Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Thursday 10th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My right hon. Friend has made her point succinctly. She will understand, though, that if an application comes forward from Heathrow to change the current rules, it would be wrong of me as Secretary of State to pass comment one way or the other at the moment.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has mentioned the Piccadilly line upgrade, but he knows that that—and, indeed, Crossrail—is there to cope with existing and future passenger demand, and not Heathrow expansion. Given that we know that Heathrow, as always, will do nothing to cope with the problems that it causes, what will the Government do when there is this massive increase in passengers, a 50% increase in flights and no capacity on those lines to deal with those?

[Chris Grayling]

Even an expanded Heathrow is forecast to need only 6% of capacity on the Piccadilly line and, as I said a moment ago, we are already moving ahead with western access and starting the process of southern access. I am making provision for a Chiltern route into Old Oak Common, connecting to Heathrow by Crossrail, and HS2 will come to Old Oak Common as part of the first phase of that project. I think we are doing rather a lot to prepare for surface access to Heathrow.

National Policy Statement: Airports

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Monday 25th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I will give way to two more Members who have a particular interest in the issue.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The last time this House took a decision on this matter, in January 2009, the Secretary of State voted against a third runway. Since then the case for Heathrow has got worse on every indicator, whether it is the economic case, the cost to the public purse, the environmental case or the effect on the regions. Why has he changed his mind in the face of all that evidence?

[Chris Grayling]

We commissioned an independent review that asked where we should site new capacity in the south-east of England. The Airports Commission came back with a very clear view. We have studied that view and talked to all those who are promoting individual schemes, and as a Government we believe that this is the right thing to do. We stood on this in our election manifesto last year. I believe it is the right thing to do for Britain.

Airports National Policy Statement

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on that latter point. I am working with HS2 to make sure that provision is made in the development of Old Oak Common to put in those Chiltern line platforms. The Oxford-Cambridge corridor is crucial to the development of our economy. It will need connections into our premier hub, and this is the best way of achieving that.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

This is not even a robust plan for London, and it damages and stunts regional airports. The Secretary of State has given no details about flight paths, and has no coherent plans for air quality, surface access, jobs or controlling public subsidy. He is well known for his reverse Midas touch but, on this issue, should he not listen to the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening)? She said this morning that we need a UK-wide airport strategy, not this expensive and incompetent botch job.

[Chris Grayling]

I know that the hon. Gentleman has a particular view on this proposal, so I did not expect to find him supportive of it. We will work very hard to ensure that the areas affected by expansion are treated as decently as possible and supported by what will be a world-leading package of community support, which I hope will mitigate the impact of this project of national strategic importance.

Airport Capacity and Airspace Policy

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I can absolutely give that assurance. My hon. Friend knows that we are now moving ahead with the development process on the A303. I have made funding available for the next stage of work to develop the right solution to the problems at Dawlish. Of course, the other thing that will benefit the south-west is improved aviation links. Newquay airport, which is a bit further west than his constituency, is one of the regional airports that will benefit from that increased connectivity.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State wants 250,000 extra flights over one of the most densely populated parts of Britain—2 million people live in the area—but he has no concrete proposals for dealing with congestion, noise or air quality. How is he going to deal with diesel and other emissions? What about increased freight, which will go by road, not rail? Does he not know that the increases in public transport are already needed to meet local demand? Is he not just passing the buck to somebody else to solve these problems, and not for the first time?

[Chris Grayling]

No, I am not passing the buck to anyone else. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the plans for improved public transport connectivity around Heathrow, as I described, he will see that Crossrail, HS2, an improved Piccadilly line, the south-west rail access and the western rail access will entail the kind of transformation to access that Heathrow has never seen before. My belief is that, with tight commitments on the airport developers to ensure that they meet their promises, we can deliver this with lower-noise aircraft, a smart compensation package and benefits for the United Kingdom.

Rail Infrastructure (Train Operating Companies)

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The incidence of broken rails is a worrying coincidence, to put it mildly. I am concerned about the number of infrastructure breakdowns in recent weeks. Passengers blame the train company, but often—recently, more often than not—it is an infrastructure problem. That route is suffering intensely from low-level industrial action on non-strike days, and effectively a work to rule has been in force on different parts of that railway for months, which is adding to the intense pressure. I wish the unions would just accept that their members are not losing as a result of the change. They have more job security and better pay than a lot of people in the south-east, and they should get back to work and do the job they need to do for their passengers.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The travelling public support devolution, as do a number of Conservative MPs, council leaders and Assembly Members, and indeed as the Conservative Government did when they signed the joint prospectus with the previous Mayor of London. Is it not just a narrow, petty, political point that the right hon. Gentleman does not want to devolve to a Labour Mayor, who would provide more frequent trains, fewer delays and cancellations, more staff at stations and frozen fares?

[Chris Grayling]

This is the problem with the proposition. The hon. Gentleman says that more frequent trains would be provided, but the Mayor’s business plan did not provide more frequent trains. It provided no extra capacity in peak hours into the stations that serve the Southeastern route, and it would have involved the biggest reorganisation of those routes since the 1920s. My judgment is that, as it does not deliver the more frequent trains the hon. Gentleman describes, we should design the franchise through partnership, rather than upheaval.

Airport Capacity

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 25th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right about the need for a commitment to the south-west of England in particular. I was in the south-west last week. We talk a great deal in the House about transport in the north and transport in the midlands, but I think that we also need to talk about transport in the south-west. There are many projects that are necessary to secure the economic future of the south-west. This project is part of ensuring that there is connectivity with places such as Newquay, and easy access for people such as my right hon. Friend’s constituents. That is why the western rail link must be a good priority for the future.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister was right when she said that the third runway was a bad idea. She may have caved in to the Heathrow lobby, but will the Secretary of State accept that the level of opposition from councils, mainly Tory-controlled, from local communities, and from Members of Parliament—most notably my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell)— means that the chances of the toxic third runway being built are vanishingly small? Will he be sure to keep the Gatwick option open? We are going to need it sooner than he thinks.

[Chris Grayling]

I know how strongly Members in London feel about this decision, but, having listened to Members today, I have a sense that the balance of view around the country is that we need this connectivity because it is in the interests of the whole United Kingdom. As a Government who believe in delivering an economy that works for everyone, we must operate in the interests of the whole United Kingdom, and that is what we are doing today.

Business of the House

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Thursday 7th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman, of course, comes to the issue of Britain’s future outside the European Union from a different perspective from mine, but he highlights how, once we have left, we will be able to do in the future the things that we are constrained from doing now. On Bosman and English football, of course we want to see a new generation of bright young players coming through—and possibly from Rugby, as we heard earlier.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

We learned yesterday about five walk-outs from five separate prisons in the last five months by prison officers who do not feel safe at work. There has been a 30% increase in serious assaults on staff this year. With so much else going on, it is easy to ignore that, but the Leader of House cannot ignore it because he largely caused the problem. Will he get the Justice Secretary, who should have more time on his hands after today, to come and make a statement about why we cannot get right something as fundamental as security and safety in our prisons and the protection of prisoners and prison staff from harm?

[Chris Grayling]

I simply remind the hon. Gentleman that the current structure of staffing in prisons was designed by the Prison Officers Association and the Prison Governors Association three years ago. What we implemented was their advice about how to proceed to staff our prisons.

Business of the House

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Thursday 4th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I absolutely echo that point. I commend the work of the Community Security Trust. This is every bit as much of an issue as the events in Dewsbury last week, which were mentioned earlier. Anti-Semitic racist incitement in our society is utterly unacceptable, and so is incitement of race hatred against any group in our society. All of us in this House should stand against it when we discover it and see it. It is unacceptable and should never be tolerated.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Does the Leader of the House detect any difference between his view of the European convention on human rights—when he was Lord Chancellor, he said:

“We have a treaty right to withdraw…We would exercise that right. There is always a first time for everything”—

and that of the current Lord Chancellor, who said this week that the Government were

“not planning to derogate absolutely from any”

of the ECHR rights? Should we now expect any repeal of the Human Rights Act in this Parliament, or has that vanished with the rest of Leader of the House’s programme when he was at the Ministry of Justice?

[Chris Grayling]

I hate to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but Government Members believe that the Human Rights Act should be replaced. Labour do not. The public support us. Labour are wrong, we are right.

Business of the House

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Thursday 28th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

By curious coincidence, the hon. Lady has been able to make her point directly not just to the Leader of the House, but to the Minister responsible, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Community and Social Care, who is sitting next to me on the Bench. The Government’s negotiations on that have just started. There is plenty of time for representations. We need to get the process right and the Minister has heard the point she made.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

At business questions last week and at Justice questions on Tuesday I asked, without success, for confirmation of the much flagged U-turn on criminal legal aid contracts. That is vital not only to hundreds of individuals and small solicitors’ firms, which risk losing their livelihoods, but to arrested persons getting competent and timely legal advice. I now see that a written ministerial statement on criminal justice is to be published later this afternoon, presumably to spare the Government embarrassment. This is very important. Can the Leader of the House make the Justice Secretary come and give an oral statement on this subject tomorrow or Monday?

[Chris Grayling]

If the Justice Secretary wants to make an oral statement or has a written statement to make, he will do so in good time. I am afraid the hon. Gentleman will just have to wait and see what the Justice Department has to say.

Business of the House

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Thursday 21st January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I know that the county he represents as well as his own area has been affected, and we all want to see continued progress being made in the areas affected by flooding to try to get businesses and homeowners back to normal. He knows that Flood Re was set up as a residential system in the first place, but I can assure him that Ministers are currently in discussions with the insurance industry about how to address precisely the concerns he has raised today.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

May we have a statement on criminal legal aid to clarify whether the Government still intend to go ahead with their disastrous two-tier contracts for criminal solicitors? I realise that the Leader of the House will not welcome a sixth high-profile U-turn on policies he championed when he was Lord Chancellor, but the current chaos is, in the words of the Law Society this week,

“undermining access to justice for the most vulnerable in society.”

[Chris Grayling]

Let me remind the hon. Gentleman that the Law Society endorsed the package in the first place, two years ago. Let me also remind him that we have had to make tough decisions in a variety of areas of government—including legal aid—from 2010 onwards, because we have had to sort out the right royal financial mess that was left behind by the Labour party.

Business of the House

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

May I first extend my good wishes to the hon. Lady and her constituents and commend them for the work they have been doing to mop up after the floods? She is absolutely right: York is a large place and the floods were deeply damaging to parts of the city—but only parts of it. Many businesses were unaffected, and many others have done a sterling job in turning things around quickly and reopening. We should be encouraging people to go into the city to visit, to shop, and to eat and drink, to ensure that its economy flourishes. That is true not only of York but of Carlisle, the centre of Manchester and elsewhere.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Next week, the High Court will hear a judicial review brought by, among others, my constituents Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, who wish to enter into a civil partnership but cannot currently do so, in breach of their article 8 and article 14 rights. We are aware of the Leader of the House’s love of the Human Rights Act—perhaps he will apply for Shami Chakrabarti’s job, given that he will be looking for one soon—but this is a matter for Parliament. Will he find Government time to legislate to allow different-sex couples to enter into civil partnerships?

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman has made this point before, but if this matter is before the courts, it is not appropriate for us to discuss it today. The Government have considered the matter before and they do not currently have proposals to make a change, although Ministers and this House will always keep it under review.

Business of the House

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Thursday 7th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Clearly, that is a matter of local controversy and perhaps one on which the two Members can work together. On the overall rules, the practicality will have to be dealt with at local level, but my hon. Friend will have the opportunity at the next Communities and Local Government questions to raise the duties on local authorities to make people aware of changes.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

On Tuesday the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), told the House that

“there is no agreement on judicial co-operation”—[Official Report, 5 January 2016; Vol. 604, c. 97.]

in the memorandum of understanding between the UK and Saudi Governments, but the Ministry of Justice report to Parliament states:

“The Secretary of State visited Riyadh in September 2014 to sign a Memorandum of Understanding on Judicial Cooperation”.

The Government have refused to publish the memorandum, so may we have a statement to explain that stark contradiction, unless the Leader of the House wishes to do so now, given that it was he, as the then Lord Chancellor, who signed it for the UK?

Business of the House

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Thursday 4th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Extensive support is now available across government for those unfortunate enough to be caught up when a business closes, be that support through Jobcentre Plus or the skills development work done in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be in this House in a couple of weeks’ time. I encourage my hon. Friend not only to raise these issues then, but to go directly to the Department now to make sure that the teams there that can help in these matters are ready and available when the change comes.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House’s views on human rights law and conventions are at least clear—he is against them. But could he clarify the Prime Minister’s view, which has moved this week from support for the European convention on human rights—reportedly—to now contemplating leaving it? In the absence of a Bill, may we have an early statement or debate so that we can explore the full range of the Tory party’s views on this matter?

[Chris Grayling]

The Conservative party’s policy on human rights has not changed since last October. What we do not know is where the Labour party stands, because it says it wants to defend the human rights legal framework as it is, yet on prisoner voting Labour Members will line up to say that they do not want to give votes to prisoners. Those two things are not compatible and Labour needs to decide where it stands, because at the moment it is all over the place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

So far, there has been an increase in the number of litigants in person. Of course, we have always had litigants in person in our courts. We continue to monitor the situation closely. The Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), is working hard to look at additional ways of smoothing the processes that people have available to represent themselves. None the less, progress in our courts has so far continued pretty well.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State’s third attempt to introduce a new contract for criminal legal aid is now stalled in the High Court and looks dead. Will he join the shadow Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), in burying it? Will he work with the legal profession to devise a model that does not put hundreds of high street solicitors’ firms out of business and lead to more miscarriages of justice? Or is this just like prisons, probation and the Courts Service—another of the policy car crashes he is leaving to an incoming Labour Government to sort out?

[Chris Grayling]

The one thing we can always guarantee at these sessions is to hear a load of nonsense from the hon. Gentleman. I have listened carefully to Labour Members’ arguments over the past few months. They oppose when it is politically convenient to do so, but they have absolutely no idea what they would do in our place—and that is why the electorate are not going to give them the chance.

Social Action, Responsibility and Heroism Bill

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Monday 2nd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I welcome the return of the Bill to the House so that we can consider the amendments made in the Lords. I have listened carefully and with interest to the debates as the Bill has made progress and I must say that I have been amused by the position taken by Her Majesty’s official Opposition, who have been vociferous in saying that the Bill is pointless and meaningless. When it arrived in the other place, however, they campaigned vigorously against the clause on responsibility. You will understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, that if it is meaningless there is not much point in campaigning against it. The Bill is not at all meaningless. It has a purpose in protecting employers, particularly smaller employers, against the compensation culture and it will, I believe, make a significant difference. If it made no difference at all, why on earth did the Opposition try to strike out the clause? We know that the real reason the Opposition did not vote against the Bill is that they know that it addresses the genuine worries that ordinary people have about the growth of the compensation culture, which they talked about while in government and have conveniently forgotten about.

As hon. Members will recall, the Bill is designed to reassure hard-working individuals and organisations who have demonstrated a responsible approach to safety, who have been acting for the benefit of society or who have intervened in emergencies, that the courts will always take the context of their actions into account when determining whether they have been negligent. In spite of the negative comments about the Bill from the Opposition and in the other place, I am glad that the Bill returns to the House with only two modest changes.

Let me turn to the detail of the changes. Both were Government amendments tabled in response to concerns raised about specific aspects of the drafting and I ask the House to agree with them. Amendment 1 is to clause 3, on responsibility, and amendment 2 is to clause 4, on heroism.

On amendment 1, when clause 3 left this House it provided that the court should consider whether a person had demonstrated a “generally responsible” approach towards safety during the course of an activity in which an act of negligence was alleged to have occurred. The Opposition said that that would erode the rights of workers to sue their employers following injuries suffered in the workplace. On report, for example, the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) said that the clause was designed to

“allow a defendant to deflect from or evade responsibility in negligence and breach-of-statutory-duty cases.”—[Official Report, 20 October 2014; Vol. 586, c. 689.]

On Second Reading in the other place, Lord Kennedy of Southwark added that

“the legislation could worsen the position of workers.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 4 November 2014; Vol. 756, c. 1570.]

Those assertions are entirely without foundation.

I want to make it clear that the Bill will not stop irresponsible employers from being found negligent when the circumstances of the case warrant it or stop the courts considering all relevant factors when reaching a decision on the claim. It is simply about ensuring that the courts take a common-sense approach to considering claims brought against hard-working owners of small businesses and others by considering their overall approach to safety in the course of the activity in which an accident occurred.

Although amendments proposed in the other place that would have undermined the main policy objectives of clause 3 were not carried, we agreed to one amendment designed to improve the clarity of the clause—namely the replacement of the word “generally” with the word “predominantly”. We made that amendment following concerns that were raised about possible uncertainty over the meaning of the term “generally responsible” arising from the fact that the word “generally” is capable of bearing a range of definitions.

Lords amendment 1 helps to provide greater clarity. The word “predominantly” is a stronger and clearer term than the word “generally” and, on reflection, better achieves our policy aims. It makes it clearer that a body or individual who takes a slapdash approach to safety on a particular occasion cannot escape liability merely by pointing to a previously unblemished health and safety record. Instead, it makes it clear that, if a hard-working individual such as the owner of a small business is doing his best to keep people safe and something goes wrong in spite of his best efforts, the courts will always consider whether his approach to safety during the activity in question was a predominantly responsible one.

That is the key point. That is why we introduced the Bill and why clause 3 will make a difference. It will provide greater protection to an employer who seeks to do the right thing and to look after his or her employees, and something goes wrong that could not have been foreseen. Of course, the Labour party, in hock as it is to the trade unions, immediately assumes the worst and immediately wants to do down the small business person. That is a sign of the way the Labour party has gone in the past few years. It has moved away from being sympathetic to the interests of small business and instead is back to the days of union domination and saying, “Let’s back the workers.” This is a responsible, balanced measure that ensures that those people who are genuinely wronged retain their legal redress, but that the law is on the side of the responsible employer who seeks to do the right thing.

Lords amendment 2 relates to clause 4, on heroism. As hon. Members will recall, the clause requires the court to consider whether a person was intervening heroically in an emergency when the negligence is alleged to have occurred. We know from polls carried out by St John Ambulance and the British Heart Foundation that worries about liability can deter people from intervening to help others in emergencies. That is something we should all be concerned about, and the clause is designed to give people greater reassurance that the law will be on their side in those circumstances.

We debated a proposed amendment that emanated from St John Ambulance. I listened carefully to the arguments set out by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) and my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). After we passed the measure, I did as I undertook to do and went away and thought carefully about the measure. I listened to debates in the Lords and decided there was no reason not to accept the St John Ambulance recommendation and the recommendation made by my hon. Friend and my hon. and learned Friend. I hope they accept that we made the amendment in the good spirit of trying to get the measure absolutely right.

When clause 4 left this House, the meaning of “heroism” included a requirement that the defendant must have been acting

“without regard to his or her own safety or other interests”.

My hon. and learned Friend and my hon. Friend questioned whether the drafting of the clause might inadvertently exempt some very brave people who intervened in emergencies only after considering the risk to themselves and others. Initially, we thought it would be unlikely for the courts to interpret the clause in that way. However, in the light of the concerns raised on that point by St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross, and after discussions with those organisations and after considering the comments made in debates in the House and the other place, we decided that, to avoid any possible misinterpretation, the simplest solution would be to omit from the clause the reference to acting

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

That means that it will be absolutely clear that the clause applies in any case where a person intervenes in an emergency to assist somebody in danger, irrespective of whether he or she acted entirely spontaneously or after carefully weighing up the risks. The amendment has been greeted warmly by St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross, which have said that they will use the opportunity that the Bill provides to encourage and reassure new first aid volunteers that the law is on their side.

That is what the Bill is all about. It is about saying to three groups of people seeking to do the right thing in our society that the law is on their side—people acting heroically, people acting in the interest of others, and people acting responsibly, particularly employers taking a responsible approach to health and safety matters in their own workplace. For many years in this country, we have faced a compensation culture. The Government have sought to make a number of changes to combat that compensation culture. We have made changes to the way in which legal fees are paid, and we have made changes to the way in which the rules apply. The Bill will add to a positive step forward. [Interruption.]

The fact that Opposition Front Benchers are sitting chuntering is, to my mind, a sign that they really do not care about tackling the compensation culture in this country. They do not care about the interests of small employers, and they do not care about people who are seeking to do the right thing. They are interested only in looking after the vested interests that provide them with their finance and backing. It is a sign of what divides this Government from the Opposition. It is a sign that this Government are on the side of hard-working people and people who seek to do the right thing. Opposite we have a party that simply represents vested interests and does not care about such things. That is why Labour Members have sought to challenge the Bill all the way through. The argument that the Bill was meaningless followed by the attempt to strike out parts of it completely undermined what they said and showed how bankrupt their current thinking is.

The two amendments make a helpful improvement to the Bill. I hope that the House supports them, and that the Bill can pass into law. I hope we send the clear message to those people that this Parliament is on their side.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I do not often feel compassion for the Lord Chancellor, but even he must have approached the Chamber this afternoon with how sad steps. Today, on the heels of the dismissal of the chief inspector of prisons comes the resignation of the conflicted chief inspector of probation, and so, on the first full day of probation privatisation, we have no one in charge of standards in the service.

The Lord Chancellor is scattering confidential data around like confetti, he appears to have changed at whim the burden of proof in criminal cases, and this afternoon, one of his favourite private contractors, Capita, was fined £16,000 by the president of the—

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

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.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The contract was awarded through the Cabinet Office as a result of a proper procurement process, and appropriate legal advice was taken.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

A total of £56 million has been wasted by this Government, rewarding failure, as my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, by one of the Secretary of State’s pet foreign private providers while offshoring hundreds of jobs to India. Why does he not face up to his responsibilities? He is right about one thing: as recently as February he told my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark):

“I have a track record of saying that I do not believe in offshoring UK jobs”.—[Official Report, 4 February 2014; Vol. 575, c. 131.]

He is saying one thing and doing another.

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman clearly wrote that question before I answered the previous ones. Let me be clear again: the difficult decision that we had to take about the write-off was taken about a project launched by the previous Labour Government. As I said a moment ago, my position on offshoring has not changed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I have indeed discussed legal aid funding pressures with my counterpart in Northern Ireland, who said to me that he faces similar challenges in balancing a tough budget. The reality is that we all face difficult financial challenges and we sometimes have to take difficult decisions to meet them.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is taking legal aid from vulnerable people and imposing a residence test that would not have been met by the women at Yarl’s Wood detention centre sexually assaulted by guards, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Gurkhas refused entry to the UK, or care home residents such as those in Winterbourne View or on the recent “Panorama” programme. Which of those would he be most proud to leave without help or representation?

[Chris Grayling]

Of course, these changes do not affect the support we provide at inquests. My challenge to the Opposition is this: they have yet to give us any clear answers on how they would bring down the cost of legal aid. They campaigned at the previous general election for reductions in legal aid costs. They continue to oppose the difficult changes we have made, but offer no alternative suggestions.

Criminal Procedural Rights (Opt-in Decision)

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Slaughter]

That is the purpose of this speech, if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me. In relation to the draft directives on children’s rights and legal aid, the insurmountable hurdles that apply to the presumption of innocence directive do not apply. The difficulty we have tonight relates to some important questions, such as what will the cost be; what are the implications for UK legislation, meaning what would have to change; how far are they necessary harmonising measures; and how far do they fall into the same trap as the presumption of innocence draft directive, meaning how far do they exhort us to do something, rather than actually harmonising. It is quite difficult to say.

Let me explain what I mean. If we look at the very belated letter from the Government on the cost of these measures, we see that, in relation to the draft directive on safeguarding children’s rights, it is estimated that transporting 17-year-olds after being charged to local authority accommodation for overnight detention would cost £2.1 million. A breakdown of that figure shows that an estimated additional 5,200 places in local authority accommodation would be required each year in England and Wales, at a cost of approximately £395 a day for each 17-year-old suspect. With all due respect to the Lord Chancellor, those figures look as though they have been drawn up on the back of a fag packet. They were dreamt up at the last minute because the Committee was quite rightly pressing the Department to come up with a decision and some reason for it.

With regard to legal aid, as my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) pointed out, we are told that the net monetised discounted cost impact of the article over a 10-year appraisal period, if we opt in to the directive, is estimated to be between £1.5 million and £5 million, with a main estimate of around £2 million. That would equate to an undiscounted cost of approximately £200,000 per annum. Again, it looks as though—I think the Lord Chancellor effectively admitted this—we comply with those proposals. There would not be a great cost in opting in, but it is best to “big it up” and make it look worse than it is. I am afraid that I just do not trust what is in those documents.

[Chris Grayling]

My main concern about these measures, as I have said, is the fact that opting in to them would mean passing over jurisdiction to the European Court of Justice. Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House whether his party thinks that it is appropriate for the European Court of Justice to have sway in areas such as legal aid? He seems to be saying that it is not a big deal. Does he accept that the European Court of Justice should not have sway, or does he think that it should?

[Mr Slaughter]

I do not accept the argument that everything that comes out of Brussels is necessarily evil or inimical to the interests of this country, which appears to be the bizarre position that the Lord Chancellor has painted himself into. Uncharacteristically, we will sit on our hands tonight in relation to two of the draft directives. To answer his question directly, I do not rule out any future opt-in, as of course the Government do not in relation to the directive on access to a lawyer, because I understand that their position is that they still might opt in. Even with the spin that he has put on it, I understand that for at least one of the draft directives there is a possibility that negotiations will lead to an opt-in. I welcome that pragmatic approach. It is a conservative approach, but it keeps the door open, rather than taking the radical approach that the Lord Chancellor would like to be seen to be taking.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I might be a bit old-fashioned, but I do not think that we should give civil legal aid to people who have just arrived in the country. However, I recognise some of the issues raised in the consultation and I have listened. The change with regard to very young children under 12 months old was specifically requested by people in the judiciary. I listened and I introduced it.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

One group particularly badly hit by the Government’s restrictions on access to justice are mesothelioma sufferers. The Secretary of State has not carried out the review that he promised in order to get the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 through. He continues to confuse funding for mesothelioma with the Mesothelioma Bill, even though there is no connection. He has not even answered the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) asked at the previous Justice questions, which he promised to do. Why is he making people who suffer from that terrible disease pay 25% of their compensation in lawyers’ fees and then telling them to shop around? When will he give justice to mesothelioma sufferers?

[Chris Grayling]

Of course this is not a new problem, and in many areas we are picking up on things that were not done by the previous Government. We will bring forward a further consultation on these issues shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We will continue to try to ensure that we provide the right financial balance. Most senior members of the Bar mention the number of people training as barristers compared with the number of pupillages available, as that represents a huge challenge for the legal profession. The Government will continue to work to achieve the right balance, but under our proposals for criminal legal aid, in normal routine Crown court work the lowest daily amount we will be paying is £225 plus VAT.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State agree with the former chairman of the Criminal Bar Association who commented this weekend that for the Secretary of State to hold a “global law summit” to celebrate Magna Carta, while destroying access to justice through his legal aid policy, and access to human rights by his threats to repeal the Human Rights Act 1997 and withdraw from the European convention on human rights, is “hypocrisy” that “beggars belief”?

[Chris Grayling]

Everyone has a right to their opinion, and I think that that is complete hogwash. It is absolutely right and proper that this country should celebrate a profession that makes a huge contribution to this country and its economy. We should celebrate our long legal traditions and we will do so proudly in 2015. That does not mean that we do not have to take tough financial decisions to clear up the mess that Labour left behind.

[Mr Slaughter]

The right hon. Gentleman has never been a big fan of the Criminal Bar Association—that might be reciprocated—but does he agree with the president of the Supreme Court, who last week said that legal aid:

“ensures that the most underprivileged people in society, the people who need the protection of the law most…get a proper hearing”

and that

“legal aid cuts therefore do cause any person concerned with the rule of law worry”?

[Chris Grayling]

That is precisely why, despite taking the tough financial decisions, we are ensuring that anybody who cannot afford it, if they are arrested and charged with a crime, will always have access to a qualified lawyer, and qualified barrister if they need one, to provide them with a proper defence, according to the traditions of Magna Carta.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am very concerned to pursue that. I am aware of the issues that my hon. Friend mentions. It may well be down to the fact that there was a surge in cases prior to the legal aid changes that came into effect in April, but I can give him an assurance that this is very much on my radar, and I intend to pursue it.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Last week, the Lord Chancellor was telling some of the 16,000 respondents to his legal aid consultation that their responses had been automatically deleted, but he must have read some of them, as they provoked his embarrassing U-turn on choice of solicitor yesterday. Will he now also U-turn on forcing small firms out of business and on giving cash incentives for guilty pleas, and will he abandon the further cuts in civil legal aid that will, according to the Parole Board among others, cost several times the £6 million he claims they will save?

[Chris Grayling]

Labour Members really do not get it, do they? Government Minister consults on proposals, listens, makes some modifications, and gives an early decision to help people, so they are not attacking proposals that have changed. Labour Members never listened to anybody when they were in government; they just ploughed ahead regardless.

The hon. Gentleman is the person who said, in 2011, that the Government should look for

“efficiencies in the criminal legal aid system,”

to

“save…money”.—[Official Report, 2 November 2011; Vol. 534, c. 958-9.]

We are now doing that; they have changed their minds. It is shambolic.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

It certainly brings competition to bear. We are trying to take tough decisions on legal aid in a way that, where possible, impacts on the top end, not the bottom end, of the income scale. That is what we believe in, and I am surprised that Labour Members appear to disagree with us.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Has the Secretary of State read his interview with the Law Society Gazette this week? I would not blame him if he had not, because it is a bit of a car crash. Does he stand by the passages where he says that he has no evidence of a lack of public support for legal aid but has received “lots of letters”, where he is “unsure” where £160 million of Department spending has gone, and where he defends taking away a choice of solicitor because

“people in our prisons and…courts come from the most difficult and challenged backgrounds”

and are not

“great connoisseurs of legal skills”?

[Chris Grayling]

Not surprisingly, I do stand by interviews I give. We are now three years into this Government and Labour Members have no answers to any of the challenges we face. We have big financial issues to deal with and we need to create a system that is affordable. They have no alternative suggestions about how to do that.

[Mr Slaughter]

The Justice Secretary has one answer: payment by results.

Last Friday, the Justice Secretary was forced to investigate alleged overpayment to G4S and Serco on the tagging contracts. Today the Financial Times is reporting that he has suspended outsourcing prison contracts to Serco, Sodexo and Amec. Should not he review all current contracts with the chumocracy of private firms who get the MOJ’s shilling, including Capita’s disastrous running of the interpreters contract, and should not he suspend plans to hand out another £500 million of probation contracts to more of the cosy cartel?

[Chris Grayling]

Sometimes Labour Members are breathtaking. I am not going to say much to the House today about the investigation that we are carrying out into the tagging contracts; I will provide that information in due course. I simply say to Opposition Front Benchers that the contracts we are investigating date back to 2005 and were signed and put together by the previous Government.

Rehabilitation of Offenders

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Thursday 9th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement—it is generous of him to share his thoughts with the House on this important subject so soon after briefing the national media. He is right that one of the best ways to cut crime, the number of victims and the cost of our criminal justice system is by tackling reoffending. It is disappointing that it has taken the Government three wasted years to reach that conclusion, but we welcome the intent of today’s announcement.

Reoffending rates are too high. We started to reduce them when we were in government—especially the rate of youth offending, which breaks the cycle of reoffending at an early point—but much more needs to be done. This is an ambitious programme. Unfortunately, it is based on fewer resources, on untried and untested methods and on putting faith in exactly those private sector organisations that have failed to deliver other major public sector contracts.

Let us take the proposal for support for everyone leaving prison—an extra 45,000 offenders on the Secretary of State’s figures. Can he explain to the House whether that is an uncosted demand for more resource or whether existing moneys will be spread much more thinly to deliver it? Resettlement prisons, as he said, represent a major restructuring of the prison system. What is the cost of that restructuring and what additional resources will go into preparing offenders for release? He knows that the prison estate is still chronically overcrowded and understaffed, so does he seriously think that a reorganisation can take place against such a backdrop? In London there is a major shortage of prison places, which means that offenders from London often end up housed hundreds of miles away from home and family, so how is resettlement to work here?

On release, even those who have served the shortest sentences are promised a year’s supervision and support with addiction, housing and employment. Who will pay for that at a time when drug treatment centres are closing? Housing is perhaps the most expensive item for newly released prisoners. On the “Today” programme, the Secretary of State speculated that housing associations would help out, so during the worst housing shortage for a generation are ex-offenders to get priority for social housing?

Who will fund the army of mentors, and who will vet them to ensure that the right people mentor offenders? The probation service has been cut by almost 10% so far and those cuts will continue. The service, which received an award for excellence two years ago, is by definition not to blame for rising reoffending by short-sentence prisoners, because they are currently unsupervised. However, it is not probation officers who will now undertake 70% of the supervision. The Justice Secretary places a great deal of faith in reformed old lags helping out, but he admitted on the “Today” programme that they will have to be paid. Professional probation officers sacked and replaced with ex-offenders: is this the Justice Secretary’s brave new world?

In reality, it is the Secretary of State’s old friends Serco, G4S and the rest of the cartel who will profit from today’s announcements. The 21 contracts are too large for smaller providers. An extra £500 million of public contracts are going to the people who gave us the Work programme and security at the Olympics. Now he is to impose his untested and untried payment-by-results methods on probation. Perhaps most seriously, a dangerous chasm will open up between public and private providers on the basis of an offender’s risk level, taking no account of the fact that in 25% of all cases offenders move between risk levels. Therefore, contrary to his assurance, private firms will be in charge of the most serious criminals, and we genuinely fear that that will put the public at risk. Failures in delivering probation services even to medium-risk offenders will mean that those guilty of domestic violence, burglary, robbery, sexual offences and gang activity will walk our streets unsupervised. Regardless of whether private sector providers deliver, they will still get paid at least 90% of the money. Do they have the incentive or the skills to supervise dangerous and violent people in the community?

Reducing reoffending while maintaining public safety should be our twin priorities. A focus on reoffending is to be welcomed, but the Government’s ill-thought-out policies and total reliance on payment by results are putting at risk the safety of communities up and down the country.

[Chris Grayling]

I plead guilty to having done a couple of media interviews this morning, but I am at least in the House right now. My opposite number, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), also gave some media interviews this morning but has not made it to the House, which is rather a surprise to me.

We learned an important lesson in opposition, which is that sometimes when one aspires to be a Government it is necessary to accept that something is the right thing to do. That is a lesson that today’s Opposition have not learned. I do not understand why they are coming out with this faux anger about what we are doing when the legislative foundations that enable us to push through these reforms were passed by the previous Labour Government. If they supported the concept then, why do they not support it now?

The hon. Gentleman asked about costs. That highlights an important difference between us and the previous Government. They believed that a problem would be solved by throwing money at it, and they ended up with an over-bureaucratic, over-complex system which simply did not deliver. Thanks to the work done by the Select Committee, we know that probation officers spend only about a quarter of their time at work on supervising offenders, while about 40% of their time is spent on providing support services. Are the Opposition really saying that it is not possible to run that system more efficiently and deliver support where it is needed to the offenders who are most likely to reoffend when they leave prison? Again, there is a divide between us and them. They think it is a question of spending more taxpayers’ money and having higher taxes; we want to get better value from the taxes that we already raise.

On resettlement prisons, again, it is about making our system work more effectively. At the moment, we move far too many prisoners all over the country in a fairly haphazard way. Over the past few months we have worked with prison governors and prison officer teams to work out a better way so that short-sentence offenders will almost always stay in one place and longer-sentence offenders will go to a prison close to where they will be released to ensure that when they are released we can deliver continuity of support through the prison gate. The Opposition should welcome that. It is the right thing to do and it should have been done years ago.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the past three years. It is only a few months since the Opposition were attacking me for not undertaking pilots on this issue. In fact, for the past few years we have been looking at how such a system would work, in Peterborough prison and in Doncaster prison. The work that has been done there is first-rate. It has also shown how effective older prisoners who are turning their lives around can be in supporting and mentoring younger offenders who have yet to do so. The hon. Gentleman needs to go out and look at what is happening, not in the world of big businesses, which his party’s Government contracted with regularly, but in the voluntary sector with some of our first-rate charities, where there are living examples of former offenders who have gone straight and who are now helping to turn around the lives of the next generation of offenders. I want to capture those skills in helping to bring down reoffending.



The hon. Gentleman questioned payment by results, but why is it such a bad thing in the eyes of the Opposition? They want to pay a whole-contract fee, but I believe that we should pay part of a fee based on whether the taxpayer gets a good deal or not. We should pay not unconditionally, but conditionally, and that is what we will do under these contracts. I want to pay for real results that bring down reoffending and crime.

Under the previous Government, reoffending barely changed. We ended up with a situation in which people were going round and round the system. We finally have a set of proposals that will start to change that. It is shame that this did not happen, not three years ago, but 13 years ago, when the Labour party was in power.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the things that I have found most surprising about the system that we currently operate is that we do not currently provide all-round support for those who get sentences of less than 12 months. A central part of our reforms is to change that. It is this group who have the highest propensity to reoffend. It is simply not acceptable that we continue not to provide them with the same level of support as longer-sentenced prisoners when they leave jail.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I do not know whether the Secretary of State has looked at the National Audit Office’s response to his consultation. It says that, in the Work programme, the majority of providers were big private companies. It also says that it is likely that the most difficult, prolific offenders will not be picked and that there will be cherry-picking. So despite his warm words, does he not think that this is going the same way as his failed Work programme? Is he intending to have moved on before this fails as well?

[Chris Grayling]

I hate to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but the Work programme is succeeding in getting very large numbers of people into work, and is delivering much better value for the taxpayer than the programmes that we inherited from the previous Government. The truth is that the National Audit Office has contributed some valuable thoughts to our preparations for this exercise. I have listened to its contributions, as I will listen to all contributions, and we will deliver the most sensible, rounded package, particularly one that ensures that no one is left at the fringes of the system and that we provide rehabilitation and support to all offenders.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Inevitably, we cannot avoid considering all the financial issues that face the Department. We are focusing on delivering the changes that we must soon introduce on civil legal aid; a number of measures need to come before this House in the next few weeks. That, for now, is our prime focus.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

To avoid a 12th defeat in the other place on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, the Secretary of State’s predecessor promised this House that he would not cut legal aid at first-stage appeal in welfare benefits cases if a point of law were involved. The proposals finally brought forward were so inadequate that two weeks ago their lordships voted them down and told him to come back with something better. Now we hear that the Secretary of State, in a fit of pique, intends to do nothing at all. Why is he breaking a promise to Parliament and to some of the most destitute and vulnerable people in the country?

[Chris Grayling]

As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, we have promised to consider the decision by the Lords. I was a little surprised to see the rather unusual step taken in the other place of voting down a statutory instrument that was granting a concession, but we will of course review the issue and decide how to proceed.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Tuesday 21st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Slaughter]

As always, the hon. Gentleman is right on this issue.

The point has been made by those on my Front Bench many times that we are talking about people’s homes. This proposal is cynical not only because it runs completely in the face of Government policy in every other area, which is to reduce affordability and the quantum of available social housing, but because it is about persecuting people in social tenancies and making them feel that their home is no longer their own. For that reason above all, I urge the House to support the Labour Front Bench in supporting the Lords amendment.

[Chris Grayling]

I will probably not be able to cover all the questions that have been raised, but I shall pick out some of the key points.

The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) made a passionate defence of the spare room, referring back to the days of Macmillan and to the principles of the welfare state. I know that he is often a champion of welfare reform, and I listen carefully to what he says, but I find it difficult to justify maintaining 1 million spare rooms in the social rented sector when large numbers of families are living in temporary accommodation and in accommodation that is too small for them. I do not believe that the spare room is a luxury that the social rented sector can afford at the expense of children living in temporary rented accommodation. Fundamentally, that is what this change is about.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Chris Grayling

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I have said, we have to seek to replicate the realities of working life as closely as possible in the benefits system. If we are paying for people to live in a part of town that they could not afford to live in if they were in work, we are trapping them in a way that will prevent them from getting back to work.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

More than 1,000 households in my borough will be affected, as in that of the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field). Does the Minister realise the implications of what he is saying? It is easy to score political points, but more than 1,000 children will be taken out of their communities and sent not necessarily to other parts of London but to other parts of the country. That is happening now, and the Minister is complacent about it. Is he prepared to see the dislocation of whole communities in order to make a political point?

[Chris Grayling]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is simply out of touch with the reality of what is happening in our country. He talks about the impact of the cap on children. But children are already having their life chances and opportunities damaged by growing up in households and communities in which no one is working. That is what we are seeking to change. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, said last week:

“If we cannot make the rewards of hard work more appealing than a life spent on the dole then we will have failed a generation of children.”

That is the reality that we face today and it is why we seek to change the way in which our welfare state operates. The Government clearly have the support of the British people on the cap. If we do not reject the Lords amendment, the public will not understand why. This is a reform that is long overdue and the Government are determined to deliver it.