Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord German (LD)]

My Lords, I too echo the words that have been spoken. Rather than repeating all this or speaking to this in the next group, I will talk about those issues in this group because they are very relevant to these amendments.

I have a series of practical questions. For example, stating which Parole Board members should be involved in a particular case is definitely an interference in the independence of the board. If the reply to that is, “Well we need to make sure that the right people are hearing the right cases”, surely all you have to do is to make sure you appoint to the panels more people who have those experiences available to them. The Government, of course, have gone on the issue of those with enforcement experience. You simply recruit more enforcement-experienced people to the panels.

I agree with what has just been said. These parts of the clauses are analogous to the Government deciding who will be the judge in a particular case. Whether the chair should be involved in individual cases is a matter for the board; it should not be the subject of statutory prescription, as is before us now.

There is concern about the broad powers given to the Secretary of State to remove the chair on the grounds of public confidence. The outgoing chair of the Parole Board, Caroline Corby, said in her evidence to the Justice Committee that the power to remove the chair could see them dismissed if the board made an “unpopular decision”. Unpopular with whom? With the Secretary of State, perhaps. As the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, just said, she argued that

“the chair of the Parole Board needs more protection than pretty much any other chair of any arm’s length body”.

There is already a termination clause which means that the chair of the Parole Board, or any other member, can be removed. It is therefore not clear why a statutory power is needed. Perhaps the Minister can explain to us why he needs a statutory power rather than relying on the contractual power he already has.

Who is going to judge that public confidence has been breached and when? What is the need for this confidence test? Does the existing contract not provide for appropriate removal? What is going to be the threshold for the new test of breached public confidence? Will it be an opinion poll? Will it be an assessment of the latest newspaper cuttings? What will be the criteria? How will that threshold be applied? As many of us suspect, will it rest merely with the subjective view of the Secretary of State, which is the reason why it appears in the Bill at this point?

Public opinion should not form the basis for ministerial interference in an independent body making quasi-judicial decisions. I say “quasi-judicial” because that is what the Government say they are called. Most people would just call them “judicial”. Last year the High Court noted that:

“It is … well established that, when exercising powers in relation to the Board, the Secretary of State must not to do anything that undermines or would be perceived as undermining the independence of the Board or that encroaches upon or interferes with the exercise by the Board of its judicial responsibilities”.


There is no explanation anywhere why engagement in individual applications is needed. Currently, the chair holds these quasi-judicial judgments in his or her hands. Paragraph 14B of the board’s current rules, which were put before this House in 2022, states that:

“The Board chair may determine an appeal by—(a) upholding the decision made by the panel chair or duty member … or (b) substituting their own decision, which may contain any direction that the panel chair or duty member could have made under paragraph (5)”


of the rules.

Pages 67 and 68 of the root and branch review made no such recommendation to neuter the chair. Instead, the review supported a strategic oversight group and a rules committee to recommend procedural changes to the Secretary of State. The impact assessment for this Bill states that the chair will be appointed for a three-year term, renewable. However, the job pack, a copy of which I have with me, issued by the Ministry of Justice with a closure date of just last month, states that the appointment is to be made for five years. So applications closed in February and people have applied for a job where the tenure of the job—whether it is three or five years—is not known. I hope that the Minister can tell us how that circle is to be squared.

Can the Minister confirm the delegated authority that the Secretary of State has given to Ministers for appointment of the role of board chair? Does it remain as it was when Liz Truss was the Secretary of State, because, on delegation to Ministers, the review said that Ministers

“should be involved at every stage of a competition, including: agreeing the advertising and the advisory assessment panel membership; suggesting potential candidates; being consulted on closing a competition; being invited to give views on candidates; being provided with a choice of appointable … candidates; and having the opportunity to meet candidates”.

If that is still the case, Ministers have an incredible influence over the person to be appointed, and one might reasonably wonder why they might want to sack them.

So those are a lot of practical questions, some of which are contained within the Bill and within the job pack for the new person taking over the role, which need to be clarified. I hope that the Minister in replying will be able to answer them.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise to the Committee for missing the opening part of this debate. I was with representatives of the Bar Council discussing these very issues.

Having chaired a committee that questioned Dominic Raab about his ambitions for the Executive to take over functions which I do not think that any of us regarded as appropriate for takeover, this seems to me to be Members of the House of Lords doing what we do so well. We are trying to help find a way through and answer the questions. We should just be rubbing the whole thing out because of that Executive takeover, which is anathema to probably everybody who is sitting in the Chamber at the moment.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, this group is actually more limited than the debate that we have had. It was very succinctly set out by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, when he gave his three short points in introducing his amendments. Very amusingly, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, said that the shadow of Dominic Raab should not remain across this Bill. A good way of removing the shadow is with these three amendments here.

The debate has strayed into the next group, but I will not address any comments on that group. As far as the specific proposals in the amendments tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, of course we agree with them on this side of the Chamber. I noted the point that the noble and learned Lord made about the reason why the chair of the Parole Board would not have a judicial function. It would mean that he or she could be sacked.

I also noted the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Garnier, and other noble Lords, that it is absolutely normal and to be expected that in any number of judicial and quasi-judicial roles, the heads of those particular functions also sit as judges. That is standard practice and it adds confidence to the various institutions that the people who head them are also practising and sitting tribunal chairs or judges.

I look forward to the Minister’s response, but there is a very strong array of speakers against the Government’s proposals, including the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, who is a former chair of the Parole Board. We have two former Lord Chief Justices, a former Solicitor-General and my noble friend, a former shadow Attorney-General. It sounds like a pretty convincing line-up against the Minister.