Nationality and Borders Bill

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

We have had a lively debate, and I want to pay tribute to the many excellent speeches made on this side of the House. On the issue of the broken asylum system, I want to thank colleagues including my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) and my hon. Friends the Members for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) and for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), who all spoke about the length of time it takes to process claims.

On the need for safe routes, I want to thank colleagues including my right hon. Friends the Members for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), my hon. Friends the Members for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) and for Edmonton (Kate Osamor), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for pointing out the need for those routes.

On the issue of the two-tier system, which penalises asylum seekers in breach of the 1951 refugee convention, I want to thank colleagues including my hon. Friends the Members for York Central (Rachael Maskell), for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood), for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley), for Jarrow (Kate Osborne), for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter), for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), for Newport West (Ruth Jones), for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) and for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who also spoke about Einstein’s experience during the 1930s when he was a refugee here.

On the issue of strong support from the community for refugees, I want to thank my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake), for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), who spoke about their cities of sanctuary and their community groups that are ensuring that there is support for refugees in their communities.

As many hon. Members have mentioned, next week marks the 70th anniversary of the refugee convention. I am proud of the leading role that the UK played in coming together with our international partners in the aftermath of the second world war to offer refuge to people seeking sanctuary here and across Europe, and to help to rebuild a shattered Europe. That legacy goes hand in hand with the British values of fair play, decency and respect for international law, but this Bill steps back from that agreement and once again further diminishes the UK’s international standing in the world. It is a dangerous, draconian, dog-whistling piece of legislation. It threatens those values, it is ill conceived and it is being rushed through for media headlines rather than getting to grips with our broken asylum system.

The basis of the Bill was the Government’s consultation, the “New Plan for Immigration”. The consultation was meant to inform the Government and help to shape policy, but as yet we have not been told what the responses to the consultation said and we have not seen the Government’s response to the consultation. Instead, we have this rushed Bill. Like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, the Bill is a case of sentence first, verdict afterwards. That is how the Government want to treat asylum seekers: criminalising them first and checking their claims later.

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has said twice that the Bill was rushed, but we are now at the end of the second day of debate on Second Reading. This is extremely rare, in my short experience in this House. How many days of debate would he want before he would say that it was not rushed?

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Member misunderstands me. It is the process of the Bill getting here that has been rushed, not the debate we have had today.

There is also no impact assessment accompanying the Bill. We have no idea how much it will cost or what the overall impact will be.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

The Bill has seven placeholder clauses—something I have never seen before—so the House will not see what the Government are up to until the Committee stage where most Members will not take part.

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point.

Less than a week ago, we had hon. Members rightly berating the Minister for Care, screaming blue murder at her failure to produce an impact assessment for the health and social care regulations. Where are those howls today? Not a word. I dare not ask about the legal advice that was sought to formulate this Bill, but if there was an Olympic event for legal gymnastics, it would definitely win a gold medal.

The Bill is riddled with holes. It is fatally flawed and it will not work. It will not work because of the glaring omission of the lack of bilateral agreements with France and other EU countries. Conservative Members can huff and puff all they like, but it should begin to dawn on them that without any such agreements the Bill will not work and it will not stop any channel crossings.

[Aaron Bell]

If France will not take people, does the hon. Gentleman agree with the proposal in the Bill that we find a safe third country that is willing to take them—we may have to pay it—and they can be processed over there? It worked in Australia and it saved thousands of lives.

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Member is running roughshod over international law. I would be interested to see which third countries would be interested in taking people. If there were such third countries, I am sure the Minister would have introduced them today.

Many colleagues have spoken about the broken asylum system, but let us be clear about who broke it. The Government have had 11 years to fix the system but there is nothing in the Bill about how they will fix the current scandalous state of affairs. I know many hon. Members who have constituents who have been waiting for a decision about their asylum status. I have had one case where a constituent from Afghanistan had to wait seven years for his claim to be processed. It took my direct intervention with a Minister for his claim to be determined. It should not take the direct intervention of MPs for the system to snap into action. With fewer claims being made—yesterday the Home Secretary mistakenly said that claims have gone up when in fact they have gone down—it should not be taking longer to process applications. If the asylum system was operating as a business, it would be going bust by now.

[Mr Goodwill]

Does the hon. Member accept that the basic principle of asylum is that people should claim asylum in the first safe country that they meet? As far as I am aware, France is a safe country, Greece is a safe country and Italy is a safe country. There are a lot of safe countries that people cross before they arrive on our shores.

[Bambos Charalambous]

I invite the right hon. Member to read the refugee convention and he will find there what the actual law is. On the basis of his logic, we would only be taking asylum claimants from France, Ireland and Belgium.

Looking at the detail of the Bill, many hon. Members have quite rightly highlighted the odious clause 12, which creates a two-tier system for refugees based on how someone arrives in the country and their mode of transport, not on the strength of their claim. As my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) put it, it is

“judging them on how they arrived, not what they have left.”—[Official Report, 19 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 757.]

Once again, sentence first, verdict later.

[Tom Hunt]

It is wrong to say that there is no difference between somebody who has broken the law by coming here from another safe European country illegally and somebody who has come here through a legal process. Surely they should be treated differently.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Criminalising people who have come to this country irrespective of what they have left behind makes them criminals. What law have they broken when they are seeking refuge here?

What we have seen playing out in the channel crossings over the past few days occurred because the Government have closed down all safe routes for refugees to travel to the UK for protection. People are being driven to make dangerous journeys because they are out of options. To this callous Government, it is all a game—pure theatre. The Tories use all migrants, an ever-easy target, as a distraction from their own institutional failings and the gross inequality that falls upon their citizens.

The Bill does nothing to propose refugee resettlement or family reunion routes and will only put more pressure on Britain’s broken asylum system. About 10% of arrivals are expected to be unaccompanied children. The Government should be properly addressing the issue of safe routes for claiming asylum and helping unaccompanied children. Penalising refugees is a clear breach of article 31 of the refugee convention, but even more disconcerting is that clauses 27 to 36 seek to interpret the refugee convention to suit the Government’s whim. Unilaterally deciding how international law should be interpreted never ends well for the Government. The reason they feel the need to do so here is that they know they will be humiliated when those clauses are challenged. Once again, it is not so much a case of marking their own homework; more a case of being judge, jury and executioner.

One thing the Bill will almost certainly do is ensure that people seeking asylum here are kept longer. Whether through imprisoning asylum seekers for four years in our prisons or detaining them in barracks, that is an awful lot of money to spend on something that is not going to work. I dread to think what impact that will have on our creaking criminal justice system. Again, we have not seen the sums. Why not? Surely the Home Secretary will have cleared this with the Chancellor and costed it?

[Sir John Hayes]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Bambos Charalambous]

I am conscious of time. I have to sit down in three minutes.

The Law Society of England and Wales warned yesterday that the Bill risks putting England’s global reputation for justice at risk—shameful. This is the Government who are reducing the country’s global standing so significantly. As if the inhumanity in the way the Government propose to treat asylum seekers is not bad enough, they go further by deciding to punish victims of modern slavery. The Bill peddles the Government’s signature toxic politics of fear and hostility by changing the standard of proof for determining if someone has a well-founded fear of persecution and making it more difficult for people to be recognised as victims of human trafficking. Despite choosing to start by disbelieving trafficked victims, there is nothing in the Bill about setting up a national operating standard procedure to train those whose first point of contact is clearly to identify victims of modern slavery. Why is that not in the Bill? Once again, it is just like the Queen of Hearts: sentence first, verdict afterwards.

We should most definitely be going after the traffickers and people-smuggling criminal gangs, but without international co-operation we will struggle to do that. The Bill is high on rhetoric, but low on action. Without introducing any safe routes, the Bill will be a boon for the international criminal gangs and a boost for their profits. Rather than breaking the business model, the Government have breathed new life into it by pushing people further into the arms of smugglers. Having reduced our ties with Interpol and tarnished our reputation with the international community, we have lost the soft power that things such as our commitment to international aid bought us.

We have been asking for safe routes to replace Dublin III since last year, but we have had nothing from the Government. Meanwhile, the Bill gives the Secretary of State new powers to act like the playground bully in delaying or suspending visa processing for citizens of countries that she believes are unco-operative with removals. In all honesty, if the Government seriously think that that will work in getting international co-operation, they are deluded. It is the same desperate politics that created the hostile environment and the Windrush scandal. Labour strongly opposes this misleading and deeply flawed legislation, and urges the Government to engage responsibly in a debate that recognises the humanity of those who have to flee their homelands and seek protection, no matter how they arrive in the UK.

This Bill is nothing more than a house of cards. It does nothing to address the crisis in our asylum system. It is deeply flawed and will end up collapsing if there are no bilateral agreements with our EU neighbours. We on the Labour Benches will be opposing the Second Reading of the Bill.

Amnesty for Undocumented Migrants

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hosie. I congratulate the 103,440 people who signed the petition, including 447 from my constituency of Enfield, Southgate, enabling the debate to take place. I thank the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for leading the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee.

It is not often that I find myself speaking in a debate in which the Prime Minister has a different view from the official Government position, but this is one such time. On previous occasions, both as Mayor of London and as a Cabinet Minister, the Prime Minister stated his support for having an amnesty for undocumented migrants. Whereas the Government say that the immigration rules already provide for undocumented migrants to regularise their status, and that such provision would unduly reward those who have not complied with immigration law, that fails to recognise the reality of the situation. There are tens of thousands of people in the UK who are undocumented, and the Government are either unaware of them, which smacks of incompetence, or unwilling to deal with the problem.

As the Prime Minister pointed out in a radio interview on LBC in 2013, when he was Mayor of London:

“If you have been here for 10 or 12 years, I’m afraid the authorities no longer really pursue you. They give up. Why not be honest about what is going on? Ultimately, you have got to reflect reality. Otherwise they are not engaged in the economy, they are not being honest with the system, they are not paying their taxes properly and it is completely crazy.”

Expanding on the topics that the Prime Minister touched on, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants points out in its excellent briefing for the debate that, according to its research, 82% of those who are undocumented arrived in the UK via legal routes and have fallen out of status. That point was made passionately by my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra).

The first point I wish to make is that the current immigration system, and its cost, is a factor in people becoming undocumented. Many Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), mentioned the cost of making applications to become regularised. The prime route for acquiring indefinite leave to remain is 10 years of continuous residency, but people have to apply first for temporary leave to remain for two and a half years, then keep renewing it until they have acquired the 10 years. Applying for leave to remain is expensive—a successful applicant under this route will have had to pay a total of £12,937 in fees. The application process is very complex, and lots of evidence is required to be submitted. If someone slips up just once and does not submit the correct forms during the 10 years, they will become undocumented. As a consequence, adult undocumented migrants will be able to regularise their status only by applying for indefinite leave to remain, but they qualify for ILR only if they are aged 18 to 25 and have lived in the UK for over half their life. If they are over 25, they have to show that they have lived in the UK for more than 20 years and prove that they have strong ties to the UK and cannot relocate to their country of origin. Talk about making it tough for people to regularise their status. It smacks of a continuation of the hostile environment that was used mercilessly against certain sections of the community.

With undocumented migrants being denied access to work, accommodation and health services, they are easy prey for those who want to exploit them. As a consequence, they are driven underground, do under-the-counter work and are totally dependent on the shady individuals whom they now serve. The exploitation of migrants was excellently commented on by my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). As the Prime Minister pointed out, if tens of thousands of undocumented migrants are working but not paying taxes, it will impact on the economy, so it is in everyone’s interest to ensure that urgent action is taken to regularise their status. It is not just the economy that would benefit—so would our public health, as it was only last week that we heard that, in some parts of London, undocumented migrants were being turned away from GP surgeries, where they were trying to get vaccinated against covid, because they are reluctant to give their names and addresses, for fear of being arrested. Meanwhile, those who were turned away are not putting just themselves at risk. As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) and the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) pointed out, they risk spreading the virus among the wider community.

The Home Office does not know even roughly how many undocumented migrants are present in the UK, and it was heavily criticised for that by the Public Accounts Committee in its September 2020 report, “Immigration enforcement”. Another problem that the Government face is that they have hollowed out the immigration enforcement system. As such, they have effectively outsourced the service to the general public, leaving it up to landlords, employers and the NHS to notify the Government if someone is undocumented. The National Audit Office last did an estimate of the number of undocumented migrants living and working in the UK in 2005, and it put the figure at 430,000. There has been no official assessment of the number since then, so not only do the Government not know the scale of the problem, but even if they did and these figures are still accurate, they could not do much about it.

Can the Minister tell me whether the Home Office has made any assessment of the number of people who are currently here and are undocumented, and what the Government’s plan for tackling this issue is? The Minister will no doubt say that anyone who is here and is undocumented is here illegally, but if the Government know this, what are they doing about it? Even the Prime Minister does not believe that the Home Office will detain and deport 430,000 people, so we have a perfect storm of the Government being aware of a problem and being unable and unwilling to deal with it, with tens of thousands of people living and working in the UK undocumented.

The petition proposes an amnesty for all undocumented migrants, but a more comprehensive approach would be to focus on an accessible “route to regularised” system and meaningful reforms to stop people from falling out of status, as mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Slough (Mr Dhesi) and for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma). This will offer a longer-term solution to the problem. I note that the Irish Government are currently looking at new plans for a fairer pathway to regularisation for undocumented migrants with a period of four years’ residency in Ireland. The current methods of regularising status in the UK are onerous and cumbersome, and need an urgent overhaul. In addition, the exorbitant level of fees for visas is scandalous, and clearly another barrier designed to make it harder for people to regularise their status—a continuation of the Home Office’s malevolent hostile environment.

I therefore ask the Minister whether, as this problem is not going away any time soon, the Government will make it easier for undocumented people to have their status regularised, and what the long-term plan for addressing the problem is. It is surely in all our interests that the basic needs of everyone here are met, and that— undocumented or otherwise—everyone can contribute safely, openly and without fear to our communities. For that to happen, we need to see change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 12th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

First, let me re-emphasise a point that Ministers and I have made in this House on repeated occasions. It is absolutely right that we do everything possible to give children in care the support, more often than not via their local authorities, to ensure that they apply for the scheme. We have been doing exactly that, working with councils, social services and local authorities across the country. If the hon. Lady has any particular cases she would like to draw to our attention, we would be very happy to pick them up.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

As the Home Secretary is aware, acquiring settled status has an impact on a person’s right to work and to access accommodation and other services. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that employers and landlords are complying with the right to work and rent guidance, and are not discriminating against EU citizens? Will she also tell me what protections are in place for people to submit late applications to the EU settlement scheme, so that they are not left in limbo, unable to work or at risk of homelessness while they await the outcome of their application?

[Priti Patel]

First, the Home Office has been very clear in the support it will provide to people and late applications. The hon. Gentleman has rightly made an important point about the right to work and the role for employers. Let me give him the assurance that we have been working with employers’ organisations and groups; this is exactly the vehicle through which, even throughout the pandemic, we have been working to communicate the need for employers to work with us to secure the settled status of many, many individuals. Finally, may I pay tribute to many of the employers who have been working with us on this scheme to guarantee that settled status for individuals?

Delays in the Asylum System

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) on securing this timely and important debate, his excellent speech and his commitment to raising the serious issue of delays and the myriad of associated problems with the asylum system.

Many people, myself included, are proud of the British values of fairness and decency. Those values underpin our shared sense that people in the UK will get a fair hearing, backed up by the rule of law. However, chronic delays in the asylum system are undermining and eroding those values, causing human suffering and creating a system that is unfair and chaotic. There is copious evidence of this in the “Living in Limbo” report, published by the Refugee Council earlier this month, and referred to by hon. Members throughout the debate.

The Minister should be alarmed and appalled by its findings. The raw data obtained from the Home Office via freedom of information requests are truly shocking. The data make it crystal clear that delays in the asylum system are endemic and have got worse and worse over the last decade. If the asylum system were a hospital patient, it would be in intensive care on a life support machine with a prognosis of a slow but terminal decline. The facts speak for themselves. The hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) made compelling cases illustrating the Government’s failures via the data. More than 30,000 people are currently waiting between one and three years for an initial decision—in 2013 this was only 4,500 people—and 6,388 of those in 2020 were children, which is a tenfold increase since 2012.

The data and the facts say one thing, but the decision to propel myths about asylum seekers is a cruel and politically calculated choice by the Government. Instead of blaming the people, the Government should hold up the mirror to themselves to address the actual problems they have caused by refusing to fix the broken asylum system. Even more staggering is that at the end of March, over 66,000 people were waiting for an initial decision from the Home Office—more than will watch England at Wembley tonight. That is the highest number in over a decade and a truly shocking state of affairs.

The statistics are shocking enough, but the human cost of the delays is even worse. I am talking about people—many of them children—whose trauma of lived experience is compounded by being left in limbo in the asylum system, in many case for years on end. My hon. Friends the Members for Edmonton (Kate Osamor), for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and the hon. Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) gave examples of worrying cases of constituents who have been caught up in the asylum system and whose cases are unresolved. I have an example of constituent F who came to the UK from Afghanistan as a child and applied for asylum in August 2013. It took seven and a half years, and my involvement as his MP, for the matter to be resolved this February. As the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) said, it should not take an MP’s intervention to resolve such problems: it is not good enough. The impact on the mental health and wellbeing of people in this position is devastating.

During the time before a decision is made, people live on just £5 a day and are not permitted to work. People awaiting a decision are accommodated within a system that was not designed to be used for the long term. People are becoming increasingly mentally unwell as the years of uncertainty, trauma and demonisation erode their mental and physical health. The Refugee Council reported that this has led to an increase in the numbers of individuals self-harming and reporting suicidal thoughts. We heard of the appalling situation for the constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), which is really concerning. The Children’s Society report “Distress Signals” also outlines serious concerns about the damage done to children’s mental health in those conditions—damage done at a formative age that will last a lifetime.

As a lawyer, I am fond of the axiom that justice delayed is justice denied. Those cases, where people are placed in limbo, is justice denied on a vast scale. Beyond the human cost of these delays is the financial cost. The backlog adds considerably to the overall cost of the asylum process. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) spoke about the cost and failure of the asylum system. The Refugee Council has calculated that, for every month of delay, the additional cost to the Home Office per person is at least £730.41, equating to £8,765 per year. Therefore, the total cost per year of the current backlog of people awaiting an initial decision for more than six months is estimated to be approximately £220 million. The delays make absolutely no financial sense. What is clear is that the Home Office needs to get a grip of why it is that staffing increases have not helped to reduce the unacceptable delays and backlog.

What further concerns me is the fact that the Government appear to have very little by way of a plan to solve the backlog issue. For instance, the Government’s Nationality and Borders Bill, published yesterday, contains no measures for tackling the backlog. The Government’s desire to define safe and legal routes in an increasingly narrow way while criminalising irregular routes will do nothing to help with the backlog. The measures are likely to make delays in the system far worse, because the inadmissibility proposals will result in more people having to wait six months before their claims are even looked at.

Rather than chasing headlines through the draconian measures outlined in the Nationality and Borders Bill, there are practical steps the Government could take to make the asylum system function in an effective, fair and humane way. Some actions could be taken straightaway to tackle the unacceptable delays in the system, which cost so much in terms of both human suffering and public money. In February 2021 the UNHCR outlined proposals that would address the current backlog and prevent future ones from building up. Those proposals include introducing an effective case prioritisation system and introducing simplified asylum case processing procedures.

I also urge the Government to stop the increased pressure on our judicial system by ensuring that there is better decision making at the outset, with fair, quick decision-making processes instead of processes that drag on and leave lives in limbo. The Government must look at the proposals seriously and not repeat the mistakes of the past. Only by making concrete change to the system will they enable it to be effective, fair and humane. That, I believe, is what everyone wants to see. We must reflect on what the Government’s plan would mean for Britain as a society: I do not want to see our British values of decency and humanity eroded.

The end of this month, 28 July, marks the 70th anniversary of the refugee convention. In the aftermath of the second world war, in a shattered Europe, Britain came together with 26 other countries to form a strong foundation and create the convention. That is true British pride and patriotism, and a historical legacy. Almost 70 years later to the day, the UK Government are seeking to step back from that agreement. That is the sobering reality, and one of the many social and political impacts of the Government’s proposals.

We can look back on how we treat people seeking sanctuary here today with pride, or we can look back on this time as one that could and should have been much better. The humane treatment of those seeking sanctuary is as much about us rescuing our own values as it is about rescuing people in need. The Government must not delay in dealing with this issue.

[David Mundell (in the Chair)]

Thank you very much. I now call the Minister, Chris Philp. Please be mindful that Mr Mishra will have a few moments at the end to wind up the debate.

Draft Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Juxtaposed Controls) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2021

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 General Committees

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I will not detain the Committee until 6 pm. In fact, my response will be very brief.

The substance of the statutory instrument was debated a few months ago—in fact, I believe I spoke in that Committee—so I will not rehash the arguments. The Opposition support the alignment that that the previous order proposed and note that the corrections in the draft order are necessary, so we will not oppose the draft order and hope that it passes very swiftly.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Twentieth sitting)

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 24th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

New clauses 77 to 82 have already been debated, so we come now to new clause 83.

New Clause 83

Concealing a body

“(1) A person (‘D’) is guilty of an offence if—

(a) D conceals the deceased body of another person, and

(b) D intends to obstruct a coronial investigation, or

(c) D conceals a death to facilitate another criminal offence.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(b), the circumstances in which a coronial investigation is required are set out in section 1 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), concealment of a homicide will be conclusive evidence of an intent to obstruct a coronial investigation.

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both;

(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years.

(5) The common law offence of obstructing the coroner is abolished.”—(Bambos Charalambous.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss new clause 84—Desecration of a corpse—

“(1) A person (‘D’) is guilty of an offence if—

(a) D acts with severe disrespect to a corpse, and

(b) D knows that, or is reckless as to whether, their acts are ones of severe disrespect.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(a), whether an act is one of severe disrespect will be judged according to the standard of the reasonable person.

(3) A person is not guilty of an offence under this section if—

(a) they had a reasonable excuse for their acts,

(b) the act would otherwise be criminal under section 1 of the Human Tissue Act 2004,

(c) the act is also a criminal offence under section 70 Sexual Offences Act 2003 (‘Sexual penetration of a corpse’),

(d) a person, prior to their death, has given consent for the acts to be done to their deceased body, notwithstanding that they involve severe disrespect to the corpse.

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both;

(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years.

(5) The common law offence of preventing a lawful and decent burial is abolished.”

[Bambos Charalambous]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. There can be few things worse than learning of the murder of a close relative. There is then the trauma of the trial and the detail that is raked over to ensure a conviction. In certain cases, the never-ending turmoil of not having a body to lay to rest is an unimaginable form of emotional torture.

The tireless work of Marie McCourt ensured that Parliament passed Helen’s law in March 2020. The body of Helen McCourt, Marie’s daughter, who was murdered in 1988, has never been found. Her killer never disclosed the whereabouts of her body. Marie’s campaigning successfully changed the law so that parole boards must now take into account whether killers have refused to co-operate in the recovery of their victims’ remains.

Anomalies in the law remain when a body is never found, however, and they must be addressed. That is why the two new clauses would create two new offences: that of concealing a body and another relating to the desecration of a corpse. New clause 83 would replace the common law offence of obstructing a coroner with the offence of concealing a body. New clause 84 would replace the common law offence of preventing burial, which has its origins in ecclesiastical law, with the new offence of desecration of a corpse. That would also address gaps in the law and capture a range of intentional acts of severe disrespect, including the mutilation of a corpse, the drawing of lewd images on a deceased body, and non-penetrative sexual acts performed involving a corpse.

In 2017 the Law Commission acknowledged:

“The law governing how we dispose of the bodies of our loved ones…is unfit for modern needs.”

The current law is haphazard in how it is applied to deal with the serious wrong of behaving with gross disrespect towards deceased bodies. The existing common law charges of preventing a lawful and decent burial, hiding a corpse and obstructing a coroner have been rarely used.

When Helen McCourt was murdered in 1988, murder trials without a body were exceptionally rare. Sadly, today they are common because, as forensic detective methods have become more sophisticated, killers are resorting to ever more desperate measures to hide evidence of their crimes. In 2019 the Home Office confirmed that since 2007-08 there have been 50 homicides—convictions for murder and manslaughter—without a body. One can only try to imagine the huge extra distress this causes victims’ families, and as the law stands the killer will receive no further punishment for the additional horrific crimes committed after the initial homicide. The distress to the affected families will only continue to rise without a change in the law. If offenders knew that they would face charges relating to non-disclosure and desecration as well as for the homicide offence itself, they may think twice about committing the offence and maintaining silence about it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

I thank the shadow Minister for his speech and for introducing this new clause so eloquently. He mentioned the tragic case of Helen McCourt, which I am sure is on our minds as we debate this new clause. Along with the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn), I have met her mother Marie McCourt, who has campaigned tirelessly on this issue for many years, which led ultimately to the passage, as the shadow Minister said, of Helen’s law a few months ago. It was a privilege to take it through the House of Commons as the Bill Minister.

The Government once again are very sympathetic to the sentiments and the intention behind these new clauses, and I would like to look briefly at new clauses 83 and 84, which combined seek to repeal and replace two common law offences, as the shadow Minister has said. New clause 83 would repeal the common law offence of obstructing a coroner, replacing it with a statutory offence, while new clause 84 seeks to repeal the common law offence of preventing lawful burial.

It is worth just saying that, as with many common law offences, they are quite wide-ranging measures in their scope and cover potentially quite a wide range of behaviour. One of the risks we run when we seek to codify the common law—as we sometimes, or indeed often, do—is that we may inadvertently narrow the scope of the existing common law provisions. Of course, we will also be reducing the maximum sentence, because as common law offences these offences currently have a maximum sentence of life whereas by creating a statutory offence, as these new clauses seek to do, there would be a specified much lower maximum sentence.

It is worth saying that the common law—as, too, the non-common law—does cover the question of concealing a body in various ways. In circumstances where an offender is responsible for a homicide, the fact that they concealed or mutilated the body is already taken, not as a point of common law but as a point of sentencing guidelines, as a clear aggravating factor at sentencing. Therefore, on conviction the sentence will be increased, reflecting the fact that the sort of behaviour the shadow Minister has described has occurred. Where the concealment of a body is part of a course of action that includes the killing, the sentence for murder would again include that as an aggravating factor in deciding the starting point for the sentence. If we have a separate offence, the danger, of course, is that the offences may be served concurrently, so we may not have someone in prison for any longer, whereas if it is an aggravating factor for the main offence, we may well get a longer sentence. We need to be mindful of those technical reasons that might inadvertently have the opposite effect to that intended.

It is also the case, of course, that once someone is convicted of an offence of this kind—this includes refusing to disclose the location of the body—we have legislated via Helen’s law, as the shadow Minister said, that the Parole Board is now obliged as a question of statute to consider the non-disclosure of the whereabouts of the body when making release decisions. That was previously in parole guidelines but is now statutory, which also sends a message to the Parole Board about how strongly Parliament feels about this. Non-disclosure could also lead to a later release point. All those points are important to bear in mind.

On new clause 84, which seeks to deal with the desecration of a body, the meaning of acting with severe disrespect to a corpse could, under the new clause as drafted, include several circumstances such as mutilation, hiding or concealment, unlawful burial or cremation, or otherwise preventing the lawful burial of a body. It could also mean taking photographs of bodies where it is inappropriate or unnecessary to do so. The Government completely understand the thinking behind the new clause, because, of course, the bodies of those who have passed away should be treated with dignity and respect.

A number of existing criminal offences can already be used, such as preventing lawful burial and decent burial, as well as perverting the course of justice if the activities are designed to prevent justice from being done. Those are common law offences with a maximum penalty of life, as I said. There are also statutory offences such as disposing of a child’s body to conceal a pregnancy or burning a body other than in a crematorium, as well as offences that can apply in some circumstances, such as misconduct in public office if such a person—that could even include a police officer—is in public office.

The desecration of a body is likely to be connected to another offence. Therefore, as with the previous new clause, an act of desecration is likely to be an aggravating factor in sentencing the other offence, which might be murder or manslaughter, resulting in a more severe penalty. Again, we come to the question of concurrency: if a separate offence is created, the two sentences might run concurrently, whereas if instead the act aggravates the main offence, there may be a longer sentence. Those points are worth making.

The intention of the new clauses may be to ensure that people who commit such acts would spend longer in prison, and we obviously sympathise with that, but it is possible that, for the reasons I have mentioned, they would not achieve that effect. Such matters can be reflected either through the existing common law offence or as an aggravation to the principal offence. We now have Helen’s law regulating release from custody where that happens.

The Government recognise the campaigning done by Marie McCourt, and I know that the Lord Chancellor has met her as well as the hon. Member for St Helens North. The Lord Chancellor has met her a number of times and I have met her as well. We want to continue discussing these issues with Marie and her family and to think about whether there is anything else we can do to ensure that the awful circumstances we are discussing are fully reflected beyond even what I have already described. We are receptive to ideas in this area and are happy to talk about them and think about what else can be done, but, for the reasons about the precise way in which the new clauses are crafted, we do not think they would take the law as it stands any further forward. However, we are happy to work with Marie, the hon. Member for St Helens North, shadow Ministers and others to see if there are other things that we can do.

[Bambos Charalambous]

On the basis of what the Minister has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

[The Chair]

I do not know how hon. Members have managed it, but new clause 84 has already been debated, so we come to the final question.

Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill, as amended, to the House.

Draft British Nationality Act 1981 (Immigration Rules Appendix EU) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 General Committees

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Hollobone. The Opposition support the draft regulations. We believe that a child born in the UK to parents who have the right to settled status should be able to access citizenship where that status had not been granted when the child was born. To not allow children to access citizenship in such circumstances would clearly be unfair and go against legal precedent.

We believe that the UK’s proud tradition of inclusivity necessitates these draft regulations. However, we have several questions for the Minister about some points he made. We are concerned that children falling into the affected categories will have to register to access their citizenship. Anyone registering their British citizenship faces an exorbitant fee, which we have repeatedly challenged. The Government will know that the fee was recently declared unlawful. Therefore, we want to clarify that no such fees will be a consequence of the draft regulations. The Minister mentioned that a child will automatically acquire citizenship. Will he confirm that there will be no fee for that citizenship or subsequent registration?

We are concerned that, although the child’s British citizenship is not backdated to their birth, there is nevertheless a retrospective aspect of disapplying their parent’s lack of lawful status for the period between 1 July and the eventual grant of status. Should a person be rendered liable for NHS treatment and incur a bill before submitting a late application, they would continue to be liable for that treatment, regardless of gaining a grant of status. As the Minister knows, that could be thousands of pounds. We need assurances that the individuals affected by the legal changes will not be subject to retrospective NHS bills that might ensue if that status has not been acquired before that period.

The Government need to produce more information about how the draft regulations will operate. We need to know how EU citizens who become settled on or after 1 July 2021 and their children will be alerted to the right to citizenship. There needs to be provision for the public services that the parents encounter to be made aware of, and able to advise on, a child’s eligibility to citizenship. I know that the Minister said that that is automatic, but some public sector organisations might not be aware of that, which could cause problems in the future.

We are also concerned about other aspects of this change in the law, given the numbers of people involved in ongoing and existing backlogs of settled status cases. We understand that there is a very high number of backlogged cases. That is worrying given the new numbers of cases related to the changes outlined in the draft regulations, which will need to be communicated and actioned. It is vital that the Government have initiatives in place to deal with that. What will those be? It is also vital that the Home Office keeps accurate records of the time lag between applications made before the deadline and the date of the status decision. We would like assurances on that and on whether the Home Office will record the reasons for delays in each application.

We seek clarity about the transparency of records for those affected by the legal changes. One of the many lessons of the Windrush scandal is that safeguards must be in place for all affected children and their parents, carers or corporate parents to have easy access to records. We must not see a repeat of the heartbreak caused in the Windrush scandal by the lack of transparency in record keeping or the lack of reliability.

In summing up, I hope that the Minister will commit to ensuring that the changes to the law will not result in any problems for children or parents seeking records. Will the Department provide access to records for the child to whom section 10A applies? What other steps will the Department take to ensure that the child is able to confirm their British citizenship, whether during childhood or adulthood? I have already mentioned the issue of the fees not applying—the grant is automatic. Will the Minister provide assurances that there will be adequate provision of information to all those affected by the changes, now and in the years to come, when an affected child may need to confirm their British citizenship? We must ensure that, with all the changes, there is no possibility of repeating the mistakes of the Windrush scandal. Therefore, we seek maximum transparency and accessibility for those affected by the change. However, we will not oppose the draft SI.

Napier Barracks Asylum Accommodation

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for the tireless work that he has done on behalf of his constituents, liaising with the Home Office, Kent County Council, Folkestone and Hythe District Council and others, and representing his constituents extremely effectively. Unfortunately, very often the local population is not terribly keen on accommodation centres of this kind, for the reasons that he outlined.

We are obviously working hard to mitigate those impacts. Kent police, for example, have received extra funding, and we are working closely with the local health service. The current arrangements on the site are due to run until September. No decision has been made beyond that, but I assure my hon. Friend that he will be closely engaged with at all stages as any further decision is taken.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

I, too, wish you a very happy birthday, Mr Speaker.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) on securing this urgent question. The recent High Court judgment was a further shameful indictment of the Government’s approach to asylum accommodation. My right hon. Friend highlighted the failure of the Home Office to listen to the public health advice about Napier barracks that led to the covid outbreak affecting 197 asylum seekers and staff and posing a danger to the wider community.

On 30 November, as a result of a fire safety inspection at Napier, the Crown premises fire safety inspectorate concluded that

“identified individuals or groups of people would be at risk in case of fire.”

In January, a fire broke out in Napier. The independent chief inspector of borders and immigration noted that the CPFSI’s concerns had not been addressed prior to the fire. Can the Minister tell me why the Home Office ignored the advice of Public Health England and the CPFSI? Can he give me a categorical assurance that the Home Office will now follow all future advice from PHE and CPFSI, and publish the advice it was given by PHE?

The Kent and Medway clinical commissioning group’s infection prevention report outlined that the site did not facilitate effective social distancing. Quite simply, how on earth did this happen in the middle of a global pandemic?

[Chris Philp]

I have said already that having to accommodate 60,000 people in the middle of a pandemic, and an increase of 12,000 in a few months, poses very substantial challenges. Where we were able to, we followed suggestions that were made. The hon. Gentleman asked about publishing PHE advice. I said in my first answer that it was published on gov.uk on 15 December last year. He said that a fire broke out. A fire did not break out; there was an act of deliberate arson by the people who were accommodated there, which was disgraceful, outrageous, unjustifiable and unconscionable. It did not break out; it was arson.

In relation to the points about public health, I have already listed, in answer to the Select Committee Chairman, the measures that have recently been taken to improve conditions at the Napier site.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 10th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Alex Cunningham]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Sir Charles. First, I especially thank Unlock, Transform Justice, and the Centre for Justice Innovation for their considerate and constructive scrutiny of the proposals.

The Opposition are generally supportive of the changes to the statutory framework for out-of-court disposals, and we recognise the work that the Government have done to move in that direction. Three forces took part in a year-long pilot of the two-tier framework in 2014, and the Ministry of Justice commissioned an independent evaluation of that pilot, which was published in 2018. Fourteen police forces—a third of all forces in England and Wales—have already adopted the two-tier framework, and the National Police Chiefs’ Council has endorsed the two-tier framework through its strategy for charging and out-of-court disposals.

We do appreciate the need to simplify the six-option cautions menu, and we recognise the Government’s attempt to streamline the use of out-of-court disposals for police forces. We would like those reforms to go further, however, and I will go on to discuss those areas in speaking to our amendments. We would like much more to be done to incentivise the use of out-of-court disposals in appropriate cases. It is important to note that although the Government hope that the new system will reduce reoffending, current data does not suggest that short-term reoffending rates are likely to go down. The evaluation of the 2014 pilot found no statistically significant difference between the short-term reoffending rates of prisoners who were given out-of-court disposals in two-tier framework areas and those in comparable areas that were not using the new framework.

I understand that the Government also hope that the new system will improve victim satisfaction because more victims will be involved in the process, but it is important to recognise that victim satisfaction with the current out-of-court-disposal framework is already good. In 2019-20, 84% of victims whose offender was issued a caution said that they were satisfied with the police action. That is a similar rate to victims whose offenders were charged, 83% of whom said that they were satisfied with the police.

Although we support the principle of simplification for the purposes of enabling the police to work more effectively, we have to be realistic about the likely impact of that change to the system.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the greater involvement of victims in the process, particularly for out-of-court disposals, is much better for reaching a satisfactory conclusion for everybody concerned?

[Alex Cunningham]

I most certainly agree: the more that victims are involved, the easier the process is for them. Talking about victims goes well beyond what we are debating today. The Opposition have published a victims’ Bill and hope that one day soon, the Government will finally come up with their victims’ Bill to address some of the issues that need to be addressed if life is to be just a little easier for the people who fall victim to criminals in our society.

Although we support the simplification of the cautions system, we have concerns about the removal of the simple caution, which seems to be an extremely effective and non-resource-intensive disposal for police officers to choose to use. Indeed, the simple caution has the lowest rate of reoffending of any sentence or sanction.

The Bar Council has said that it, too, is concerned about the removal of the simple warning:

“The existence of a simple warning, which the Bill proposes to abolish, is useful in many ways, not least because it requires fewer resources from police forces.”

The Bar Council went on:

“To insist that cautions are imposed in all cases does not give sufficient flexibility to the judiciary. A national framework that is too rigid is likely to be unworkable in a courtroom.”

As the Chair of the Bar Council—Derek Sweeting, QC —said in one of the evidence sessions on the Bill:

“It would be useful to have something that was a more general tool that the police could use, that would not turn up in criminal records later on and so on, and that would give the police the option effectively just to give what is now the simple caution.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 87, Q141.]

There is a range of low-level offences for which the simple caution is supremely suitable and in response to which it would not necessarily be appropriate to initiate a more formal engagement with the justice system, so how does the Minister envisage this very low-level offending now being dealt with?

Another area on which we would appreciate further reassurance from the Minister is the funding system. The system being proposed is likely to be significantly more costly than the existing system. The evaluation of the 2014 pilot found that the criminal justice system in pilot areas was estimated to have spent around 70% more on administering out-of-court disposals than the system in non-pilot areas. It concluded that the increased spending was the result of using conditional cautions in place of simple cautions, because conditional cautions require more police time to administer and monitor.

The Government estimate that this change will cost around £109 million over 10 years and think the criminal justice system will incur extra operational costs of around £15.58 million every year. They further estimate that the new cautions system will cost the police around £30.7 million to implement over the first two years.

The actual costs are likely to be even higher than those estimates, because the estimates are based on data from a pilot of the current two-tier framework carried out in 2014, which did not include some of the costly features of the proposed system set out in the Bill, such as proposed restrictions on the use of out-of-court disposals for certain offences. That is a significant cost and, as I noted earlier, it does not necessarily come with the offsetting benefit of reduced reoffending rates.

The impact assessment refers to £1.5 million for a three-year programme aimed at supporting police forces to access local intervention services, identify gaps in available provision and help to prioritise what services are needed that are not currently available.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be better to use some of the money that will be spent on this change for more community policing and more youth services, which would actually make a difference in diverting young people from crime?

[Alex Cunningham]

I certainly do agree with my hon. Friend, particularly when it comes to youth services. We have seen youth services being devastated over the last 10 or 11 years, and all manner of other services in the community have also gone, all of which could have contributed to reducing crime, better engaging young people and diverting them from crime. Nevertheless, this three-year programme is welcome all the same, and I am glad that the Government are providing some resource to identify and fill support gaps, which can help to keep people out of the criminal justice system all together.

However, as my hon. Friend has suggested, £1.5 million seems a small amount of money indeed when stretched across our 43 police forces, which all serve different and diverse community needs. I would be grateful if the Minister told us more about how his Department sees that £1.5 million being spent and what criteria he will set for its allocation.

I am interested to know whether there are any plans to boost funding for these types of programme, especially as they might save the Government significant amounts of money by diverting appropriate low-level cases from prosecution altogether.

I would appreciate further information from the Minister on training officers in this particular area. Adrian Crossley, head of the criminal justice policy unit at the Centre for Social Justice, raised that issue at an evidence session:

“Drawing from the 2014 audit, there are some learnings from the two-tier system, most notably the training of officers so that they can refer people to the intervention that is appropriate and useful, better inter-agency communication, and sufficient time for implementation.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill Public Bill Committee, 18 May 2021; c. 45, Q63.]

Will the Minister tell us what resources will be made available to train officers in such a way? Or will that also come out of the £1.5 million?

We know that keeping people out of the formal justice system can have a really positive impact, so the Opposition would like to see growing use of out-of-court disposals, but the matter needs to be dealt with across Government—everything from youth services to the development of support services in the community.

Given the energy and time that the Minister’s Department has put into the proposals, I know it recognises the need for greater numbers of out-of-court disposals. However, I have reservations about the fact that the available evidence suggests that the proposals might result in a further decline in the use of out-of-court disposals. In 2019, approximately 192,000 out-of-court disposals were issued in England and Wales. That is the lowest number in a year since 1984 and around 28,000 fewer than in 2018.

The Ministry of Justice evaluation of the 2014 pilot found no change in the volume of out-of-court disposals issued by police forces using the system. It seems that officers in the pilots switched to the disposing of offences with conditional cautions when they would have used a simple caution, so we can assume that police officers will not make significant changes to their use of those disposals as a result of the proposed changes.

Features introduced in the proposals were not in the two-tier framework pilot, which I worry will contribute to an even greater decline in the use of out-of-court disposals. For example, under the new system there will be more restrictions on the use of out-of-court disposals for certain offences, as police officers will need the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions to issue out-of-court disposals for indictable-only offences. They will also be prohibited from disposing of some cases involving repeat offenders by out-of-court disposal.

While data is not available on how many cautions are issued for indictable-only offences or repeat offenders, we cannot estimate exactly how the changes might affect out-of-court disposal volumes, but we do have data to show that 55% of cautions issued in 2019 were for indictable and either-way offences, which suggests that restricting their use for those offences is likely to have some impact on out-of-court disposal volumes.

I am sure the Minister recognises the value of out-of-court disposals and would not want to see a further serious decline in their use, so it would be good to hear of any plans he has to safeguard against any such decline. Perhaps he has other data that we are not aware of that demonstrates the fact that he would expect the decline to be not only halted, but even reversed. I look forward to hearing his thoughts on that.

I will come to other concerns when I speak to the Opposition amendments with respect to other clauses, but there is one other issue that I want to deal with here and now: the admission of guilt. First, this requirement will place a further administrative burden on police officers by preventing them from administering community cautions on-street, which could restrict their use in otherwise suitable cases. It is important that in simplifying the system for the police’s use, we also ensure that the flexibility needed to deal with the range of offending across England and Wales is retained and that we do not cause difficulties for the police by putting in place restrictions that would be unhelpful.

More importantly, many organisations, including EQUAL, have raised concerns about the impact that requiring an admission of guilt will have on disproportionality in our already extremely disproportionate justice system. In the current framework, a person has to make a formal admission of guilt to receive an out-of-court disposal. If someone does not admit guilt, they will be charged and sent to court. Evidence cited in the Lammy review shows that black, Asian and minority ethnic people are more likely to plead not guilty owing to a lack of trust in the criminal justice system among BAME communities, which makes suspects less likely to co-operate with the police.

[Bambos Charalambous]

On that point, does my hon. Friend agree that more needs to be done to engage with the BAME community to ensure that those discrepancies do not occur in the future?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. Yes, if the police believe that they need to proceed to court because someone refuses to take responsibility, the case should be moved on. However, the fact remains that if the person admits responsibility rather than making a formal guilty plea at that stage, they could have an out-of-court disposal rather than having to be dragged through the criminal justice system again. The Victims Commissioner told us that this was one reservation she had about the proposed changes to the caution system, saying that

“something needing a bit of looking at is the obligation to admit guilt in order to get an out-of-court disposal. Sometimes something like a deferred prosecution might be something that a person would be readier to accept, and it should be no more of a problem for a victim.”––[Official Report, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Public Bill Committee, 20 May 2021; c. 114, Q180.]

Perhaps the Government might consider out-of-court disposals that do not require a formal admission of guilt, only individuals to accept responsibility. That might encourage the participation of people from groups that tend to have less trust in the criminal justice system, and who might therefore be more reluctant to make a more formal admission of guilt.

[Bambos Charalambous]

On the issue of deferred prosecutions, there is an excellent organisation in Lambeth called Juvenis that gets referrals from people in agreement with the police, via a panel. Those people are referred to Juvenis for help, and if they keep safe, prosecution does not follow. Is that not a good way to divert people from being criminalised and processed in the criminal justice system?

[Alex Cunningham]

It most certainly is. The Government should be looking at examples of that best practice and rolling it out across the country, because in the longer term, support for organisations such as that will reduce the number of people who end up in the formal criminal justice system. That will mean fewer people in prison, and the cost to society will be all the lower as a result. The Opposition share the serious concerns that have been raised, and would like to hear the Minister’s thoughts on the issue, because I know that tackling inequalities in our justice system and crime outcomes is something he takes very seriously. We would particularly like to hear his thoughts on the possibility of removing the requirement of an admission of guilt from the lower-tier disposal, at the very least.

Let me turn my attention to the amendments standing in my name. These amendments might seem rather cosmetic, but they address an important issue as to how we think about the handling of lower-level offending. Amendments 11 to 15, 18 to 32, and 34 to 45 would change the name of the diversionary caution to the conditional caution, while amendments 47 and 48 are minor consequential amendments that would result from that change. The Opposition are concerned that calling the upper-tier disposal the diversionary caution is potentially and unnecessarily confusing. Diversion is commonly used as a term to describe specific activity moving people away from any contact with the formal justice system altogether, regardless of whether that means diverting them from a prosecution or from a statutory out-of-court disposal. It matters what we call these things, because the diversionary caution is not diversion as the term is currently used across the criminal justice system. A third of police forces are already using the two-tier framework, which includes the conditional caution.

We are concerned that the name change will needlessly confuse police forces, even though the intention is to simplify the framework. It could also cause needless confusion for others who work in, engage with or come into contact with the justice system, but who are not consistently involved with it as police officers are. It is a small change, and I hope the Government can see the sense in it. I would be grateful for the Minister’s thoughts on it. If the Government are set on opposing the measure, I would welcome a further explanation as to why “diversionary” was chosen as the name for the upper-tier statutory out-of-court disposal.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles, and it is a pleasure, as always, to respond to the shadow Minister. Let me start by saying how glad I am to hear that he and the Opposition generally welcome the principles that lie behind the changes in these clauses. We intend to reduce the number of cautions from the current six to the two contemplated in the Bill, following, as he rightly said, the initial pilot with three police forces, which has now expanded to 14 or 15 police forces. The feedback that we received from those police forces is that they find the simpler structure of cautions much easier to follow and much more helpful. Broadly speaking, it sounds as though we are all on the same page—both sides of the House, and the police as well. I am glad that we are starting from a very similar place.

The shadow Minister asked a number of questions about the involvement of victims in the administration of cautions. Of course, victims should be at the heart of the criminal justice system—we all believe very strongly in that. On victims, I draw the Committee’s attention to paragraph 6.7 of the victims’ code, which says:

“Where the police or the Crown Prosecution Service are considering an out of court disposal you”—

the victim—

“have the Right to be asked for your views and to have these views taken into account when a decision is made.”

The police and CPS must make reasonable efforts to obtain the views of victims, and they must communicate with victims on the topic. As the shadow Minister rightly said, it is clear that victims need to be part of this endeavour, and paragraph 6.7 of the victims’ code ensures that.

The shadow Minister asked a second series of questions about the fact that both levels of caution—the diversionary caution and the community caution—have a requirement for conditions to be attached. He expressed some concern that that might impose additional bureaucracy on police forces. He also asked about the cost of the whole scheme more generally and mentioned the estimate that the whole of the criminal justice system cost might be in the order of £15 million a year.

On the conditions, it is important that the cautions have some effect. It is important that where someone has committed an offence and admitted guilt—I will come to the point about admission of guilt in a moment—there should be some sort of follow-up action to ensure remedial activity and that an appropriate step is taken. If we simply let someone go with no follow-up step, it undermines and diminishes the seriousness of the fact that they have committed an offence and admitted to it. It perhaps misses an opportunity to take a step that will reduce reoffending in future. In general, taking steps to stop people reoffending is a good thing. There are some opportunities that we are very keen to embrace via these conditions and sentences passed by the court. For example, if someone has a drug addiction, an alcohol addiction or a mental health problem, we want that to get treated. These cautions are an opportunity to impose a condition—seeking treatment, for example. Of course, in a court setting, there are community sentence treatment requirements, alternative dispute resolutions, mental health treatment requirements and so on. These cautions have an important role to play in ensuring that the underlying causes of offending get addressed.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Philp]

I will just finish the point, and then I will take the intervention in a moment.

There are opportunities to take a more calibrated approach if police officers or the Crown Prosecution Service think it is appropriate. First, in the code of practice that we will be tabling to accompany these new diversionary and community cautions, there will be significant latitude and quite a lot of flexibility for police officers and the CPS to set appropriate conditions. They could be quite low level. For a low-level offender, where it is not appropriate to impose an onerous condition, or where the police feel it would impose an unreasonable burden on police officers themselves, a much lower, light-touch condition could be applied. That would address the concern that the shadow Minister raised.

There is also the option of a community resolution, which the NPCC says it will retain. There will be the two cautions set out in statute, and there will be the community resolution option too. Although the community resolution comes with conditions, there is not an obligation for them to be followed up, so the administrative burden would not apply.

On the cost point, of course we should be aware that the police are generally receiving a great deal of extra funding as part of the recent police settlements in order to support the police uplift programme—the extra 23,000 police officers. It would be a good use of a bit of that time if it were spent on following up the conditions that have been imposed to try to prevent reoffending. We all agree that reoffending is too high; that is bad for the individual and society as a whole. That is a good use of a bit of the additional police resources.

[Chris Philp]

Perhaps I should give way to the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate first, and then I will give way to the shadow Minister.

[Bambos Charalambous]

I am grateful to the Minister. On the issue of addressing the root of the offending in the first place, I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on attention deficit hyperactive disorder, and people with ADHD are disproportionally represented in the prison population. That is partly because of screening—they are not screened early enough and are sometimes not aware that they have ADHD. Has the Minister given any thought to whether some of the conditions could involve screening for people with ADHD if that is one of the roots of the offending?

[Chris Philp]

That is an extremely good point. That is the sort of issue that we should take up in the code of practice that accompanies the statutory framework. That is exactly the kind of thing that should be picked up. Where someone has a need for treatment of some kind, whether for drugs, mental health—ADHD in that example—or alcohol addiction, we need to try to get the underlying cause of the offending sorted out. That is something that we can and should pick up in the accompanying code of practice, and I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

The new diversionary caution that these clauses introduce is extremely similar to the existing conditional caution. The same authorised persons would be able to issue them, issuing officers would have to meet the same requirements before applying them, and the range of conditions that could be attached would be extremely similar. They will still be used only in cases where officers have sufficient evidence and offenders admit guilt—we still have a problem with that—and the consequence of breaching conditions would be the same, in that the offender would be arrested and prosecuted for the initial offence.

However, there are two differences that would be helpful for the Committee to consider. The first is the range of offences for which the diversionary caution can be given. I raised this as a point of concern earlier when discussing whether we might see a further decline in the use of out-of-court disposals in appropriate cases as a result of clause 77, which sets out the restrictions on giving diversionary cautions for indictable-only offences. I will not repeat our concerns, but now that we are looking at the specific clauses, I would be grateful for some further information from the Minister.

Clause 77(3)(a) allows a diversionary caution to be given to an offender for an indictable-only offence

“in exceptional circumstances relating to the person or the offence”.

It would be helpful if the Minister could provide some illustrative examples of what such an exceptional case might be. The restriction for indictable-only offences existed only for the simple caution before, but it did not apply to conditional cautions. Has the Minister made any assessment of what impact the change might have with regards to up-tariffing for disposals given at this level of offending?

The second key difference is a change in the maximum amount that an offender can be fined through a financial penalty condition. For the current conditional caution, fine levels are set by the Secretary of State but cannot be above £250, and this limit is set in primary legislation. However, the Bill will not provide a limit for diversionary caution fines, and the value of any such fine will be set using rules from future secondary legislation made under the powers in the Bill. Although I appreciate that the secondary legislation would require parliamentary approval by a yes/no vote, and so Parliament could reject the fine limit, it would not be able to amend the proposals for the fine value.

[Bambos Charalambous]

The issue of fines disproport- ionately affects younger people, who may not have much money. That also needs to be taken into consideration when assessing the level of the fines.

[Alex Cunningham]

The summary that my hon. Friend offers is certainly to the point. Young people could find themselves unable to meet a fine and end up in court or with further fines as a result—poverty heaped upon poverty in that situation.

It would be helpful at this stage to hear any more information that the Minister has about what level the Government may intend to set the fines at. Perhaps he could just tell us what the motivation is behind changing the limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bambos Charalambous]

Again, on the impact on the black and minority ethnic community, I wonder what thoughts my hon. Friend has on the fact that this would appear on their record if they were to be served a community caution.

[Alex Cunningham]

My colleague is right to raise the issue of disproportionality in the system. Anything that increases that is not good for us as a country and is certainly not good for the young people involved. It is important that the Government bear that in mind as they bring the measure forward. More importantly, as I said, the Government can get into a situation where they recognise that communities—ethnic minority communities, call them what we will—need to have an understanding of the changes that the Government are proposing, so that we do not find more young people, young black men in particular, with criminal records when that is not necessary.

Secondly, the community cautions will now involve financial penalties. Officers will be able to attach a fine to a community caution as a punitive condition. Failure to meet any of the conditions, including a financial penalty condition, could result in a police-issued fine. Again, that would be quite a departure from the community resolution. Offenders might be asked to pay damages to their victims as part of a resolution, but community resolutions are not used to fine individuals.

Will the Minister tell me, therefore, whether the intention is to replace the community resolution entirely with community cautions? I ask, because Transform Justice has rightly called for some clarity in this area:

“The status of community resolutions under the proposed legislation is not clear. Clause 96 ‘Abolition of other cautions and out-of-court disposals’ states that ‘No caution other than a diversionary or community caution may be given to a person aged 18 or over who admits to having committed an offence’. We are unsure what this means for community resolutions, although we understand the intention is that they will remain available to police if they wish to use them.

Given the value of community resolutions, as an out of court disposal that does not require a formal admission of guilt, the legislation and accompanying regulation should make clear in Clause 96 that use of community resolutions will not be prohibited under the new framework.”

I have already discussed our concerns about the need for a formal admission of guilt for the community caution and the potential that has to deepen disproportionality in our criminal justice system. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate just raised that issue. We all know that there are benefits to having a light-touch disposal to deal with low-level offending in some cases where appropriate. Keeping people out of the formal justice system at this level can help keep them out of it for good and so I wonder whether the Minister thinks that we might be losing a helpful method of disposal here. Finally, how does he anticipate that the low-level offences that benefited from community resolutions before will now be handled?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

I beg to move amendment 117, page 228, line 15, in schedule 10, leave out sub-paragraphs (2) and (3) and insert—

‘(2) In paragraph 1(1)—

(a) for “—“ substitute “at the time the caution is given.”, and

(b) omit sub-sub-paragraphs (a) and (b).”

This amendment would remove the spending period for cautions.

We have discussed a number of important matters over the course of the morning, all of which impact on the lives of young people and older people. They have all been extremely important issues, but for me this amendment is particularly important, because it would make life a lot easier for a lot of people, and probably contribute more than some of the other things that we have discussed to keeping them out of the criminal justice system.

Amendment 117 would remove the spending period for cautions. It would revise the text of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 to the following:

“For the purposes of this Schedule a caution shall be regarded as a spent caution at the time the caution is given.”

Currently the upper-tier disposal of a conditional caution has a spending period that is the earlier of three months or the completion of the caution, and the Bill will maintain that spending period for the diversionary caution. We believe that the spending period associated with diversionary cautions should be removed so that those who receive one are not forced to disclose this record to potential employers. The effect of the spending period attached to cautions is to increase the barriers to employment for those who are diverted from court.

Given the Government’s commitment to reform of rehabilitation periods elsewhere in the Bill—at part 11—we believe that this is a good opportunity to continue the direction of travel that the Government are on, make another positive change in this area and remove the rehabilitation period for cautions as well. The Government may believe that a three-month spending period is required for a diversionary caution in order to support public protection. However, there is strong evidence, of which I am sure the Minister is aware, that employment is one of the most important factors, if not the most important, in enabling people to cease offending. Research has also found that employers discriminate against people with criminal records and that many do not differentiate between a caution and a conviction.

A three-month rehabilitation period is short enough to have little impact on public protection, but its existence requires people in employment to declare the caution and so risk losing their job. It acts as a barrier to those seeking work, education, insurance and volunteering opportunities. It is also important to remember that criminal record disclosure in itself is not really a public protection measure: the general public cannot check a person’s record or require them to disclose it. In any event, under present guidance, if the police or CPS believe that someone is a legitimate risk to others, they would never meet the public interest test for caution instead of charge.

[Bambos Charalambous]

On the issue of accepting a caution, if people think that it might lead to this being on the criminal record, they might be less inclined to accept a caution and might therefore take their chances by going to court. Does my hon. Friend think that it would potentially lead to more cases going to court if this matter stayed on the criminal record?

[Alex Cunningham]

Indeed. My hon. Friend is correct in saying that it could lead to greater congestion in the courts system, but the most important thing in all this is that it removes the person’s opportunity to move on with their life in an appropriate way. If they are able to have a caution and they do not have to tell their employer that they have had their knuckles rapped in such a way, they will be able to continue in employment, whereas otherwise they may well lose their job.

In some cases, cautions are appropriate for individuals who pose a low level of risk, but only when combined with other supervision measures. In such cases, that often means the sex offenders register. But in these cases, it is the sex offenders register—or other supervision measure—that acts as the public protection measure, not the spending period attached to the caution.

The spending period also introduces unnecessary confusion for those given cautions. The rehabilitation period will be the same as for the conditional caution, so it will be the earlier of three months or when the diversionary caution ceases to have effect. This is quite a perplexing element of the current system, because those who receive conditional cautions often do not understand the disclosure regime and have no way of knowing whether their conditions are judged as completed before three months. Officers often do not explain disclosure related to cautions comprehensively and offenders do not know that there is a link between meeting conditions and their becoming spent. The situation is so confusing that some third sector organisations that support offenders universally tell them that the spending period is three months from caution, because this is the only way for them to be certain that the caution is completely spent and, therefore, that the offender will not unintentionally fall foul of the disclosure process.

We think it would be preferable to have a “cautions are spent when given” standard. Otherwise, we will end up with a situation in which the criminal justice system is giving out more of the new cautions than prison sentences, but Parliament will have given the cautions a more complex disclosure regime. Perhaps the Government think that a spending period is necessary because of the seriousness of the diversionary caution, but we must remember that rehabilitation periods are not part of the punitive aspect of a disposal, and the knock-on effect on someone’s life from having to disclose should not be used as a punishment. Under current guidance, magistrates and judges are specifically precluded from considering disclosure periods when giving sentences, and they must always give the correct disposal, regardless of the criminal record impact.

With all that said, I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on the need for the spending period for the diversionary caution and other cautions outside the adult regime. We believe that introducing a spending period for the diversionary caution will hamper people’s efforts to gain employment, while doing little for public protection. That is true for the spending period for all cautions. The Government are doing good work in reforming the criminal records disclosure regime and, by extension, helping people to stay out of the offending cycle and rebuild their lives. The amendment has been tabled with the same intention, and I sincerely hope that the Government can support it.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 10th June 2021 Public Bill Committees

“increase the prison population, which is already under significant strain.”

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Judges know the case and the circumstances of it, so they are better placed to use their discretion, taking into account the particular set of circumstances, which we cannot know about when we are passing something that gives carte blanche on a particular sentence minimum.

[Alex Cunningham]

Yes, that is very much the case. These organisations all make the same point: we are limiting the judges’ discretion. We are limiting the discretion of the individual who best knows the case, as they have actually heard the case, so it is certainly worrying. In fact, in the sentencing White Paper, the Government note that “concerns have been raised”, and that some repeat offenders are receiving too-lenient sentences, but they fall short of naming a single body that supports that view.

In the same vein, rather than presenting the evidence for change, the White Paper highlights only a single statistic in relation to those convicted of a burglary who receive a sentence lower than the minimum three-year term. I am sure I do not have to remind the Minister that that is as single statistic relating to a single offence out of his list of four. I ask him a very simple question: what evidence has he brought to the Committee today to show that judges have been unduly lenient when sentencing repeat offenders in relation to the importation of class A drugs, possession of a knife or offensive weapon or threatening a person with a blade or offensive weapon in public?

The second of the Opposition’s concerns is how the proposed changes to clause 100 will further entrench the already shameful levels of racial disparity in our criminal justice system. As the Minister is all too aware, since the Lammy review was published in September 2017, racial disparity in the criminal justice system has got considerably worse. The statistics speak for themselves. Black offenders are 26% more likely than white offenders to be remanded in custody, while the figure for black women is 29% more likely. Offenders from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds are 81% more likely than white offenders to be sent to prison for indictable offences, even when factoring in higher not guilty plea rates. Over one quarter—27%—of people in prison are from a minority ethnic group, despite the fact that they make up 14% of the total population of England and Wales. If our prison population reflected the ethnic make-up of England and Wales, we would have over 9,000 fewer people in prison—a truly staggering figure.

That is before we even begin to touch on disproportionality in the youth system, which is even more pronounced. For the first time, young people from a BAME background now make up 51%—over half—of those in custody, despite that group making up only 14% of the population. The proportion of black children who are arrested, cautioned or sentenced is now twice what it was 10 years ago, and the proportion of black children on remand in youth custody has increased to over a third.

When my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) was asked by the then Conservative Government to carry out his review, he did so in the belief that that Government, and successive Governments, would implement the recommendations he made. Sadly, that was not the case. At the last count, fewer than 10 of the 35 recommendations had been fully implemented. Perhaps the Minister will explain whether that is still the case today and, if so, why the Government have made so little progress on that in the last four years.

The picture emerging from this Government is that they do not care about reducing racial disparities in our criminal justice system, which is not an accusation I make lightly. Statement after statement recognising the disparities and promising change appears to be no more than lip service. Worse still, many of the measures in the Bill will further entrench racial inequality in the criminal justice system—one of them being the introduction of clause 100. It is abundantly clear that the clause will have a disproportionate impact on offenders from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background.

We know from a Government report published in 2016 that for drugs offences the odds of receiving a prison sentence were around 240% higher for black, Asian and minority ethnic offenders than for white offenders. Even the equalities impact assessment that accompanies the Bill acknowledges an over-representation of certain ethnic groups and the increased likelihood of their being sentenced to custody and given a longer sentence. It states:

“We recognise that some individuals with protected characteristics are likely to be over-represented in the groups of people this policy will affect, by virtue of the demographics of the existing offender population.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

I beg to move amendment 131, in clause 104, page 89, line 1, leave out “18” and insert “26”.

This amendment would make provision for minimum term reviews for those who are serving a sentence of detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure to continue to take place up to the age of 26.

As has been pointed out, the purpose of the clause is to alter the way in which sentence reviews are conducted for those serving detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure. As the law stands, a child sentenced to detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure may apply to the High Court to seek a review of their sentence once they have reached the halfway point of the sentence. The purpose of the review is to establish whether the offender has made sufficient progress while in prison for their sentence to be reconsidered. If the offender’s application for a review is unsuccessful, he or she may make a further application every two years until the sentence comes to an end.

The effect of the clause is twofold: first, those who have reached the age of 18 at the time of sentencing will no longer be entitled to a review of their sentence. Secondly, those who are entitled to reviews—in other words, those who were sentenced when a child—will be restricted to a single review at the halfway point and, if they have reached the age of 18 by that stage, they will be entitled to no further reviews.

In their White Paper, the Government set out that the intention behind clause 104 was to spare victims’ families the trauma of having to continually revisit the events that led to the loss of their loved one each time an offender applies for a review. Although we sympathise wholeheartedly with that sentiment, we are also mindful of the need to balance it with the right of young offenders to have their sentence reviewed in the light of good behaviour while in prison.

The Opposition’s first major concern with clause 104 is that we believe that those who commit an offence as a child should be treated as a child by the criminal justice system, irrespective of whether they turn 18 by the time they are sentenced. That view is widely held by stakeholders across the justice sector, as well as by Members across the House. As the Minister will be aware, the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) has promoted a ten-minute rule Bill to achieve just that.

The Labour party is clear that no child should be put at a disadvantage by turning 18 before being sentenced, especially if the delay has been caused by the record-breaking court backlog. That concern is shared by the Sentencing Academy, which notes:

“We have grave concerns about the removal of reviews from people simply because they have reached the age of 18 at the time of sentencing—particularly at a time when cases are taking so long to reach court due to the backlog of cases that has been exacerbated by the pandemic.”

[Bambos Charalambous]

Obviously, delays are not particularly satisfactory for anybody, particularly in the criminal justice system. Long delays are not fair for victims, either, or for young people. As the maxim says, justice delayed is justice denied. Does my hon. Friend agree that the criminal justice system needs more investment so that things are speeded up and young people do not end up being sentenced as adults?

[Alex Cunningham]

I understand exactly what my hon. Friend is saying. However, I know from discussions with the Lord Chancellor that he is very shy about addressing the issue of people receiving an adult sentence for crimes committed under the age of 18 because their case did not get to court until after they had turned 18. He does not appear to have any sympathy for that. I hope that over time we can work with the Government on what happens to children who commit crimes. They should not be disadvantaged by not having their case heard until they become an adult.

The concept of basing minimum term reviews on age at sentencing, rather than on age at the time the crime was committed, has also been rejected by the courts as contrary to the purpose and rationale of the sentence of detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure. As the great Lord Bingham set out in the case of Smith:

“The requirement to impose a sentence of HMP detention is based not on the age of the offender when sentenced but on the age of the offender when the murder was committed, and it reflects the humane principle that an offender deemed by statute to be not fully mature when committing his crime should not be punished as if he were. As he grows into maturity a more reliable judgment may be made, perhaps of what punishment he deserves and certainly of what period of detention will best promote his rehabilitation.”

With that in mind, what guarantees can the Minister provide that no child will be put at a disadvantage because of court delays caused by the huge backlog that has accrued on the Conservative Government’s watch? Similarly, does he agree that it would be hugely unfair for children to be worse off because of something completely out of their control?

The Opposition’s second concern with clause 104 is the cliff edge created by the offender turning 18. As I set out at some length during our discussion of clause 102, the Opposition are very mindful of the significant advances made during the past 20 years relating to the age of maturity. As the Minister is all too aware, it is now widely recognised that young adults are still developing their decision making and impulse control skills well into their mid-20s. As I have said before, that is acknowledged not just by the Opposition but by the Justice Committee, neuroscientists, criminologists and, until recently, this very Government. It is somewhat disappointing, then, that the Government have chosen to create a cliff edge whereby anyone who turns 18 suddenly loses the right to have the High Court review their sentence.

That concern is shared by the Sentencing Academy, which points out:

“The accompanying ‘factsheet’ justifies removing reviews from those aged 18 by the time of sentencing on the grounds that: ‘This is because their age and maturity will have been taken into account at their sentencing’. However, it is an accepted feature of sentencing law that the passing of an offender’s 18th birthday is not a cliff edge in terms of their emotional and developmental maturity.”

I must therefore ask the Minister why, when the Government have previously accepted that

“the system…should presume that up to the age of 25 young adults are typically still maturing”,

they have chosen to create this cliff edge at the age of 18. Not only does this seem unfair; it also seems counterproductive. By removing an offender’s right to a review of their sentence based on good behaviour, the Government are also removing any incentive for that offender to behave well in prison. As the Howard League points out, minimum term reviews are infrequent but important, as they

“offer a rare source of hope and can powerfully motivate young people to make and maintain positive change.”

The Sentencing Academy points out that since 2010 fewer than 10% of offenders serving detention at Her Majesty’s pleasure applied for a second review of their sentence. It says of the proposed change:

“this restriction will merely remove the opportunity of review from a small handful of cases in which exceptional progress has been achieved after the halfway point in the sentence”.

Is the Minister not worried that by removing the right to these reviews, he could be putting overworked prison staff at increased risk of harm?

Although we sympathise with the stated goal that the Government are seeking to achieve through clause 104—to prevent unnecessary distress to the families of victims of crime—in its present form we are unable to support it. Instead, we have tabled amendment 131, which we believe balances the need to protect the families of victims of crime from distress with preserving the rehabilitative benefits of being able to request a sentence review. The mechanics of the amendment are simple. Instead of ending the right to a sentence review at the age of 18, the amendment would make provision for minimum term reviews up to the age of 26, reflecting the widely held view that young adults are still developing in maturity well into their twenties, while also providing a powerful incentive to motivate young offenders to reform and rehabilitate while in custody.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.