate sentences for public protection were designed to do. In some respects they worked, but unfortunately in others they did not work. It is a continuing problem for all Governments, and it is the No.1 priority; that has to be where we start.

As for less serious offences, it is the job of the Government to set sentencing policy, but it is the job of the courts to ensure that in each individual case sentencing is appropriate. Regarding prison numbers, the problem that we have had over the last four years is not so much the number of people in prison as the fact that prison closures, including the closures of successful prisons that were achieving rehabilitation, have been driven by a financial agenda.

That was done by a Government of whom the right hon. Gentleman is a supporter, so none of us can entirely wash our hands of responsibility. However, the objective—I think it will be shared by all of us—must be to bring down offending rates and to increase rehabilitation. That is achieved through a combination of what happens in prisons and what happens outside, but the lesson from the Select Committee’s report is that neither is working at the moment, because of the short-term solutions and, particularly in the last year, the cuts in the number of prison staff, some of whom are now being re-recruited.

Whatever the Government’s genuine intention, and I am sure that Ministers share our genuine intention to increase rehabilitation and decrease reoffending, they must have known that, after the cuts they made in October 2013 to prison resources, that was simply impossible to achieve.

Finally, I will say a few words about courts. There is a section in the report on the Courts Service, and there has been an interesting response from the Magistrates’ Association. The Minister was unable to attend a meeting of the all-party group on the magistracy yesterday due to other commitments, but we had an interesting discussion, although he would have been no more cheered by it than by what he has heard today about the Prison Service and the probation service.

Increasingly, the Courts Service is not functioning, and that is partly due to a lack of staff, ranging from ushers, who ensure the smooth running of the courts day to day, to justices’ clerks, who supervise the entire court system. Furthermore, up to one in five defendants in magistrates courts are not represented, because of cuts in legal aid, and more such cuts are planned.

However, the issue that concerned the magistrates most was what they regarded as the Government’s lack of respect. We have seen that in the cuts in training, in the attempts to cut remuneration and, most of all, in the issue of increasing responsibility, with magistrates having to take on serious amounts of work without, effectively, being allowed to run their own courts.

I was very interested in the section in the report on problem-solving courts. In terms of the ability of magistrates—not just district judges, but lay magistrates—to be involved in, and take charge of, that process, one observation the magistrates make is that there is not even a magistrates representative on HM Courts and Tribunals Service, despite the fact that they are its largest customer.

Leaving aside the financial constraints, there is a need to ensure that we use the skills that are there in the court system, and particularly those of magistrates, who give their time for nothing, who have a huge reservoir of expertise and who are hugely committed to all the principles the report deals with in terms of improving the criminal justice system. Increasingly, however, they are simply used as a convenient tool to get through the substantive work load.

We take the report seriously, and we applaud the Committee’s work in scrutinising the court, probation and prison reforms. On page 39 of the report the Committee expresses the concern—we have heard it again today—that, when choosing their language, Ministers should bear in mind the

“gulf between hard line rhetoric and the practical policies”.

I cannot imagine who the Committee had in mind—not the Minister here today, who is always very emollient. Notwithstanding the fact that we are approaching a general election, if those involved took a slightly less bombastic, heated approach and had a slightly more measured discussion of the key issues, as evidenced in the Report—I use the word “evidenced” advisedly—that would not only improve the level of debate, but increase the extent to which we achieve the aims we all share.

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

It may assist Members if I explain that, due to earlier uncertainty about the time the debate was expected to begin, I propose to call the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington before we move to the Minister’s response.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

These are 12-month pilots at the moment in the three constabularies that I mentioned. There is involvement from local government, either county-wide or in some cases with a unitary authority, and from the Crown Prosecution Service regarding those who break the terms of a deferred prosecution. The police are also involved, as are a lot of NGOs and the voluntary sector, and the NHS. We are about four months into this 12-month pilot and some interim work will being coming forward. However, it is interesting that chief constables and police and crime commissioners are saying to me, “Can we join this now?”, because the anecdotal evidence is coming through.

Of course, I am a Conservative politician and am perceived to be, even though I have never been asked on the doorstep whether I am right, centre-left or centre-right, or whatever. I am passionate about this, because it brings an old-fashioned term back into the justice system for the victim: “natural justice”. They can see—it is tangible—that a person will pay back while still in the community and, even if they break that, they have had every chance. It gets offenders on to the drug or alcohol rehabilitation schemes—sometimes both together. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington was in the Chamber when I made an intervention on the Chair of the Select Committee, but I said that these are complex areas. There are people with learning difficulties, mental health conditions and alcohol addiction. We have all seen that when we visit the different projects in our communities, and it is difficult.

I remember visiting an excellent charity in my constituency—Members have probably all heard of it —called Druglink when I was first elected. I said, “You have been funded to tackle the drug rehabilitation side, but surely you have a twin problem here, because I know from the community I grew up in that drink is as big a problem.” Druglink said, “Absolutely, but we are not funded to deal with drink. You are the first person to come and raise that point.” It is important that we have a joined-up process, and the deferred prosecutions are an enormously positive thing.

We are having this debate on an opportune day, because the national crime statistics have been released and they show that crime is down again—by 25% over this Parliament and by 11% in the past year—in nearly every area of the country. As the Police Minister, I praise the work that the police are doing in the 43 authorities I am responsible for. They do a fantastic job, day in, day out, with most of it unseen by the public. The public see their bobbies and their police community support officers, but we all know that that is a tiny proportion of the work that the police do on our behalf every day.

I fully accept, as does the Secretary of State, that the rehabilitation of our courts, how they are structured and the whole of that area need to be looked at. Why do we have a magistrates court 400 yards from a Crown court? That does not make sense. I know that the Committee is particularly interested in the need to join up the IT in the criminal justice system.

I am involved in the replacement of the Airwave product, although I will not be the Minister who takes the decision on that, no matter who the Government are, because Airwave is based in my constituency. I thought it would be improper for me to take that decision, so I asked to be removed from that. Airwave is the police comms system—it is not a radio system, but a comms system, because we have to move data through it as fast as we can. We need to have the camera data that PCs have at the scene of an incident—I will come on to body-worn cameras in a second, because a lot is changing there—spread through a comms system. We need a streamlined communications and IT system that takes the data through the courts, into probation and out the other side. That platform, which is being worked on at the moment, will be vitally important. Government IT programmes are always difficult to talk about. I have been there; I was a shadow Health Minister when Spine was being discussed.

I will touch on some of the equipment and technology that is coming into front-line policing and which will transform certain areas of the criminal justice system. I will give two examples, one of which I have already mentioned. First, we are undertaking serious pilots of body-worn cameras. In legislative terms, we will need to move very fast on them, no matter who is in Government. That technology is out there and is protecting our officers. There are real signs that when people realise that a police officer is wearing a camera, their aggressive attitude to the officer completely changes. A gentleman has rightly gone to prison for a very long time for attacking an officer, and that conviction was largely based on the video evidence of a lady police officer in Hampshire, who was wearing her camera when she arrested the man for a domestic violence incident. He was handcuffed and was under the influence of drugs, and just like that he grabbed her by the throat and pushed her to the ground. She became unconscious after the fourth hit of her head on the kerb. He smashed her head on the ground another five times. The video evidence not only helped convict that gentleman, but helped secure the length of sentence that I think all of us here in the Chamber would agree he deserves.

We need, however, to see how we can take the technology forward. For instance, there is the evidence around statements. Kent police want to take a statement at the scene of an incident on camera and use that as evidence going forward. We should be able to do that, but we cannot under current legislation, and we are going to see whether we can change that. One reason why they are looking at doing that is simply because when people see, even when they are sitting with their lawyers and representatives, what they were doing the night before, it becomes—I am sorry to use strange language in the Chamber—a no-brainer. In such situations, the solicitor leans over to the client and says, “You are going to say you did not do it, but there it is. Now we need to move on.” The technology will transform what happens in every space.

We have to look carefully to ensure that when such evidence is used in court, it is used in the correct way and is not ruled inadmissible for technical reasons when the evidence is there. To give an example—the gentleman is serving 18 years, so I am sure he will not mind me commenting on the fact that he was found guilty—in another piece of footage I have seen, the police were called to a house. The neighbours had heard a lady screaming, and not for the first time. When the police knocked, a gentleman in his mid-50s opened the door and was asked whether his wife was in. He used every excuse in the book not to let them in. When he eventually did let them in, the police found his wife who had been pummelled—that is the polite way of describing it. She was unrecognisable. They could not see her eyes or her lips. She was petrified and did not want her husband prosecuted, until she saw the video of what she looked like when the police arrived. She said, “Enough”, gave evidence against him and he went to prison. That is how we can use technology in a positive way to get people to come forward.

[Mr Slaughter]

The Minister is making an interesting speech and we probably all applaud what he is saying, particularly on the increased use of technology, but two things are running through my mind. Are the Government now regretting their privatisation—or abolition—of the Forensic Science Service? It was one of the greatest mistakes that the Government made when it comes to ensuring that serious criminals are brought to justice.

Secondly, the Minister mentioned the crime figures released today. There has been a long-term decline, particularly in high-volume crime, but he is talking specifically about some serious violent crimes, and the numbers of such crimes are up. In particular, the number of sexual offences is up, but we are seeing a lower level of rape prosecutions. Will he address those points?

[Mike Penning]

I welcome the shadow Minister’s intervention. I know it will sound strange, but I welcome the reporting of more rapes and sexual assaults. If we asked any of the 43 chief constables or PCCs around the country whether there has been an increase in sexual assaults or rapes, they would say that there has not. It is about people having the confidence to report such crimes to the police and other authorities so that the perpetrators can be caught. In addition, 25% of the sexual assault allegations are historical. It is important that people now have that confidence—they clearly did not in the past, which is a real shame. Those people are male and female, which is also important, because male rape is serious and is probably one of the most unreported crimes in the country. That is one reason why we gave the first ever funding to male rape centres in England and Wales.

I do not agree with the first point that the hon. Gentleman made, which was on the Forensic Science Service. I know I cannot use props in the Chamber, but in my pocket I have the second piece of kit that I will refer to today—I am happy to show it to any Member after the debate—which will end up being called a “drugalyser”, although that is a trade mark. It is a roadside drug-testing kit for our police, so that they can arrest at the roadside based on a test, not an assessment.

I can speak from experience on this matter, as can the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), to whom I have shown this piece of kit—he is also a former fireman. I attended so many incidents over the years I was a fireman where we knew someone was on something. We assumed it was drink, and they were breathalysed; they passed the breathalyser test—sometimes only just, but they did pass—but the officer still felt that the person was impaired way beyond the level given by the breathalyser, and the assumption was that the person was under the influence of drugs of some description. It could have been an illegal drug or a legal high, although legal highs did not exist so much when I was in the fire service, or it could have been a prescribed drug at a level at which they should not have been driving.

In our manifesto commitment at the previous election we proposed to introduce roadside drug-testing equipment. I was pleased, just before Christmas, to announce type approval for that piece of kit. It looks like a small pregnancy-testing kit. If an officer does a breathalyser test and the person is under the legal limit, the officer will test them for drugs. The officer asks the person to open their mouth, dabs the piece of kit on their tongue—it is a saliva test—and gets a result within six minutes. I did one the other day at the Home Office laboratories, and within four a half minutes the kit gave an indication. I was not personally tested, but we did a test—[Interruption.] I did offer, but my civil servant said no, although I would be more than happy to line up with colleagues to take the test. I know I am digging a hole here, so I will stop.

Chief officers are now buying the kit. I have suggested that they buy them on a national basis. It is entirely up to them how they buy them, but they will want to push the price down. The kit is type approved and the legislation will be on the statute book I think on 3 March, so the police will be able to use it at the roadside. Every police officer I have spoken to, including a lot of the bobbies here who have worked on traffic over the years, have come up to me and, first, asked to see it—no one has actually seen it before—and secondly, said, “What fantastic news for us,” because it takes away the risk of wrongful arrest and gives them the confidence to say, “I know you’ve got something in your system. I know that’s why you were in this accident. I know that’s why you hurt this person. Let’s move on.”

Technology is moving on fast. I have been asked to try some of the new technology. The Select Committee’s report talks about the use of out-of-prison methodologies for people who, for instance, have been involved in a drink-induced incident and have to stay off drink and away from drinking establishments. How do we prove that they have not been drinking? We can do a urine test or a blood test, but that can be difficult. Technology has come up with a non-invasive bracelet—there is no penetration of the skin—that can record alcohol levels in the bloodstream over a period of time, and the information can be downloaded. That will then allow much more confidence in those sorts of determinations, and I think it will make individuals more aware of how much alcohol they have in their system. Such technology is not hundreds of years away; it is around now, and we are looking to type approve that so that we can use that equipment.

I raise that, because such developments make me wonder: could a drugalyser that tests saliva be used in prisons? That is an obvious place to use one. On the subject of prisons and drugs, I was at the Mount prison just outside my constituency—a lot of the officers live in my constituency. Traditionally it has been a north London category C prison. I have been trying to get prisoners from my constituency moved there, closer to their families, for many years, but it has always been difficult, not least because they have to have 18 months left before they can go there. The Mount prison is now going to be a training and rehabilitation prison—one of the 89—and numbers will go up. The building work is taking place at the moment. This will be transformative for the people in my part of the world and in north London. We are going to provide training and skills and they will be released closer to their home. Prisoners have said to me, “I get released, I get given a little bit of money, but I am miles away from home.” Or they say, “I don’t want to go home. How do I start a new life elsewhere?” We can work together on that as we form different units.

Lastly, the report rightly states that we need to break down the silos of different institutions, different parts of Government and different parts of local government, and bring them together to see what they can do together, rather than individually. This has been particularly difficult in the area of domestic violence. Domestic violence tends not to be a one-off. The assessment of risk for someone in such an environment tends to get done, but who takes responsibility?

I was truly amazed when I went to see Project 360 in Leicestershire. If the Select Committee would like to visit, we could arrange it. I sat in a room not only with people from the police, probation and the local government antisocial crime unit, but people from adult care services, the mental health unit, and lastly someone from the university of Bedford, I think—I apologise if I have got that wrong or missed someone out—all meeting to assess whether the scheme was working. The Chair of the Select Committee has seen the Government response: we are not going to have a fully independent panel. However, there will be an evidence base from some of the great universities, so that, as the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd mentioned, we have the evidence so say what has and has not worked. At the moment, it is all anecdotal—as the shadow Minister said, it is gut instinct—but we will have the evidence.

We will not be able to get an evidence base for every single thing, but if we are going to spend money—the Chair of the Select Committee is absolutely right— we have to make sure that we get best value. The Treasury is all over us daily about that. That is absolutely right and proper, because it is taxpayers’ money. If we can show that it is not just us saying it, but this is actually what is going on—I am perhaps stretching it here—some of the scepticism about the use of the private sector or the voluntary groups that are massively involved in the probation changes might dissolve, and we might win over some colleagues on the Committee.

Absolutely the last thing I will touch on is mental health, because what is going on in government at the moment is exciting. No matter who wins the next election, I pray that the next Government push things forward. Throughout my life, I have been desperately worried about people such as ex-servicemen coming home with post-traumatic stress, for example. My generation of servicemen coming home included Simon Weston, who came back from the Falklands, and some of my closest friends. There were guys and girls at school who we all knew had real problems; they needed help and it was not there. All those years on, we are now starting to get somewhere.

The triage is done in different ways in different parts of the country—some paid for by the police and crime commissioners, some jointly funded by the mental health trusts and the police. There is no doubt in my mind that we are absolutely in the right territory of ensuring that people with mental health conditions and people with learning difficulties—sadly, the public often do not know the difference—get to a point of safety that is not a prison cell. A prison or police cell is not a place of safety.

The police have been the first resort for too many years. We have to turn the thing on its head and look at it through the other end of the telescope, so that the police are the place of last resort. I am simply thrilled that 17-year-olds and younger will not be held in police cells overnight, whether they have a mental health condition or not. There will be real pressure on local authorities to ensure that they have those places of security. It will be crucial for the young people to get the support that they need.

I have seen the triage working. I was in a large custody suite in Stoke only the other day, where two mental health professionals were embedded. Coming into a custody suite can be among the most difficult things for someone with a mental health condition, so we want to be able to move things on. Also recently, I was in Holborn with the Metropolitan police. A man had assaulted his girlfriend. She told the police as we went in the door that he was schizophrenic and had almost certainly not been taking his drugs. So we knew straight away.

I asked the sergeant, “Traditionally, what would have happened?” He said, “We would have arrested him, taken him back and only then called in the mental health professionals.” In this case, the man was taken to an accident and emergency unit that the police knew had mental health professionals attached—not all A and Es do, and it is dangerous to take people who need such care and attention to an A and E where there might not be the necessary expertise. Frankly, they will be back out in two hours’ time and the whole cycle will start again.

The people who are most vulnerable in our community need to be looked after. The report highlights some of the real difficulties and pressures in the criminal justice system. I am generally pleased, although we can always pick on bits, or, in any positive story, find the negative one—the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hammersmith, found the negative story today in the crime figures. I do not think the figures are negative because I am proud of people who have the confidence to come forward and say that they have been assaulted, wanting the person to be prosecuted. At the end of the day, everyone in the House has a job of work to do, a job that needs a lot of scrutiny and a lot of compassion. All too often, the compassion is missing.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I have experienced at least two examples of third-party groups seeking to argue that a form of consultation was not absolutely accurate and that it should have been done slightly differently, when it made no difference to the eventual decision. In one case, it was clearly a delaying tactic to avoid a necessary change. A judicial review should be brought when it is a matter of genuine material error or failure by the Department concerned, not a minor technicality. That is what this measure is all about. I believe that it is necessary. Ministers in the last Government regularly argued for change because judicial review was being used inappropriately. This reform will bring a degree of common sense to the system without undermining the core purpose of allowing people who are wronged by public bodies to challenge the decisions taken about them in the courts. That is why I commend our amendments to the House.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

On 1 December last, in our previous session of ping-pong on this troubled Bill, I started my comments by referring to the latter stages of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill in April 2012, and the parallels continue. After the Lords defeats on Report on that Bill were overturned in this Chamber by the enthusiasm of the Lib Dems to support their coalition partners in hobbling access to justice, their lordships inflicted three further substantial defeats on the Government and, just like today, this Chamber had the opportunity to consider again the wisdom of the Government’s insistence on getting their legislation through unrevised.

I say “unrevised”, but we do have amendments to consider, as the Lord Chancellor set out in his speech—amendments not freely given, but wrung out in the forensic unravelling of the Bill in the other place, and by the requirement, following their lordships’ double insistence, to make some concession if the Bill is to make progress. On the basis of our LASPO experience, I urge caution in accepting any assurance from this Government that they have made genuine concessions. In 2012 they promised a review of the no win, no fee cost regime as it applied to mesothelioma claims, but three months ago and at a cost to the taxpayer of £50,000 the High Court found that that purported review had not been carried out.

In 2012 the Government claimed to have broadened the evidential criteria for accessing legal aid in domestic violence cases, but the hurdles have proved too high for many victims, and that concession, too, is now subject to litigation. So the Lord Chancellor will forgive my scepticism when I say that the proposals today look like the bare minimum that he thinks he can get away with and, if they are approved by both Houses, they are likely to provoke not a working compromise, but more bad-tempered litigation.

Let me begin with Lords reason 74B and the amendment in lieu that the Government have proposed. First, I shall set out the context. The Prime Minister said yesterday that his priority was “a Britain living within its means”. If Ministers were serious about living up to that, they would not be wasting £85 million on a flawed plan for a secure college which does not have the support of a single independent expert. I remind the House, as my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) has done before, that the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Royal College of Psychiatrists and nearly 30 other leading children’s charities have publicly condemned these plans as “expensive and dangerous”.

Even the Government’s own impact assessment accepts that the idea is untried and untested. Throwing girls and the youngest children into this mix, when they would be in the overwhelming minority, would make for an incredibly intimidating atmosphere and be an accident waiting to happen. We agree that improvements need to be made in youth custody. Reoffending is still too high, and education can and should play an important role in the rehabilitation of young offenders. The chief inspector of prisons has today published another concerning report highlighting conditions at Feltham young offenders institution, where 48 separate gangs are said to operate. Not enough good training is being delivered, and too many offenders there are spending all day locked up with nothing to do, a quarter of them in conditions that amount to solitary confinement.

The Government should be focusing on that problem, on improving standards in existing institutions, rather than on this vanity project dreamed up by the Secretary of State, so it is disappointing that the Government have insisted on ploughing on regardless. Ministers are still unable to offer any concrete plans or assurances about how their very lofty ambitions for the secure college will be achieved in reality. It has not gone unnoticed that whenever anyone has raised a reasonable and substantial objection to these plans, the Minister’s only answer has been to retreat to repeating the fact that 68% of offenders released from youth custody reoffend within 12 months, and that something must be done—the secure college is something, therefore it must be done. The whole House will see that for what it is: a very weak argument with very little evidence behind it.

We on the Opposition Benches are clear. We remain opposed to the secure college in principle. If we are elected, we will not wish to go ahead with it if at all possible, and we agree with the common-sense conclusion that the other place has reached twice now, that the secure college would be unsuitable for girls and children under the age of 15.

The Minister made a rather confused argument when the House last debated this point. On the one hand, he argued that the plans will deliver “substantial benefits” to these groups and that they should not be denied access to the secure college, but on the other he said it was not his intention to introduce girls and children under 15 into the college from the start. Why not? Which is it? He cannot have it both ways. If the Government still feel that there are problems with incorporating these groups, that would first need to be worked out in a pilot. This rather confirms the fears that many independent experts have expressed.

Even the noble Lord McNally, until recently a Minister and now chair of the Youth Justice Board, has warned against the approach that the Government are pursuing. He told the Justice Committee:

“I would want to advise the Secretary of State to think very hard about whether young females should be there”—

that is, in the secure college. He went on:

“Of course, co-education has its attractions, but I would not want the scheme to fail because of difficulties in trying to accommodate mixed groups.”

We hope that the Government will see the sense of their own former Justice Minister’s comments and not pursue this poorly thought-out idea any further.

Having said that, we note that the amendment provides that girls and 12 to 14-year-olds could not be placed in secure colleges without further parliamentary approval by way of affirmative statutory instrument. Although I suspect that this solution has an eye to the convention that the other place does not pass fatal motions on secondary legislation, I will give the Lord Chancellor the benefit of the doubt and postpone this discussion until another day. We will not vote against the amendment to reason 74B.

Turning to judicial review, the proposed amendments are even less satisfactory. I think that the Lord Chancellor will concede that he has not acquitted himself well in explaining the purpose and effect of this part of the Bill to the House. Lords amendment 102B provides that the court “may”, instead of the Bill’s original “must”, refuse judicial review if it concludes that it is “highly likely” that the outcome for the applicant would not have been substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred. The court will retain its discretion to decide whether to refuse the judicial review on the basis of the “highly likely” test. The amendment was carried with a majority of 69 votes in the Lords—an increase in the majority for the original vote.

The Government’s proposed compromise is to give the courts discretion to hear the judicial review, but limited to circumstances where this is

“for reasons of exceptional public interest.”

There is an echo here of what the Lord Chancellor wrongly told this House last time the Bill was debated, when he said:

“The ‘exceptional circumstances’ provisions would allow a judge to say, ‘This is a flagrant case and must be heard.’”—[Official Report, 1 December 2014; Vol. 589, c. 82.]

Much has been made of the Lord Chancellor’s inadvertent misleading of both this House and the other place on this important issue. I say magnanimously that we all make mistakes and I do not make a point on the fact of the error. However, I did raise a point of order on 10 December because I thought that the Lord Chancellor should have done more than reply to the Member on whom he was intervening when he made the comments I have quoted: first, because he repeated the error elsewhere in his speech; and secondly, because had he simply corrected the record, as I believe he should have done, Members of both Houses would not have remained under a misapprehension.

There is a wider point that goes to the heart of both sets of Lords amendments. Their lordships set out to restore discretion to the courts. The Bill as originally drafted is the enemy of judicial discretion; it relies on “must”, not “may”. So what are we to make of the Lord Chancellor apparently thinking that there was, albeit limited, discretion in clause 64, when there was not? In trying to answer that question and square this circle, the Government have come up with their amendment to the Lords position, but it refers not to “exceptional circumstances” but to “exceptional public interest”. Exceptional circumstances are one thing and public interest is another, but what is exceptional public interest?

I fear that this does nothing to address the criticisms of the original wording of the Bill. It will still encourage the rehearsal of substantive issues at permission hearings. It will still lure judges into second-guessing how decision makers might have approached the substantive decision if taken lawfully. It will increase costs and delay at permission stage. It will lead to more satellite litigation on what constitutes “exceptional public interest”. It is a concession on the point of principle, albeit one the Lord Chancellor thought he had already made, but in practice it will make little difference to the restriction on the fundamental operation of judicial review as an administrative remedy. For that reason, we will vote against the Government’s proposal.

Turning to Lords reason 106D, we accept that there is an attempt by the Government to compromise, albeit only because of the double defeat at the hands of the other place—but again, it is more plastic than real. The Government’s proposed concession is that the means of third party funders would have to be disclosed only if the financial support to be provided exceeds or is likely to exceed a sum set out in the rules of court or the tribunal procedure rules. The tribunal procedure rules are made by independent committees, but the rules they propose can be allowed or disallowed by the Lord Chancellor. That gives us little comfort.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill: Carry-over Extension

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

This is a significant Bill; there are even parts of it with which we agree. We are pleased that both Houses have had an extended opportunity to debate its controversial parts and have made clear on numerous occasions their opposition to part 4, particularly the provisions on judicial review, and those on secure colleges.

There is a slight irony in the fact that when the carry-over motion to bring the Bill into this Session was first proposed, we thought the reason the Government were doing that with this and some other Bills was that there was so little legislation in this Session and they were trying to pack it out. Well, this Bill has certainly fulfilled its role. It has had such a chequered existence, ping-ponged between the Houses because of the appalling proposals in part 4 in particular, that the Minister can be satisfied that it has at least made this zombie Parliament look slightly less sleepy.

Like the Minister, I do not intend to detain the House. We have made our arguments. I of course hope that the carry-over motion is necessary because the Members of the other place will be batting the Bill back here for a third attempt. Obviously the Government fear that, too, or they would not be looking so anxiously at the time running out on the Bill. We will not oppose the motion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am giving careful consideration to that matter in the wake of the Lords debate. In the new year, I intend to return to the House with further thoughts on how we take matters forward. As my hon. Friend will understand, I will not set out those plans until I have carefully considered with my colleagues what we are going to do.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

How does the Secretary of State intend to respond to what the Daily Mail calls his latest humiliation yesterday at the hands of the Master of the Rolls and the Court of Appeal? Having lost seven judicial reviews, does he now think it is time that he as Lord Chancellor stops acting unlawfully? In January, he will have a third chance to abandon his attempt at muzzling judicial review following two defeats in the other place. But will he tell us now—he does not need to wait until then—whether he intends to protect the rule of law or carry on getting confused by his own legislation and behaving like some tin-pot dictator?

[Chris Grayling]

May I start by extending my commiserations to the hon. Gentleman? It was widely expected on the Government Benches that he would become the shadow Attorney-General. He did not manage that, and we all express our disappointment about that and extend our commiserations to him. By retaining him on the shadow Front Bench, we will continue to enjoy in these sessions on a monthly basis the usual load of nonsense that he so often comes up with.

Convicted Prisoners Voting Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Friday 5th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I do not think that any of us quite expected to be debating the Bill, after the exciting afternoon that we have had so far.

Clause 1, which is the operative clause, states:

“A prisoner serving a custodial sentence is disqualified from voting at a parliamentary or local government election.”

I thought I had heard that before, so I looked at section 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which states:

“A convicted person during the time that he is detained in a penal institution in pursuance of his sentence”—

or unlawfully at large when he would otherwise be so detained—

“is legally incapable of voting at any parliamentary or local government election.”

I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), but for him to propose a Bill that appears to repeat the existing law strikes me as otiose, and, given his attitude to many of the Bills with which we deal at this time of the week, it also strikes me as somewhat perplexing.

[Mr Chope]

rose—

[Mr Slaughter]

However, the hon. Gentleman is about to enlighten me.

[Mr Chope]

The Bill is intended to satisfy the European Court of Human Rights.

[Mr Slaughter]

I suspect that we have hit the nail on the head, Madam Deputy Speaker. I suspect that the Bill has not much to do with prisoners voting, and rather more to do with the European convention on human rights, the European Court of Human Rights and, probably, the Council of Europe and the European Union. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would like us to be well away from all those things, and, if he could tow us a bit more westward, would take us well away from Europe full stop. I can only say that I admire his fortitude in these matters. I am more at home with his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who has said that sticking to international rules can be “irksome” at times, but that it has been the “settled view” of British Governments for centuries that such obligations should be met.

We do not need this Bill, I am afraid, although Opposition Front Benchers do not disagree with the sentiments that it expresses. I shall end my speech there, as I want to leave a little time for the Minister. I appreciate that it is only a little time.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I would love the Secretary of State for once to use an example or any example that does not involve Richard III. He knows very well that the intention of his approach on clause 67 is not to be transparent, but to discourage small litigants—individual groups wishing to take on a big corporation—who would fear that all their funds were at risk. The vast majority of such cases are of that kind. He wants to suppress viable litigation, rather than in any way to be transparent.

[Chris Grayling]

I am afraid that that is complete nonsense. The amendments that we are discussing do not involve any financial risk at all. They are simply about the court knowing who is backing the judicial review. They are purely for information. I do not believe that it is unreasonable for a court considering a judicial review to know who is backing it, and I am baffled as to why the Labour party opposes that.

We do not have much time for this debate, so I will focus my detailed remarks on clause 67, but I said that I would take another intervention.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

As I just said, we have never taken away judicial discretion. We have left in place the clause on exceptional circumstances. Almost every week, this House passes measures that set tramlines for the courts to operate within. We set maximum sentences, but if the maximum sentence for a crime is five years, we do not say that judges should give a five-year sentence; we give them the flexibility to decide what is the right length of time below that.

We are taking a similar approach with these proposals. We are saying to judges, “Look, you’ve got some flexibility, but there are parameters that we need you to operate within.” To my mind, that brings common sense back to the system of judicial review and deals with the frustrations with a system that can be abused. It does not create a situation in which legitimate judicial reviews cannot be brought.

Surely my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) would admit that an organisation should not be able to bring a case to court free of financial risk because it is shadowing behind somebody who has no means and therefore cannot have costs awarded against them; that an organisation should not be able to set up a shell company to bring a judicial review without any information being available to the court about who is behind the shell company; and that an organisation should not be able to delay a difficult spending decision by arguing to a court that the whole process should start all over again because of a minor technicality. Those things happen on a regular basis and they must change.

These reforms are essential in restoring common sense to judicial review. I hope that the House will back the motions to disagree and the amendments in lieu.

[Mr Slaughter]

Although it is some two and a half years since I last spoke on a series of Lords defeats of Ministry of Justice legislation, I have an acute feeling of déjà vu. On 17 April 2012, this House considered the 11 defeats that their lordships had inflicted on the infamous Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill. Today, we examine the four considerable dents that have been put in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill. The three that we are considering in this group of amendments substantially amend part 4 of the Bill, which seeks to hobble the administrative law remedy of judicial review.

LASPO is fresh in my mind today for two reasons. First, those 11 defeats were whittled down, in the course of ping-pong, to some important but narrow wins. Secondly, the Government have spent the past 30 months trying to squirm their way out of even those concessions. The MOJ is still deciding what to do about the High Court decision that its review of costs rules for mesothelioma cases was unlawful. Let us remember that it is trying to enforce, against the will of Parliament, the payment by sufferers of that terrible disease of up to 25% of their damages in legal fees. Further proceedings are pending on the evidential requirement for obtaining legal aid in domestic violence cases—another defeat for the Government.

Both Houses may wish to note how the Government have sought to dodge the undertakings that were given to two of the most vulnerable groups in society—terminally ill cancer sufferers and domestic violence victims—when they look at any purported concessions in the Bill. Of course, the fact that a Government who go back on their commitments to Parliament and let people down are held to account by the courts is at the root of this attack on judicial review. The Lord Chancellor has lost six judicial review actions in the past year and there are several strong cases in the pipeline. Might that have any bearing on his current attack on judicial review?

For once, notwithstanding the truncated nature of the debate, I feel that we have enough time to debate an issue that the Government find very uncomfortable. That is not because there is a lack of arguments to put against part 4, but because they have already been put many times and have not been rebutted. On Second Reading, in Committee, on Report and on Third Reading in both Houses, there have been long debates on the dangers and inequities of this attack on the rule of law and the rights of the citizen against the state.

An unprecedented alliance of charities, the legal professions, the judiciary and victims of Government injustice has come together to support the Lords amendments. On the “Today” programme this morning, the noble Lord Woolf, who was a sponsor of the Government’s defeats, said that the Bill undermined the independence of the judiciary and, thereby, the rule of law. All the arguments are on one side. Against the clear voice of the experts, which says that this attack on judicial review is a constitutional provocation, we have the childish statements from the Lord Chancellor, who says that judicial review is a left-wing conspiracy. He should tell that to those who are reliant on the independent living fund, the Gurkhas and the victims of care home abuse, or indeed the Countryside Alliance and Stop HS2, all of which are successful challengers of his Government’s arbitrary exercise of power.

The only thing going for the Government is the majority that they hold in this House. The real issue today is whether they can use it to batter the other place into submission. Sadly, there are too few supporters of individual freedom on the Tory Benches. Tory Members either support the big corporation over the little man or have swallowed the Lord Chancellor’s infantile line that judicial review is all about subversive left-wing groups stopping the wheels of commerce turning. We are left to hope—I find it difficult even to say this—that the Lib Dems will wake from their comfortable ministerial sleeps to remember the time when they claimed to be the party of civil liberties. To wait is to hope, but as only one Liberal Democrat MP has bothered to attend this important debate on civil liberties and the rights of the individual, I do not think that we can have much hope.

[Frank Dobson]

My hon. Friend mentioned Lord Woolf. Will he remind the House which judicial position was held by Lord Woolf? Would he, like me, be more likely to agree with Harry Woolf than with the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling)?

[Mr Slaughter]

We do indeed stand on the shoulders of giants in conducting this debate. The names that graced the amendments that were made in the House of Lords included not only the former Lord Chief Justice, but other esteemed lawyers such as Lord Pannick, the Labour spokesman Lord Beecham, Lord Carlile and many other senior jurists. Indeed, the President of the Supreme Court and the Master of the Rolls have also spoken out in clear and emphatic terms to say that the Government proposals are not just folly, but dangerous steps to take. I am amazed that any Lord Chancellor—even this one—would ignore those protestations.

It is not wrong to see this concerted attack on judicial review as of a piece with other reductions in access to justice that this Government have advanced, such as on legal aid, on no win, no fee, and on court and tribunal fees. However, judicial review seems to receive particular opprobrium from this Lord Chancellor. That is strange in many ways. Judicial review is already a remedy of last resort and already includes a permission stage. Its accessibility has been limited by the changes to the rules on legal aid for judicial review and the shortened time limits for applying. Indeed, Lord Justice Jackson, some of whose recommendations on costs and civil claims the Government have grabbed on to, advised that it was already very difficult for the ordinary citizen to apply for judicial review for want of funds and expert knowledge, and that we should look at broadening the basis for bringing a judicial review claim.

The attack on judicial review should be of concern to us all. It is a remedy that can protect the rights of very vulnerable individuals, such as young prisoners and dementia sufferers; that can save whole communities from wrongful decisions by the state, such as when the closure of Lewisham’s accident and emergency department was ruled unlawful; and that can establish the law on important points of policy, often with the help of expert bodies that intervene to assist the court on a point of general principle. It is, as Liberty says,

“a crucial tool which allows ordinary people to challenge decisions by the authorities—either because they’re unlawful, irrational, or made in the wrong way.”

I suspect that if their lordships had not been interrupted by other business, they would have continued to neuter the clauses that deal with judicial review. As it is, they stopped at just three defeats for the Government, each of which was important. We urge all Members of the House to vote against the motions to disagree in respect of each of the clauses at issue. For the avoidance of doubt, we will press to a vote, just as their Lordships did, the matters that relate to the “highly likely” test, financial information, and interveners.

[Chris Grayling]

Since the hon. Gentleman has indicated his intention to support all the Lords amendments, will he explain why he thinks it appropriate to allow organisations that back judicial reviews to remain anonymous?

[Mr Slaughter]

I will not speak for long because we have limited time, but I will come on to those matters in a few moments.

It is not only Labour peers who were rallied by Lord Beecham who share our view. Indeed, as he pointed out, the Lord Chancellor’s proposals have been roundly condemned by every independent and bipartisan body that considered them, including the Joint Committee on Human Rights and other Committees of both Houses. Furthermore, the former Conservative party chairman Lord Deben referred to the changes as “out of line” and “unacceptable”, and Baroness Williams called them an “act of absolute tragedy” that she was “very troubled” by. Lord Howe voted against the Government, as did many pillars of the legal establishment—so much for the Lord Chancellor’s left-wing plot.

Each amendment that the Government have resisted has a particular point to make. On the “highly likely” test, all their lordships are saying is that judicial discretion should be retained, and that the court may refuse judicial review if it concludes that it is “highly likely” that the outcome for the applicant would not have been substantially different had the conduct complained of not occurred. If we stick with the Government’s proposal and disagree with the amendment, public bodies will be allowed to escape responsibility for unlawful decisions. In the long run it would change the role of judges in judicial review cases as they would be invited to second-guess how decisions have been taken. The Government are confusing remedy with unlawfulness, and potentially creating far more problems at earlier stages of judicial review cases—and causing far more court time to be taken up—because the court will have to consider the implications of its decisions and not the process under review, as is the case at the moment.

On financial barriers, the evidence—I emphasise that word—of practitioners and those who have represented parties on all sides suggests that the chilling effect of the clauses will be felt first by people of limited means who look for support in their judicial reviews. That could be family members—for example in a care home case—or individuals in a community, perhaps on a planning case, but it could also be charities and other not-for profit organisations. Such organisations have said clearly that although they are currently prepared to support judicial review proceedings, if there is a risk that the court will look at the funders and potentially penalise them in costs, their trustees will not be prepared to continue doing that, whatever their support for the individual action. Each clause in part 4 purports to be a simple tinkering change and a way of dealing with things at the margin to ensure that unmeritorious cases do not come forward. However, evidence from the judiciary, practitioners, interveners and everyone who has participated in the process suggests that the clauses will have a chilling and discouraging effect. That is as true for provisions on financial barriers as for the “highly likely” test or interveners.

The issue of interveners has taken centre stage, and at an early point in proceedings the Government said that they would table amendments to deal with the concerns expressed. We had one of those little dances that takes place between the Liberal Democrats and the Government, when the Liberal Democrats say, “We’re not happy with this, can we have a concession?”, and grudgingly, at the last minute—last Friday in this case—we have a concession.

Let us consider the concession the Government are proposing. What they originally proposed, and what the House of Lords disagreed with, is the idea that only in exceptional circumstances and very rare cases would interveners be protected from paying costs. That does not mean their own costs, which interveners customarily pay, but those of all parties involved. That was clearly wrong, and the Government appear to accept that. As the deputy president of the Supreme Court said, interventions are of great assistance to the court and there can be merit in interventions. Therefore, amendments have been tabled. It is clear why Labour supports what the House of Lords said, and that the matter should be—as it is now—at the discretion of the court. The court has completely adequate powers, should it wish to exercise them, to punish or find against interveners on costs if it believes there is no merit in the intervention or if it believes—this is unlikely—that time has been wasted during proceedings. That matter is currently, and should properly remain, at the discretion of the judge.

Let us consider the amendments, because this is the most disingenuous part of the debate. We waited months—since June, I think—to see what concession the Liberal Democrats with all their bravery had wrung out of the Government. The opinion of everyone who has considered the amendments since they were published just before the weekend is that not only do they not address the issue, but they make the situation worse. The reason for that is simple. Previously, there could at least be exceptional circumstances. Now, a series of criteria must be met, otherwise a mandatory duty means that all costs associated with the intervention would be recoverable by all other parties, including losing parties. Therefore in certain ill-defined circumstances, the court would have no discretion to act to prevent an unjust outcome, despite interveners having been granted permission to intervene by the court, and encouraged to proceed. That will have a more damaging effect than the Government’s original proposal to create a presumption that costs would be payable except in exceptional circumstances. Only this Government could make the situation worse by making a concession.

In a way, the wording does not matter. The net result of those criteria is to set up retrospective tests that mean that the chilling effect will apply. Interveners are typically charities, not-for-profit organisations and others who may perhaps have funds to pay their own costs, but will not risk the definition of terms such as “in substance”, “taken as a whole”, “significant assistance”, or whether something is “necessary” for the court to consider whether someone has behaved unreasonably. A judicial review often develops from the permission stage through to a full hearing, and during that time it is perfectly possible that certain facts become more or less relevant. What impecunious charity will take those risks? This is another attempt to pull the wool over our eyes by setting up impossible hurdles and mandatory tests where matters should be left to the discretion of the judge.

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman is missing the point. Why should those who row in to back a judicial review that they lose be automatically insulated from the costs of doing so? He knows that time after time the taxpayer picks up the bill. This measure is simply to ensure that those who row in behind a judicial review but do not make a valid contribution to the process cannot be immune from facing the costs if they lose.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. May I remind both Front-Bench speakers, one who has already spoken and the other who has been speaking for rather a long time, that the debate ends at 7 pm and other Back Benchers wish to participate? The Secretary of State has got his points on the record, and perhaps Mr Slaughter will conclude his remarks so that we can call the Back-Bench speakers.

[Mr Slaughter]

I give up with the Secretary of State. We are talking about interveners, who are there to assist the court and broaden the issue where it is helpful for matters of public policy. If he cannot see that after having discussed the Bill since February, I really do give up on him.

The Government proposals would prevent judicial review if they can persuade a court that it is highly likely that an unlawful act would have been lawful if done differently. That is a recipe for poor decision making. They will hobble the attempts of people to raise the considerable funds needed to bring a case and weaken their ability to have protection from the Government’s costs if they lose. Most bizarrely, they discourage the intervention of expert bodies, such as charities and civil society organisations, which often assist the court in making the right decision. Under pressure on this last point, or to give the usual fig leaf to the Liberal Democrats, a series of last-minute amendments have been tabled by the Lord Chancellor on interveners, but the opinion of experts who have looked at them is that, if anything, they make the Bill worse.

Labour MPs will therefore vote to uphold judicial review and the rights of the individual against the state. We will oppose the motion to disagree with each and every one of the Lords amendments in this group. We will vote against the Government’s amendments in lieu. We may, I hope, be joined by one or two libertarian Tories, although I am not holding my breath. It will be interesting to see how many Liberal Democrats, so keen to shout about their love of liberty before voting for legal aid cuts in secret courts, will join us in the Lobby.

[Mr Cox]

I regret the tone of the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), which fell beneath the standards the House is entitled to expect on so important a matter. The tone was cynical and frankly insulting to those of us on the Government Benches who have spent many years of our lives fighting for the rights of individuals in the courts.

I should, before I begin, draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I appear in courts, specifically in the administrative court, quite frequently. [Interruption.] I hear the hon. Gentleman, from a sedentary position, hurling yet another insult. I do not know what he was like in the legal profession, but if he won as few arguments by his gracelessness and charmlessness as he is winning this evening, no doubt he switched professions with very good reason indeed.

In substance, many of the points the hon. Gentleman makes—they are not, I think, his; he is merely puppeting and gibbeting the points made by his betters and those more equipped than he to make the criticisms—are, I have to say, correct in the substance of the matter. That is why I say to the Secretary of State that, although one cannot always choose one’s friends in this House on specific topics, I am extremely troubled by what he is introducing. I sympathise with and understand the frustration that, he feels with the industry, it may well seem to those in charge of the Executive, that judicial review has become. I understand that, but my concern is that the measures my right hon. Friend is introducing are not well targeted or adjusted to the mischief he is seeking to suppress.

One of the examples I give is the provision to introduce a likelihood test as to the outcome of any judicial review. The problem with this measure is that it does two things, unintended no doubt in their consequence by the Secretary of State. First, it will turn permission hearings, and substantive hearings if permission is granted, into an immensely detailed and cumbersome process of trawling through fact and evidence so as to equip the judge to take a decision on whether it was more likely than not that the decision would have been taken anyway, and in order to demonstrate that it would have been taken anyway if the flaw had been identified by the judge. The presupposition is that the judge has identified a technical flaw, as my right hon. Friend would call it, either in consultation, natural justice or perhaps even discrimination. The public authority will then seek to justify its position by saying, “Well, it would have made no difference and you, the judge, on all of the evidence, can take the view yourself that this would have made no difference.” That converts the judge into the decision maker.

--- Later in debate ---

I urge the House to support the Government in agreeing with the Lords amendments in this group.

[Mr Slaughter]

Even by the Government’s standards, making 140 amendments in the other place, ranging from new offences and procedures to a plethora of corrections to drafting and operational errors, is remarkable. In the end, most of the matters are uncontentious or the Government have had notice of our objections in terms, so I can be succinct. We do not intend to press any of the Lords amendments in this group to the vote.

However, some issues require considerably more explanation and reassurance, not least the new role of the recall adjudicator. We welcome the fact that Ministers have recognised the additional burdens placed on the Parole Board. Labour has made that point repeatedly during the Bill’s passage. The Government’s impact assessment accepts that the Bill will create at least 1,100 extra Parole Board hearings at a time when its work load is rising and its staff numbers are falling. Nearly one in five staff has been cut since the last election, many of whom were vital supports to the 232 Parole Board members, who are paid per hearing. The staff left in place have to clear a substantial backlog of outstanding cases, while recent Supreme Court judgments have also impacted on its case load. With that in mind, we do not oppose the Government’s efforts to redress the burdens on the Parole Board in principle, but we need assurances on several points.

Introducing the provisions in the other place, the Minister accepted that

“the Bill is silent on the precise workings of the recall adjudicator”,

and that there is

“a great deal of further work to be done on the detail.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 November 2014; Vol. 757, c. 14-15.]

Yet Ministers seem determined to rush through the changes with many questions left unanswered.

The Bill currently does not make it clear who the recall adjudicator would be, what the nature and scope of their role would be limited to, how the appointment process would work, what the costs of the new system would be, or how adjudicators would co-operate with other criminal justice agencies to ensure a fair, robust and effective system of recall. It is not clear what experience, training or expertise would be required of recall adjudicators.

So far, the Government have gone only as far as saying that they intend the positions to be filled by people with “significant criminal justice experience”. The point is best summarised by their impact assessment:

“Recall adjudicators will need to be carefully selected and trained and provided with a clear process and guidance to mitigate the risk of their release decisions either being too risk averse, which would add to the pressure on prison places, or failing to take full account of relevant risk factors, which could lead to the release of prisoners who breach their licence conditions and/or re-offend. This would have adverse consequences on the system as well as incur reputational damage to the MOJ.”

Such “reputational damage” to the Ministry of Justice means a risk to the public that decisions are wrongly taken. Can the Minister give the House any further detail on that point? The Government confirmed in the other place that they had

“certainly not ruled out the possibility of using magistrates.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 November 2014; Vol. 757, c. 15.]

That has raised particular concerns, because magistrates have varying levels of experience and, as adjudicators, would be dealing with prisoners on sentences over and above their usual sentencing powers.

Furthermore, there has been no formal process of consultation on the adjudicator proposals, despite the significant changes that they would mean to the scope and function of the Parole Board. The Government committed themselves in the other place to present further reports to Parliament before this policy is taken any further. Will the Minister confirm what these reports will contain, when he expects them to be laid before Parliament and whether any further consultation will be carried out in the meantime?

The Government have failed to carry out an equality impact assessment on the introduction of adjudicators. Will the Minister explain why? This is perhaps the most crucial point. Until we know what proportion of those who are subject to recall have protected characteristics—I include in that young people, elderly people, people with a physical disability, those who suffer from a mental illness and those with other protected characteristics—and until we know whether those who will undertake the job are qualified to deal with those characteristics, we will not know whether the new system is fit for purpose.

Ministers have cited the Supreme Court judgment in the case of Whiston to show that the creation of a recall adjudicator will not be incompatible with human rights obligations. However, Justice has suggested that

“the case does not provide a full proof justification for the new position, as compared with the independent and suitably qualified Parole Board.”

Can the Minister offer the House any specific assurances on that point?

Finally on this matter, what assurance can the Minister give that the new system will be as robust as the current process? Risk assessing whether prisoners can be released back into the community is a complex judgment and the Parole Board has more than 40 years’ experience in it. Reducing administrative burdens is all well and good, but the cost of it must not be to cut corners and jeopardise public safety.

I welcome the Lords amendments that clarify the sentencing for driving and knife offences, as well as the new offences of police corruption and ill treatment or wilful neglect by care providers. The last of those was recommended by the Francis report. Although the Opposition are disappointed that the Government are not implementing Robert Francis’s recommendations in full, we are pleased that they are implementing his recommendations in this instance.

Those changes highlight the fact that this is a rather different Bill from the one that was first presented to the House earlier this year. The Government’s initial impact assessment confirmed that the measures in the Bill would create nearly 1,000 additional prison places. Since then, the Government have added several new offences to the Bill, many of them tabled just days before a debate in Parliament, with no specific impact assessment, and rushed through with limited opportunity for proper scrutiny. That is not a proper way to legislate. At the same time, our prisons have lurched further into crisis, with overcrowding and violence spiralling. Now that the Bill is back in the Commons, will the Minister give us the updated number of prison places it will require and where they will be provided?

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on her proposals that became Lords amendments 73 and 143, which tackle child exploitation. She has championed those changes since the Bill’s Committee stage in the Commons. It is a testimony to the campaign that she has run and to the parliamentary inquiry she led alongside Barnardo’s that the Government have accepted her amendments and included them in the Bill. I also welcome Lords amendments 70 and 71, which relate to the creation of a new offence to tackle the increasing problem of so-called revenge porn.

The Lords amendments that relate to personal injury and fundamental dishonesty are very flawed. They will require a court to dismiss in its entirety any personal injury claim when it is satisfied that the claimant has been fundamentally dishonest, unless it would cause substantial injustice to the claimant so to do. Last Wednesday, I spoke at the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers’ autumn conference, where I heard the concern that, once again, the Government are stacking the deck in favour of defendant insurers. On these proposals, APIL commented that

“there is no provision in this clause for the defence to be dismissed. The rule of law demands a level playing field”.

It stated that the clause

“tilts that playing field firmly in favour of defendants and their insurers who pay compensation to injured people.”

It might be more appropriate to have a criminal standard of proof when questions of fundamental dishonesty are at issue.

There are minor changes on the new sentencing scheme for serious offences and to allow the President of the Supreme Court to report to Parliament on matters that concern that Court and its jurisdictions—those, we approve. There is also a large number of technical amendments. As I said, those are uncontentious.

The Bill has been going through the two Houses for almost a year and there are some things that we welcome either for technical or policy reasons, but there are a number of issues, which we debated earlier this evening, on which we are fundamentally at odds with the Government, principally in relation to secure colleges and judicial review. Any impartial observer would say that whatever the merits or demerits of the Bill, the way it has been presented has been somewhat chaotic. It is not good practice to begin with a moderately sized Bill and have to pack it with additional amendments throughout Committee, Report and Third Reading in both Houses, and on that basis it is perhaps not surprising that the other place has found so much to criticise.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

Clearly, the hon. Lady did not listen to what I said either. Let me be clear: we are talking about people who are suffering from a very horrific and tragic disease, and this Government are committed to ensuring that victims and sufferers have the best possible way of going through the process, particularly in getting compensation.

As far as insurance companies are concerned, the hon. Lady will be aware that when we had a consultation in July, the submissions by victims and groups such as the one she mentioned stated that they did not like the proposals that were angled towards insurance companies. We listened to those people and did not go ahead with the proposals that the insurance companies would have preferred. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims took through the Mesothelioma Bill earlier this year, which is of benefit to all the sufferers.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is not that Opposition Members are not listening, but that the Minister is not answering this question. Most civilised people would not have to be told that it is wrong to cut compensation for people suffering in great pain from a terrible disease that will kill them in a matter of months. Parliament told him not to do it, victims told him not to do it, the Justice Committee told him not to do it, and so did the High Court, but this Minister is trying to do just that to protect the profits of the insurance industry. Why do the Government always take the side of the strong against the weak?

[Mr Vara]

Again, I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman did not listen to what I said earlier. [Interruption.] I am answering the question; it would help if the hon. Gentleman listened to the answer. As I said, we had a consultation in July, and we put forward proposals. We listened to people who made submissions —we listened hard—and we did not go ahead with proposals that would have been of benefit to the insurers. Which bit of that does he have a problem with?

Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 1, page 1, line 4, at end insert—

“( ) Nothing in this Act confers on any person immunity from civil liability, nor does it change the relevant standard of care in negligence or breach of statutory duty”.

With all due respect to you, Mr Speaker, and to the House, I do not think the House will dignify the Bill with much by way of a debate. It has been comprehensively trashed even by its supporters. I think that of 24 witnesses originally asked by the Government to give evidence in Committee, only five turned up. Most of those, even if they supported the principle of the Bill, said how poorly it was drafted. Even the Forum of Insurance Lawyers, which represents the interests of defendants and insurers in whose interests the Bill is drafted, did not have a kind word to say about it. It was buried on Second Reading by the shadow Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) and, not least, by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier). It was dug up and reburied in Committee, and there are only so many times that its corpse can be paraded around Parliament. Indeed, the only thing the hon. and learned Member for Harborough was wrong about was to say that when the Bill becomes an Act it

“will be the subject of derision and confusion”.—[Official Report, 21 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 1204.]

It is already the subject of derision and confusion.

Amendment 1, and the other amendments we have tabled, reiterates some of what was put forward in Committee. I make no apology for that. We are simply trying to get an answer from the Minister on the points on which he was either vague or contradictory, and, in the last chance before the Bill leaves this House, to see what exact purpose lies behind it.

Amendment 1 states:

“Nothing in this Act confers on any person immunity from civil liability, nor does it change the relevant standard of care in negligence or breach of statutory duty.”

It might seem surprising to need a clarification of that order, but that is exactly what is necessary because the Government have not been clear from day one on whether the Bill seeks to change the law or not. In the pre-publicity, if one can put it that way, the Lord Chancellor said:

“It does not rewrite the law in detail or take away discretion from the courts, but it sends a signal to our judges and a signal to those thinking about trying it on”.—[Official Report, 21 July 2014; Vol. 584, c. 1187.]

Whether the proper purpose of legislation is to send a signal to those thinking about trying it on, I leave it to other Members to comment on.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I know that my hon. Friend is a very good forensic lawyer. I have the same dilemma as he does: it is hard to be in favour of the Bill, but it is hard to be against it. Where does it come from and what was its purpose? Using his forensic skills, can he tell us who was behind its inclusion in the Queen’s Speech?

[Mr Slaughter]

As I would expect, my hon. Friend asks a very good question. It comes from the media grid in the Ministry of Justice. There was a vacant slot in The Mail on Sunday and something had to be pushed forward for the weekend. I see the Minister was in charge of spin this weekend. He has obviously been promoted to Lord Chancellor. Not only can the Lord Chancellor not be bothered to come to the House any more, but he cannot even be bothered to do The Mail on Sunday. How extraordinary! However, I admired the Minister’s performance over the weekend, particularly dealing with questions about whether he had been the subject of abuse himself. I was glad he was surprised by the question. Someone as emollient as him would never be the subject of abuse by his constituents or anybody else’s.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) makes the crucial point. What is the purpose of the Bill, other than as a piece of spin? If we say, “The Bill promotes volunteering and encourages people to intervene where they can be of assistance”, who would not be against sin in that way? But of course that is not the whole purpose, and when we come to the second set of amendments, I will explain that there is an insidious part of the Bill, in clause 3.

Returning to amendment 1, will the Minister clarify—he has tried several times already in Committee—whether the Bill changes the law? This is a key point. After some consideration and umming and ahhing, he said that clause 3, unlike clauses 2 and 4, would change the law. He said:

“We consider that clause 3 represents a change in that it ensures that the court takes into account a defendant’s general approach towards protecting the safety and interests of others when carrying out an activity. It is the general issue that is relevant there.”––[Official Report, Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Public Bill Committee, 9 September 2014; c. 75.]

I cannot see how that is any different from what is in clauses 2 and 4, which he concedes do not change the law.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

It might help the House if I quote from the House of Common research paper:

“The Bill would not change the existing overarching legal framework, or leave victims without protection, and the courts would still be able to find that a person had been negligent or in breach of a statutory duty in relevant circumstances.”

Why are we here? What is this about? What is the point of the Bill?

[Mr Slaughter]

Indeed. In responding to this amendment in Committee, in flat contradiction to what I have just quoted, the Minister said:

“Nothing in the Bill suggests that it gives immunity from civil liability. It also does not change the standard of care that is generally applicable… The Bill simply requires the court to have regard to certain factors in deciding what steps should have been taken to meet that standard of care in a particular case.” —[Official Report, Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Public Bill Committee, 9 September 2014; c. 63.]

As was pointed out ad nauseam to the Minister, the doctrine of negligence in common law has been developed not over years but over centuries. Furthermore, there is already guidance in legislation—the Compensation Act 2006 being the obvious example—insofar as it is needed, but generally the courts do not need guidance in considering all the relevant factors. As I said, however, when we come to clause 3, we will perhaps see what the Government’s ulterior motive is.

I do not wish to labour the point; I simply wish to have an answer from the Minister. Will the Bill—clause 3 or any other part—make any difference to how the law of negligence works in the courts? If so, will he indicate how and explain the motivation? If it does not, what is the purpose of the Bill? I await his response.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

The introductory comments by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) are typical of his form. When he was talking about my interviews yesterday in the media about abuse, I thought for a moment that he might be referring to some abuse that he had hurled at me during a debate, but he did not go that far.

I appreciate that the purpose of amendment 1 is to clarify that the Bill does not confer immunity from civil liability on any individual or change the standard of care that is relevant in claims involving negligence or breach of statutory duty. I explained to the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in Committee why I thought such an amendment was not needed, but I am happy to explain our position on this again. As for whether the law has been changed, I will deal with that substantially when we debate clause 3, which is in the second group of amendments for this debate on Report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vara]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I shall do as guided by Mr Speaker, as self-defence is not an issue I am dealing with in connection with this amendment.

The Bill does not change the relevant standard of care that applies when a court is considering whether somebody has been negligent or has breached a relevant statutory duty. The court will continue to look at what an ordinary and reasonable person should have done in all the circumstances of the case. The Bill simply requires the court to have regard to the factors in the Bill before reaching a decision on liability. It does not tell the court what conclusions to draw or prevent a person from being found negligent if the facts of the case warrant it.

As I said in Committee, if in a finely balanced case the court considers the factors in the Bill and decides that this should tip the balance in favour of a defendant who had been acting for the benefit of society, demonstrating a generally responsible approach towards the safety of others during an activity or intervening to help someone in an emergency, we would welcome that outcome. It will be for the courts to decide how much weight to give these factors on a case-by-case basis, but we do not consider that there is any risk of the clause being misinterpreted by the courts as somehow granting individuals immunity from civil liability or changing the standard of care that is generally applicable. In that light, the amendment is unnecessary, and I hope that the hon. Member for Hammersmith will withdraw it.

[Mr Slaughter]

I shall not press the amendment to the vote; we can continue our discussion in connection with the second group of amendments. Let me tell the Minister, however, that his explanation has continued to go around in ever-decreasing circles. The two points at the heart of the Bill, raised in a number of interventions, are these. First, is the Minister attempting to change the law or not; and, secondly, is he attempting to fetter the discretion of the judiciary? What he said in respect of the distinction he wishes to make between the Compensation Act 2006 and this Bill suggests that he does wish to do that. Section 1 of that Act says “may”, while this Bill says “must”. If the Minister wants to make that distinction, the only explanation must be that he wants to fetter the hands of the judiciary in dealing with these matters, giving rise to the suspicion that it is entirely inappropriate. However, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 3

Responsibility

[Mr Slaughter]

I beg to move amendment 2, page 1, line 12, leave out “generally”.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 3, page 1, line 13, leave out

“or other interests of others”

and insert “of employees or bystanders”.

Amendment 4, page 1, line 13, at end insert

“in relation to the circumstances leading up to the alleged negligence”.

Amendment 5, page 1, line 9, leave out clause 3.

Amendment 6, in clause 4, page 1, line 17, leave out from “danger” to end of line 18.

[Mr Slaughter]

I will deal briefly at the end with the amendment relating to clause 4. It raises the issue posed by the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) about St John Ambulance and its concerns about the Bill. Amendments 2 to 5 deal with what is effectively the Bill’s only operative clause, clause 3. Again, I make no apology for saying that these amendments were put in Committee.

Amendments 2 to 4 propose ways of improving the drafting of what everyone from the Law Society to legal practitioners and commentators has described as one of the worst-drafted pieces of legislation they have ever seen. Our concern is that clause 3 is drawn very widely. It states:

“The court must have regard to whether the person, in carrying out the activity in the course of which the alleged negligence or breach of statutory duty occurred, demonstrated a generally responsible approach towards protecting the safety or other interests of others.”

That is hedged around with many generalities. What is a “generally responsible approach”? What does the “safety or other interests” of others mean? Our amendment 4 attempts to clarify the clause by adding the words

“in relation to the circumstances leading up to the alleged negligence”.

The Minister was made aware of this point in Committee so I shall not explain it at length, but the purpose of our amendments is to ensure that if material other than that specifically relating to a particular incident is taken into consideration, it should have a direct causal link—through time, location or type—to the incident being complained of. Otherwise, we risk opening up many cans of worms. In relation to an accident at work, for example, the entire conduct of an employer or employee over a long period could be taken into account, as could working practices and conditions, as well as “other interests”, whatever they might be. I suspect that, in trying to keep the ministerial team happy, the parliamentary draftsmen have been scratching their heads and trying to come up with something. Our amendments are meant to be genuinely constructive in trying to improve the drafting of the Bill—if that is possible. But I shall say no more about that.

[Andy McDonald]

Amendment 2 proposes leaving out the word “generally”, in the context of the person who might have difficulty showing that they have demonstrated a “generally responsible approach” towards protecting the safety of others. My hon. Friend has rightly focused on the word “generally”. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) has said that he suspects the Bill will be the subject of derision and confusion if it is enacted as drafted, but is that not already the case?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Slaughter]

At best, the word “generally” adds nothing to clause 3. At worst, it could mean that everything including the kitchen sink is thrown into litigation by defendants who are desperate to show that they are not liable for a particular tort. That could lead to additional costs and complexity, red herrings, satellite litigation and who knows what? I hope that the Minister will at least go so far as to say that the drafting of the clause could be improved. Having said that, I do not think its drafting could be improved; it simply needs to go. I therefore hope that he will agree to amendment 5 and sacrifice the clause. He would be losing only one clause out of the five. I am sure the Bill would be just as good with four clauses as with five.

I will not repeat what I have said in previous debates on the Bill, but the Minister has said at some stages that this is an attempt to change the law. In more candid moments elsewhere, he and the Lord Chancellor have indeed suggested that this is an attempt to skew the balance in personal injury litigation, particularly between employers and employees. An article in The Daily Telegraph has described the proposals as sending a

“blunt message to the trade union officials who bring thousands of negligence cases against employers every year”.

I do not know whether the Minister has ever been a member of a trade union or whether he is familiar with their work, but much of the unsung detailed work that they do on behalf of their members is exactly in this area of assisting with litigation against employers in meritorious cases, just as any other solicitor might do. Personal injury cases are not brought for fun or to make a political point. They are brought because there has been an injury and there is substantial evidence of negligence. We fear that the clause is designed to weaken the ability of those who have suffered injury at work—or elsewhere, but I suspect that it is primarily directed at injury at work—to take their cases to court, and that they will either not be able to bring those cases or will not succeed with them, despite their merit.

[Sir Bob Russell]

Will the shadow Minister join me in congratulating all those involved in producing the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year? An estimated 40,000 lives have been saved in the workplace, and there was not a single fatality during the construction of the Olympic stadium.

[Mr Slaughter]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The Act was a landmark piece of legislation—one of those seminal pieces of legislation—and it could not be more different from this Bill. It has made a cultural change, and has indeed been responsible for saving many hundreds, if not thousands, of lives.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

I am sure my hon. Friend has noticed that a Labour Government introduced the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. Does he agree that this Bill confuses issues of health and safety with issues of negligence? There does not seem to be any real difference that warrants the definition.

[Mr Slaughter]

This Government have already been responsible for full-frontal, across-the board assaults on health and safety in the workplace, from the changes in part 2 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 to the changes in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 in relation to strict liability in breach-of-statutory-duty cases. This is just another of those assaults, but I believe that it is an ineffective attempt. I have confidence in our courts, and I am sure that even if the Bill is passed unamended, the judiciary will treat it with the contempt that it deserves. They will consider the matters that are dealt with in the Bill, as they would have anyway, but they will not give those matters undue consideration because of what is in the Bill, and they will continue to find for meritorious claims and against unmeritorious ones. Of course, it remains the case that if an employee is on a frolic of his own—if he is, as the Lord Chancellor would say, trying it on—the courts will find that out, because that is exactly what the trial process is about. The Bill does nothing but add confusion.

If clause 3 is intended to change the law—no doubt the Minister will clarify that—for whose benefit is it intended to change the law? It seems to me that the Government can only be seeking to bring in extraneous factors which will allow a defendant to deflect from or evade responsibility in negligence and breach-of-statutory-duty cases. The cards are stacked very much in favour of the employer in such cases. The employer controls the accident site, and the employer, directly or through his insurer, has the weight of finance and advice. The employee is often restricted, first, by nervousness about suing his employer; secondly, possibly by his injury; and thirdly, possibly by a lack of income as a result of the incident.

Why would a Government wish to set out to hobble a claimant in that respect other than because some blind prejudice causes them to consider all claims by employees against employers to be unmeritorious? The same motivation led to the 80% decline in employment tribunal cases that has followed the introduction of fees, and the Government have shown the same attitude to health and safety generally in their cuts to the Health and Safety Executive, as a result of which inspection regimes are not what they were, despite the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act. Unless the Minister either agrees to amendment 5 or can, very persuasively, show us that it would not have any material effect, I suspect that we will press the amendment to a vote.

Let me briefly deal with clause 4, about which a number of issues were raised in Committee. We have not sought to bring those up again, but one or two of the interventions were about the definitions of “heroic act” and “hero”, and about other poor drafting. I will not address those points this afternoon but, given the criticism from Members on both sides of the House, it is worth asking the Minister whether he will consider withdrawing the final words from clause 4:

“without regard to the person’s own safety or other interests.”

St John Ambulance has clearly made the point that that is an irresponsible provision. It does not add anything; all it encourages is reckless behaviour likely to put either the putative hero or others engaged in such action at some risk. It is a loose and careless piece of drafting, and the Minister would do himself credit if he simply withdrew it. The brief that St John Ambulance prepared for us not only made that point clearly, but made the point raised by the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell).

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

The one thing the person will not think about when he or she sees something that they could help with is any Bill or legislation. They will think, “I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to help this person.” Whatever we legislate on, we have to make sure that someone who really cares is not inhibited from taking such action.

[Mr Slaughter]

I could not agree more. The hon. Gentleman’s comments undermine the whole purpose of this Bill, which is, supposedly, to exhort the public to do things that they would almost certainly do anyway. I do not think the public need this Bill to be encouraged to volunteer or to be told that they should intervene when situations demand. The practical point, which St John Ambulance makes, is that if there was a much greater emphasis on first aid training and on people being competent to intervene, not only would the outcome of interventions be better, but people would feel more confident about intervening. The evidence shows that the principal reason for non-intervention is that people lack the confidence to know what to do and fear that they may make the situation worse. I do not believe for a moment that people do not intervene because of concerns for their own safety.

[Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that we have to make sure that this is pushed through under Sewel, because although this is English and Welsh legislation, its effects will cover the whole of the United Kingdom?

[Mr Slaughter]

Indeed. The Minister must be picking up, if not from this debate, but from the Bill’s previous stages, that at best there is weariness with more soundbite legislation and littering the statute books—[Interruption.] I believe that the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) has the brief within the Justice team to stop unnecessary legislation across government. He has taken his eye off the ball, because he cannot stop unnecessary legislation in his own Department.

The Under-Secretary must appreciate that criticisms are not coming just from Opposition Members. Although I do not expect him at this stage to abandon the Bill in its entirety, although he might as well put it out of its misery, he could at least take on board some of these sensible and constructive points. I appreciate that they are coming from me and so he might not want to do that, but other Members on both sides of the House have made the point about the wording of

“person’s own safety or other interests”

and about the poor drafting of clause 3.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman on amendment 6, and I would happily vote with him if he put that to a Division. There is support from Government Members, although I fear that as it is coming from me it may fall on the same deaf ears.

[Mr Slaughter]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I listen carefully to everything he says and give it exactly the due weight it should be given. I am very tempted by the thought that we might push our numbers up by one, but I hope that the Minister may give way on this measure and by the time it emerges from the other place the Bill will be improved at least to that extent.

Clause 3 is quite a dangerous provision. We have not voted against the Bill as a whole, because the Bill on the whole does nothing. Clause 3 will be ineffective if it is passed, but its intention is malevolent. It is harmful to good industrial relations and harmful to health and safety in the workplace, and it is a piece of prejudice that this Government and this Minister should know better than to pursue.

[Mr Vara]

As the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) said, the issues were debated at length in Committee; indeed, notwithstanding our very thorough debate on the Bill, three sittings were left spare. Given the track record of the Labour Government, the Opposition’s claim that the Bill is unnecessary is extraordinary.

The hon. Members for Hammersmith and for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) have tabled several amendments in relation to clauses 3 and 4. Let me respond first in relation to amendment 5, which would remove clause 3 from the Bill, and explain why it is important for the clause as a whole to be retained. I will then deal with the other amendments.

Clause 3 provides that a court, when considering a claim for negligence or breach of a relevant statutory duty, must have regard to whether the defendant, in carrying out the activity in which the alleged negligence or breach occurred, demonstrated a generally responsible approach towards protecting the safety or other interests of others.

The core aim of the clause is to provide reassurance to ordinary hard-working people who have adopted a generally responsible approach towards the safety or other interests of others during the course of an activity that the courts will always take that into account in the event of something going wrong and their being sued. We also hope that, by showing them that the law is on their side, the clause will give them greater confidence in standing up to opportunistic and speculative claims.

The need for that measure is amply illustrated by the evidence provided to the Committee by, for example, voluntary organisations and the emergency services. The damaging effects of the fear of litigation on people’s willingness to volunteer, and the propensity of some involved in accidents to bring opportunistic and spurious claims, were emphasised.

I am sure that the House will be surprised and indeed appalled by the example given by the Cheshire fire and rescue service, which has been sued by passers-by who have tripped over hoses being unwound by firemen to extinguish a fire. Those rescue workers were clearly acting in an emergency and their priority was to reach anybody who might be inside a burning building—[Interruption.] Opposition Members may smile and laugh, but that case is absolutely true.

The Government believe that it must be right in such cases to require the courts to take into account the general approach of the defendant towards safety during the course of the activity in question.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vara]

It is not for me or this place to dictate to the courts the decisions that they should come to. It is for us to make the law, and for the courts to take account of all the facts that may apply to that case and come to their decision. That is how the constitution of this country has operated for centuries, and will continue to, as far as we are concerned. The clause says that if a person carries out an activity in a way that demonstrates

“a generally responsible approach towards protecting the safety…of others”,

and, despite their best efforts, something goes wrong and somebody is injured, the court should take full account of the circumstances. That represents a change, in that case law does not currently oblige a court to consider whether a person took a generally responsible approach to safety during the activity in question. I believe that it is a desirable and beneficial change that is both fair and proportionate.

Amendment 3 seeks to limit the effect of the clause to people who have been taking a generally responsible approach to the safety of “employees or bystanders”. The hon. Member for Hammersmith indicated that that was intended to prevent the provision from being interpreted as extending to entirely non-safety-related matters, such as protecting shareholders’ profits.

[Mr Slaughter]

On a point of clarification, if the Minister is saying that there is a change of law in clause 3 because the “generally responsible approach” is not in case law or statute, is he saying that the provisions in clauses 2 and 4 relating to acting for the benefit of society and acting heroically are in case law or statute?

[Mr Vara]

As I said in Committee, where we debated this at length, clause 3 does make a change, for the reasons that I just gave. The purpose of the Bill is twofold. First and foremost, it directs the court to take into account certain factors that, at present, it has discretion to take into account under the Compensation Act 2006. Secondly, it sends the powerful message to members of the public who otherwise may not act in certain circumstances that the law is on their side.

On Second Reading, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) gave the example of a time when she stepped off a bus and saw someone lying on the ground, and was told by people who were standing by that they were worried that they might be sued, and so did not want to do anything, or words to that effect. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) also gave an example: when he, as a first responder, went to places to give people medical attention, others were standing by, saying that they were afraid of legal consequences and were therefore not taking any risks. The legislation sends out a powerful message to the public that the law will be on their side.

We have deliberately drafted the clause broadly so that it focuses on whether the defendant demonstrated a generally responsible approach towards protecting the safety or other interests of others. This ensures that it will be relevant in a wide range of situations and will enable the courts to take account of all relevant circumstances and apply the provisions as flexibly as possible to achieve a just outcome. The clause is not restricted to personal injury claims and could in principle be applicable in relation to other instances of negligence, such as damage to property or economic loss, where issues of safety may not necessarily be relevant. That is why a broad definition has been used.

Narrowing the clause, as the amendment would, would mean that many bodies such as voluntary organisations, religious groups or social clubs which demonstrate a generally responsible approach towards protecting the safety or other interests of their clients or members would not be able to benefit from its provisions. That cannot be right.

Amendment 6 would remove part of the wording in clause 4 which clarifies what is meant by “acting heroically”. Specifically, it would remove the final words of the clause, which refer to acting

“without regard to the person’s own safety or other interests.”

I am grateful to hon. Members for tabling the amendment, as we have been considering the issue carefully in the light of similar representations made by St John Ambulance and the Fire Brigades Union during the Committee stage. St John Ambulance indicated that the wording conflicted with first aid practice that discourages first aiders from putting themselves at risk, and the Fire Brigades Union warned that the clause more generally might conflict with advice to the public not to intervene.

After giving this matter further thought, we remain of the view that the courts will interpret the words

“without regard to the person’s own safety”

in accordance with our intended meaning—that a person acts heroically by intervening to assist someone in danger, regardless of the fact that doing so might risk his or her own safety. The example I used in Committee was of a person who sees somebody struggling to stay afloat in a fast-moving current. That person might jump in to help on the spur of the moment, without first deliberating whether he might be putting his own life at risk.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Garnier]

Not quite that.

Between now and the Bill’s arrival in the other place, I urge Ministers and the very bright lawyers and policy assistants at the Ministry of Justice to have another think about it. At the moment, it is a silly Bill, and I do not like being party to the passing of silly legislation, no matter how well motivated it is. Having said all that, I apologise to my hon. Friend the Minister because he is a decent, honest and great Justice Minister; it is just his bad luck that he was holding the parcel when the music stopped.

[Mr Slaughter]

I will take one of the hints from Government Members—I am not going to encourage more than one vote in relation to these matters. I do not think I can improve on what the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) has said, very gently, but very persuasively and firmly, about this Bill. I can see from the Minister’s demeanour that he is as embarrassed by the Bill as, is almost everybody else in the House.

I do not know whether the Minister has had an opportunity to look at the Law Society’s briefing, and neither do I know whether that briefing is a retaliation for his slightly ill-tempered treatment of the Law Society witnesses in Committee, but it puts the icing on the cake of what we have heard from the hon. and learned Gentleman. It points out that the Bill will impact not only on the matters that we have been discussing but

“on the selling of financial products, on the rights of children in care, on property transactions, on insurance transactions; indeed, an endless list that will include every sector of industry, every area of public activity and every kind of personal interaction outside marriage and criminality.”

It raises the issue of

“how evidence of heroic state of mind will be demonstrated.”

It says that the Bill

“seeks to influence judicial decision-making which the Society believes is inherently wrong.”

Those are very trenchant and well-made criticisms of the Bill.

I am afraid that the more one examines the Bill, the more it seems, notwithstanding the amendments we have tabled, that it is almost irreparable—that it is, as the hon. and learned Member for Harborough said, a silly Bill that it would be better to strangle before it gets on to the statute book.

[Karl Turner]

Is not this shambles of a silly Bill a good example of why the person holding the office of Lord Chancellor should be legally trained?

[Mr Slaughter]

I am not going to go down that route today. The Lord Chancellor does not often grace the House with his presence on Justice Bills any more, or take part in these debates, so it is almost as though he has absented himself from the legal world entirely. We wish him good luck with his future career, whatever discipline he chooses next to address.

I take comfort from the Law Society’s belief that

“the Bill has been poorly drafted and will not prevent meritorious claims being made and won where, in any scenario, negligence and/or breach of statutory duty has been proved.”

The Opposition and, I think, the hon. and learned Member for Harborough are of the view that the Bill will be treated with disdain and polite ignorance by the courts and therefore we do not need to fret too much about it.

I do not intend to press amendments 2, 3, 4 or 6 to a vote. However, because we believe that clause 3—in its intent, if not in its execution—is a harmful, misleading and rather spiteful little clause designed to further attack provisions for health and safety at work, we will press amendment 5 to a vote. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 2.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: 5, page 1, line 9, leave out Clause 3.—(Mr Slaughter.)

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

There has been a consultation of which the local MP is aware, and he, like anyone else, is entitled to give his view in that. We are constantly reviewing the courts estate to ensure that it meets operational needs. If any decisions are to be taken on the hon. Gentleman’s particular court, I hope that he will have been active in making his views heard.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Yesterday, leading counsel told the High Court that the Lord Chancellor was causing

“very serious harm to the…criminal justice system”

and described his modus operandi as

“a caricature of fairness: empty abuses, bluff and bully, divide and rule”.

Beyond the closure of hundreds of courts and law firms and the destruction of legal aid, what else does the Lord Chancellor have in mind to undermine the rule of law, which his oath of office requires him to uphold?

Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). He is right that I will not find the same value in the Bill that he does, but none the less I felt that his speech showed his usual good grace and spirit. He is the archetypal good Samaritan in this respect.

It is all change in the engine room at the Ministry of Justice, though the captain is still there steering manfully for the rocks as ever. [Hon. Members: “Where is he?”] He is rather more like Captain Oates today. I think it showed some disrespect for this House that he did not stay for any speeches, including that of the former Solicitor-General, the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier).

May I, in true bipartisan spirit, congratulate the hon. Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), who is not in his place, on his promotion to the role of senior Law Officer? He will no doubt discharge it with the same calm and rational demeanour that was his hallmark at the Ministry of Justice. Let us hope that he also adopts the robust independence that the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) showed in that post.

I also welcome the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) to the justice team—it is a shame he is not in his place either. I understand that we are getting only a part of him as, along with being an unpaid Prisons Minister and an afterthought in the reshuffle, he will spend part of his time in the Whips Office. Of course it is an unalloyed pleasure to see the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), still in his place.

This Bill has been described as “a turkey”, “a complete waste of time,”

“a solution in search of a problem”

and

“an unnecessary and wholesale interference with the rights of injured people.”

It has been accused of

“shifting the blame to workers when they are injured.”

It is said to be, “an erosion of workers’ rights”, “nonsense” and “gobbledygook”. It is said to cause confusion about

“who is protected from the law and to what degree.”

Surely it has some supporters. Well, no, it does not—not really. The Government pray in aid the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, but the NCVO says it is

“not expected to significantly alter the current law.”

It says it is “classic nudge tactics”. At best, it sends a message and is

“unlikely to be able to do any harm.”

But then that is the Government’s view as well. The explanatory notes say that the Bill would not change the overarching legal framework. The Lord Chancellor himself says it is

“a signpost from Parliament to the Courts.”

Do we really need legislation for that? It is only two stops on the tube to the Royal Courts of Justice. Where are the other representatives of civil society, defendant lawyers and even political allies speaking up for this Bill?

We heard a thoughtful speech from the hon. and learned Member for Harborough, who quietly but effectively proved there is no justification for the Bill. As we have heard, ConservativeHome described it as a Bill that should not be in the Queen’s Speech. The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), is now charged, on behalf of the Lord Chancellor, with weeding out unnecessary laws that clog up the statute book. He could start with this one.

There are only three short operative clauses in the Bill. They instruct a court considering negligence or statutory duty claims to have regard to whether a defendant was acting for the benefit of society, demonstrating a generally responsible approach or acting heroically. The Lord Chancellor claims the Bill will not fetter judicial discretion, but that is all it sets out to do. Fortunately, it is so poorly drafted that it will probably fail in that aim, but it will undoubtedly spark quantities of satellite litigation as the parties seek to define “benefit of society”, “a generally responsible approach” and “acting heroically”.

First, insofar as it is necessary at all, the purpose of the Bill has already been fulfilled by section 1 of the Compensation Act 2006, which states:

“A court considering a claim in negligence or breach of statutory duty may, in determining whether the defendant should have taken particular steps to meet a standard of care (whether by taking precautions against a risk or otherwise), have regard to whether a requirement to take those steps might—

(a) Prevent a desirable activity from being undertaken at all, to a particular extent or in a particular way, or

(b) Discourage persons from undertaking functions in connection with a desirable activity.”

This gives guidance to the court in less ambiguous and florid language than the instant Bill, while retaining discretion. If the Secretary of State disapproves of the Compensation Act, why is he leaving it on the statute book? If he thinks it ineffective, why is he repeating the mistake of legislating in much the same terms? If he thinks it is working, his own Bill must be otiose.

Secondly, the Lord Chancellor has, as usual, adduced no evidence that a new law is necessary. He relies on a survey of 300 people from almost 10 years ago to say that some people are deterred from volunteering by fear of being sued. But the National Council for Voluntary Organisations says only 1% of volunteers stopped because they feared opening themselves up to litigation. Last year, the former Minister for Civil Society, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), issued a press release trumpeting that volunteering was at an all-time high.

Let us look at the problems the Lord Chancellor purports to address in the Bill. The first is:

“the person who holds back from sweeping snow off the pavement outside their house because they are afraid that someone will then slip on the ice and sue them”.

No one, up to and including the Lord Chief Justice, can point to a case of this kind being brought, let alone succeeding. Indeed, the Government’s own website, Direct.Gov.uk, used to host a section debunking the snow and ice myth. It said:

“Don’t be put off clearing paths because you’re afraid someone will get injured. Remember, people walking on snow and ice have a responsibility to be careful themselves. Follow the advice below to make sure you clear the pathway safely and effectively. And don’t believe the myths—it’s unlikely you’ll be sued or held legally responsible for any injuries if you have cleared the path carefully.”

Curiously, this page was recently removed from the site, but we still have the words of the new Attorney-General, who in 2010 said that

“the courts are very unlikely to find the public-spirited domestic snow shoveller negligently liable for any injuries, in the absence of spectacular incompetence.”—[Official Report, 2 February 2010; Vol. 505, c. 171.]

More seriously, the signal that the Government are sending to volunteers in clause 2 is misleading. It implies a lower standard of care is needed by those engaged in altruistic pursuits. Parents may face the fear that if their child is injured on a school trip due to fault with the organisers, they will struggle to get compensation. Parents may well take a dim view that because the negligent organiser failed to use the right safety equipment, they will not receive compensation to help them support their newly injured child. Alternatively, they may boycott the activities the school has arranged. How does that help the school, the parent or the child?

Secondly, the Lord Chancellor bemoans the

“member of the emergency services who feels they can’t come to the rescue of someone in difficulty because of the fear they will end up in trouble for breaching health and safety rules”.

If this is intended to give the green light to anyone, trained emergency service worker or public-spirited bystander, to act with less care and a feeling of impunity, it is dangerous. The emergency services have vast experience of how and when to intervene. As the TUC has said:

“There is not a shred of evidence that there is a problem. The police, fire and ambulance unions have worked closely with their employers and the HSE to develop guidance which ensures health and safety protection is compatible with emergency situations...There is not a case of anyone being prosecuted for trying to save someone in an emergency situation”.

The few, but widely reported, cases of systems breaking down require better training and communication, not legislation. The everyday hero is not put off from helping out in a crisis by fears for his or her own safety, so why would they be by fear of litigation? Yet the Bill will give no more legal protection—so much for clause 4.

Clause 3, while equally vacuous, has a more malign intent. The Lord Chancellor told The Sunday Telegraph yesterday:

“This is a Bill that’s out to…slay the health and safety culture. It is about trying to restore common sense to the kind of situations which happen all too often and very seldom get to court - where somebody has an accident at work, it’s entirely their own fault, they have got a perfectly responsible employer who has the normal health and safety procedures in place but that person does something dumb, hurts themselves and sues the employer anyway.”

In that situation, the court would find against the claimant on liability or quantum. This is a further, though probably ineffectual, attack on the rights of employees, and an attempt to give the whip hand to employers, even in this sensitive area, and to please the Association of British Insurers, whose members are such generous donors to Tory party funds. They hope that claims will be suppressed and individuals driven to self-insure.

Once again, where is the evidence? The number of workplace claims has halved in the past 10 years; more than half of claims are for less than £5,000; and 75% are for less than £10,000. It is a myth that negligence cases are easy to bring, and now that the Government have all but abolished strict liability, who is the stronger party in workplace disputes—the employer, insured and in control of the accident site, or the injured employee, unable to earn their salary and plucking up the courage to sue their boss?

The case for the Bill is not made out. The Lord Chancellor said he did not need a Bill to dismantle criminal aid or embark upon his disastrous privatisation of the probation service, so why does he need one to tackle what has been overwhelmingly proven to be a matter of education, rather than enforcement? The Bill does nothing to tackle the growing crisis in British prisons or the hundreds of thousands of people going unrepresented in the family courts or lacking the most basic advice where social welfare legal aid has been taken out of scope. The Bill addresses none of the damage the Government have done to the criminal justice system.

Rather than stoking unjustified fears, the Government should be tackling the real crisis in our legal system: the steady erosion of our civil liberties and access to justice, which protects the strong and leaves the ordinary citizen without justice or redress.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to this debate, whether with speeches or interventions.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice indicated in his opening speech, the core aim of the Bill is to ensure that people, especially employers, who generally take a responsible approach towards the safety of others during an activity, feel confident that the courts will take full account of this in the event that they are sued. Employers should not be prevented from growing their businesses by irresponsible employees who seek to harm them financially by bringing unfounded negligence claims. The fear of litigation can force businesses to go further than they need to when planning and managing for health and safety risks, which in turn can have a damaging effect on growth. The Bill should reassure employers who adopt a generally responsible approach towards the safety of others during the course of an activity that the courts will always take full account of the circumstances prior to making a decision on liability.

The social action clause is part of a wider package to fulfil a coalition agreement commitment. Figures published last year showed that the proportion of people volunteering at least once a year increased from 65% in 2010 to 73% in 2013. This is due partly to the initiatives that we have been backing to support people getting involved in their local communities. For example, the National Citizen Service programme for 16 and 17-year-olds saw 40,000 young people give more than 1 million hours in 2013 to socially useful activities. The Step Up to Serve initiative, launched last November by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, aims to double the number of young people aged between 10 and 20 participating in social action by 2020. Earlier this year, in April, the Prime Minister launched a new volunteering award called “Points of Light”, which recognises outstanding individual volunteers who are making changes in their community and inspiring others.

Those are only a few of the initiatives that are happening on a local basis all around the country. The commitment that people show to volunteering is something that they and we can be proud of, but we also know that volunteering rates could be increased further if barriers that deter people from getting involved are removed. That is where the Bill has another important role to play. We want people to feel confident about participating in activities that benefit others without worrying about what might happen if something goes wrong and they find themselves defending a negligence claim in the civil court.

The same goes for good Samaritans who might be deterred from intervening to help somebody in an emergency in case they are sued for making the position worse. The perception of legal risk can be a bar to positive action. As the Secretary of State said in his opening remarks, the Bill should provide a valuable reassurance to people who are acting for the benefit of society or intervening in emergencies: that the court will take the context of the person’s actions into account when reaching a decision on liability.

As I have said, I am grateful to those who have contributed to this debate, although I must say that I am somewhat disappointed, but not surprised, by the tone adopted by the Front-Bench spokesmen for Her Majesty’s official Opposition. They ask for examples; I suggest that they need only refer to Hansard to see an example given by their colleague, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), who said in a debate:

“I once stepped off a bus and found a lady lying on the pavement in front of me. There was a group of people around her, but none of them had done anything. Some of them said, ‘I don’t want to be sued.’”—[Official Report, 10 June 2014; Vol. 582, c. 489.]

That is an example from one of their own colleagues, and of course—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) chunters away from a sedentary position, as always. He says that that is the only example, but if he had taken the trouble to read Hansard, he would know that my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) also gave an example from his experience as a first responder.

[Mr Slaughter]

rose—

[Mr Vara]

The hon. Gentleman seeks to come back, having been put in his place. I am happy to give way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Slaughter]

There were two such hon. Members—who have now been mentioned three times—but there were a couple today who took the opposite view, including my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), the former Chairman of the Select Committee on Education. I believe there were 50 Members of the other place who spoke in the debate and not one of them mentioned that issue. This is a turkey of a Bill; the hon. Gentleman ought to admit it.

[Mr Vara]

The hon. Gentleman says I have given two examples. That is two more than the number of times he has repeated the same question, over and over again. I am sorry that he does not like the answer, but he will have to live with it.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) was quite candid in his comments. I have to say that while I respect his distinguished career in the law and his legal brain power, on this issue I will respectfully disagree with him. What we are trying to do is consolidate the measures elsewhere in the statute book in one Bill. Also, as my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary made clear, we are seeking to send out a powerful message to public: that when they do the right thing, the law will take them into account.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who spoke in support of the Bill. As he rightly put it, we should judge the Bill by its content, not by the number of clauses. He asked whether it would be extended to Northern Ireland. That is a matter for the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly, as it is a devolved matter, but I will certainly be following with interest to see what progress is made by the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is comforting that he has put on the record his support for the measure.

We need to be clear that there is nothing in the Bill to stop an employee bringing a negligence claim against an employer. [Interruption.] Clearly the paymasters of the Labour party, the trade unions, have been lobbying it hard, as was abundantly clear from the way Labour Members spoke about their friends in the trade unions. The Bill is not designed to reduce standards of health and safety in the workplace or to leave workers without a remedy where they have been injured by the negligent actions of an irresponsible employer. It will, however, provide valuable reassurance to employers who have taken a responsible approach to safety, but end up in court when, for example, an employee suffers an injury that simply could not have been foreseen by any reasonable person. The Bill will send the powerful message that the courts will always consider the employer’s general approach to safety in the course of the activity in question before reaching a decision on liability.

The courts will, of course, need to consider in every case whether someone was acting for the benefit of society or adopting a generally responsible approach to the safety of others in the course of a particular activity. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) chunters away from a sedentary position. All I will say to him is “Where are your Back Benchers?”