Policing

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

And only one Liberal Democrat MP is present.

[Mr Hanson]

Indeed, only one Liberal Democrat is present: the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle). [Interruption.] Yes, one other Liberal Democrat is, in fact, present: the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart).

I make these points because I am worried about the turnout in these elections. I worry for the Minister in having this flagship policy of elections for PCCs on which the Government have done an abysmal job in generating interest and turnout and getting people engaged.

[Mr Hanson]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that I will be voting on 15 November, and I urge everybody else to vote, too, to ensure that these elections have as high a turnout as possible.

[Chris Bryant]

And vote Labour.

[Mr Hanson]

Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend that people should vote Labour on 15 November, and I shall establish why they should do so in due course.

These elections matter. The PCCs have big roles to play in setting budgets, in setting priorities and in engaging the public.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

Defendants such as the NHS were required to pay inflated success fees under the old regime, as well as after-the-event insurance premiums. In 2010-11, the NHS Litigation Authority paid £200 million to claimant lawyers. Under the new reforms, those costs will be reduced, allowing more money to be spent on patient care.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I, too, warmly congratulate the hon. Lady on her new job. I am sure that she will be an absolute star. May I urge her, however, to think carefully about no win, no fee agreements? Last week, scurrilous and despicable low-lifes in France invaded the privacy of a young woman who is able to take legal action because she is very wealthy, but many people in this country, including the Dowler family, would never have been able to take legal action in a privacy case had it not been for no win, no fee arrangements. Can we please, please ensure that we do not chuck the baby out with the bath water?

[Mrs Grant]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but we firmly believe that, while meritorious claims will continue to be made, unnecessary and avoidable claims have to be deterred. Legal aid will, of course, be available for those who need it most, and for the most serious cases, under the exceptional funding rules.

Points of Order

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will know that the ministerial code of conduct makes it clear that Ministers have to provide timely answers to written questions tabled by Members of the House, which is underlined by a motion of the House.

Last December, I tabled three questions to the Secretary of State for the Home Department for named day answer on 14 December, and then another two on 20 December for answer on 10 January. I have still had no reply, so last week I decided that I would table a question asking when I was going to get an answer to those questions. I was very excited yesterday to get a reply, which said, “I will reply as soon as possible.” Surely the ministerial code means that we must get substantive replies, not evasive ones that make it look as though a question has been answered when it has not actually been answered.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, and I would say two things in response to him. First, he is of course right that the reply that is forthcoming should be not only timely but substantive. It is not good enough for Ministers to provide holding replies in such circumstances, particularly when they are provided very late, simply saying, “I will reply as soon as possible.” It must be a substantive reply.

Secondly, moderately vivid imagination though I possess, a fact to which I made reference in responding to someone last week, I really cannot imagine a colleague whom it is more impolitic or foolish to fail timeously to answer than the hon. Gentleman, for there is no colleague more absolutely certain to make a very substantial and justified fuss about it for some considerable period after the non-event.

[Chris Bryant]

Is that a compliment?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman should take his compliments when they come to him. It was.

Detainee Inquiry

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend is probably right. That is another good reason why we would like Shaker Aamer to be released and I will bring her remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary. We keep making representations and trying to get him released and brought back.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

When some of us were calling for a public inquiry led by a judge into phone hacking at the News of the World, we cited the Gibson inquiry as one that had been set up even while criminal investigations were ongoing, and the Secretary of State said that it was important that Gibson was able to secure whatever evidence there was that might in other cases be destroyed. I hope that he can still make that assertion today.

[Mr Clarke]

The agencies are reviewing their accessing of the necessary records, because these Libyan allegations emerged as a surprise. We are making sure, as far as one can, that this matter is reviewed and that we access such records as are available.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I share all my hon. Friend’s reservations about going too far. The judge, when he gives a sentence or a judgment, is a public official performing a public function; his words can be quoted, he will be reported and there is no real reason why he should not be filmed. The other people involved, I think, need to be protected because, otherwise the whole nature of the proceedings will be changed, some people will be intimidated and some people’s behaviour will be affected.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I note that the Justice Secretary said that the words he used earlier were not his own, whereas these now are.

One thing that really upsets victims is when the defence lawyer, having already admitted guilt on behalf of his client and going to mitigating circumstances, suddenly launches into a major attack on the victim of the crime, thereby, I believe, abusing privilege. Will the Justice Secretary ensure that that is not available for public consumption?

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Slaughter]

I began my speech by informing the house how contingency fee agreements came about. Because the Secretary of State has merely repeated that, I will penalise the Minister by taking a minute off his time.

The Secretary of State believes that there are faults in the current system whereby lawyers are unjustly enriched—he may be right, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and I, and many other hon. Members, would probably agree with him—but let us cure those faults. Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Some categories of proceedings are particularly expensive to advance, yet lead to relatively minor awards. For instance, the largest award in a privacy case is £60,000, and below that, £13,000. The vast majority of libel cases end up with awards of less than £100,000. The problem is that in those cases, families such as the Dowlers, and people such as Christopher Jefferies, who was on the radio this morning, would have no chance of access to justice.

[Mr Slaughter]

That is why I will be very pleased to support amendment 163, which is in my hon. Friend’s name. As I have indicated, there are some cases—libel is a good example—when damages are small, but the defamation is important. Under the Secretary of State’s scheme, more than the sum of the damages could therefore be taken in fees.

Let me go through other areas of law, and I will come to privacy at the end if I have time. On clinical negligence, it is unavoidable that there will be good and bad doctors, just as there are good and bad in any profession. It is just and proper that compensation is paid to anyone harmed as a result of inaction, negligence or incompetence when a medical professional fails to live up to their obligations. I say that despite the fact that when the Secretary of State gave the figures, he conflated the cost of damages, claimant costs and defendant costs and pretended that they were a cost figure in themselves, for which he had to make another apology to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan).

On professional negligence, taking on a professional is always risky. No one knows the system better. People are never 100% likely to win such cases. Without success fees to compensate for the risk, many such cases will not be brought in future. So who will lose out? It will be the first-time home buyer whose surveyor negligently fails to spot subsidence, the pensioner whose financial adviser negligently makes a high-risk investment, the hard-working small businessman whose accountant negligently fails to prepare accounts and lands him with a huge tax bill that he cannot pay, and the bereaved family whose probate solicitor takes three years to deal with the case and then charges huge fees. Those are the kinds of case that our constituents experience.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

You are the Parliamentary Private Secretary.

[Mr Wallace]

PPSs are allowed to make points of order. Throughout the proceedings on the Bill Opposition Front Benchers, particularly the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), have made points about the perceived failure of Government Front Benchers to declare their interests. However, the hon. Gentleman has failed to point out that on 119 separate occasions the Labour party has received donations from lawyers who make their money from success fees.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Djanogly]

Amendments 21, 22, 72, 163, 164 and 165 all seek to undermine a fundamental element of the package of reform of civil litigation funding and costs based on the report prepared on behalf of the judiciary by Sir Rupert Jackson and now included in this Bill—the abolition of recoverability of success fees and after-the-event insurance premiums. I must say that I am rather perplexed by the amendments as in Committee the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) agreed that the intention of part 2 is

“perfectly sound, and it is one with which we have a great deal of sympathy.”––[Official Report, Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Public Bill Committee, 13 September 2011; c. 501.]

I will also deal with new clause 39, which is on the related but slightly separate matter of recoverable costs for low-value road traffic accident claims.

It is worth emphasising, as the Justice Secretary has just said, that we are not proposing to end conditional fee agreements or no win, no fee deals. What we are addressing is the substantial legal costs that go to lawyers under the current no win, no fee regime. Our reforms are designed to make these legal costs more proportionate, while enabling meritorious claims to be brought. This applies equally to defamation and privacy claims and multinational claims as to other categories of case, but it is worth reminding ourselves of some of the disproportionate costs that have arisen and that emphasise the need for our reforms across the board.

[Chris Bryant]

The Minister referred specifically to defamation and privacy cases. The problem is that in the vast majority of cases—and in every single instance in privacy cases—the awards are so small that if there is no success fee, it will be completely uneconomic for a lawyer to come forward with a CFA. That may not be the Minister’s intention—I take him at his word—but the effect will be to stop CFAs in libel, defamation and privacy cases.

[Mr Djanogly]

In some cases, where the balance is against, that perhaps should be the case. In Naomi Campbell’s defamation case against the Daily Mirror, she received damages of £3,500 but the total costs exceeded £1 million.

In relation to clinical negligence claims, which can of course include substantial damages in catastrophic injury cases, lawyers’ costs are about half of the total damages that are paid out. In 2009-10, for example, the NHS paid out £297 million in damages and £121 million in legal costs, over half of which were no win, no fee costs. One of the leading no win, no fee cases against a multinational company is that against Trafigura. In that case, the claimants’ legal costs were more than £100 million, but the damages recovered were only £30 million. As a result, 30,000 claimants in the Ivory Coast received damages of an average of only £1,000.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

One of the most important things that the House can ever afford to the citizens of this country is equal and fair access to justice. Notwithstanding the remarks of the Lord Chancellor, I believe that the Bill will make it more difficult for my constituents to have access to justice.

[Tom Brake]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will not, if the right hon. Gentleman does not mind.

I shall not go into the issue of legal aid, but I want to speak briefly about conditional fee agreements. The Lord Chancellor was absolutely right to say that it was a Conservative Government who introduced them, and they were right to do so. In privacy and defamation cases, the awards are for the most part very small. In privacy cases, they are universally small. No privacy case has ever involved an award of more than £60,000, yet such cases cost many hundreds of thousands of pounds to take to court. Similarly, the vast majority of awards in defamation cases come in at less than £50,000. A few get up to £100,000, and of course prominence is given in the press to the much bigger ones.

I am sure that it is not the Lord Chancellor’s intention, but the danger in the Government’s proposals is that lawyers will simply not be able to take on such cases. Yes, they might take on cases such as the Dowlers or Christopher Jefferies, because they are open and shut cases, but in the vast majority of the cases relating to phone hacking, people are already terrified of taking an action because they do not want to have to go through the whole business of having their privacy re-explored by the national newspapers and in court. Those people will have no opportunity in the future. I should tell the House that I myself have used a conditional fee agreement, and that if it were not for lawyers being prepared to act on that basis, there is no way that the whole phone hacking scandal would have been exposed.

Question put, That the Bill be now read a Third time.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am sorry to say to the Secretary of State that I wholly deplore the use of this procedural device, because we have a very good, established system in this House of three Readings, Committee and Report, with gaps in between so that people can consider the amendments that have been passed and consider whether other amendments should be tabled so that Opposition Members or Back Benchers can look at what the Government have proposed and suggest amendments of their own in good time. None of that is possible in this situation.

If the measures were for some emergency, I might understand why the Secretary of State had made such a suggestion, but he has suggested absolutely no emergency in relation to any of the three issues today. In fact, his argument, in so far as I can understand it, is that basically, “Nobody really cares about this stuff; it’s all agreed on by everybody”—[Interruption.] If he is seeking to intervene, I am happy to give way.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s sensitivities about the scope of a Bill being widened in the ordinary course of events, but I have already explained how all three things have been canvassed. There has been consultation—indeed, it stopped us introducing them at an earlier stage—and, as he well knows, the pressure on parliamentary time is such that quite a lot of rather worthwhile criminal justice reforms are not enacted for years because no one can find a slot in the legislative timetable for them—[Interruption.] There are details, and the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), who spoke a moment ago, raised a particular detailed point, which will be heard here, and then in the upper House, about exactly what limits there might be on residential property, but this is a sensible process and we should not be sticklers at the expense of worthwhile reform.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for allowing me to intervene on his intervention, but his basic argument is, “This is just for the convenience of Government”—and for no other reason.

In relation to reasonable force, the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s argument, in so far as I could see it, was that basically, “It isn’t going to make the blindest bit of difference, so why not just let it go through?” When Ministers say, “We have to change the ordinary processes for the Government’s convenience, and we know we can do it because we have a majority—by definition, because we are the Government,” we almost always end up with bad legislation, as it is not sufficiently scrutinised. It certainly happened when we sat on the Government Benches, and I am absolutely certain that it will continue to happen now.

[Mr Llwyd]

I support much of what the hon. Gentleman says. If the measure is not going to make a great deal of change to the substantive law, but is just going to elaborate on or slightly clarify it, why do we need to legislate?

[Chris Bryant]

Precisely, and it is a bad idea to add to a Bill that is already pretty much a Christmas tree Bill a few more baubles at the last stage before it reaches Third Reading. It is a fundamental mistake and a bad way of proceeding, and I can tell from the body language of the Secretary of State and Lord High Chancellor that he is a little embarrassed about coming forward in this manner—

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

indicated dissent.

[Chris Bryant]

If Secretary of State is not embarrassed, as he now suggests, he has gone down in my estimation.

The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) said that all these matters have been extensively debated, but it is one thing to debate a matter in its general application and principles but quite a different matter to look at the wording on the page when it actually comes to legislation.

As I understand the rules of this House, given that we have not yet carried the motion before us, no amendments to which the Government have referred can possibly yet have been tabled. So, they will be tabled tonight and appear on the Order Paper tomorrow, and consequently we will not be able to table amendments to those amendments until after that. I can see the Clerk saying “No, no, no”, so perhaps I have got that completely wrong—[Interruption.] He is nodding now, so I hope that hon. Members will feel free to ignore the last part of my speech and remember everything I said at the beginning of it, and that they will oppose this ludicrous process.

[Mr Speaker]

I am sure that that is what many colleagues will have done.

Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims (Amendment) Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Friday 21st October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

You are of course entirely right, Mr Speaker. No such thought had crossed my mind; indeed, I have taken rather a limited interest in today’s remaining business because this is the only item on which I have focused my attention. My hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley is also my parliamentary neighbour, so I hope you will be kind enough to allow me the enthusiasm with which I am able to present the Government’s support for the measure, and allow me to record my appreciation and that of the Government for the work that he has done in this regard. However, bearing in mind your advice, Mr Speaker, I am happy to turn to the Third Reading of the Bill before us.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

He’s got a lot of pages to get through.

[Mr Blunt]

The hon. Gentleman says I have a lot of pages to get through. Perhaps this is the moment to put on record my appreciation of the support that I have received from staff in the Ministry of Justice, who have helped my preparation and advised on the amendments that were tabled to the Bill at an early stage and which my hon. Friend accepted in Committee, which improved the Bill and allowed it to enjoy Government support.

As we have heard, the Bill’s purpose is twofold. It extends the offence in section 5 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 to include cases of causing or allowing serious physical harm to a child or vulnerable adult, and it applies evidential and procedural provisions similar to those in section 6 of that Act to the extended offence. Extending the law in this way was contemplated when the original legislation was passed, and has continued to be urged since. The section 5 offence of causing or allowing the death of a child or vulnerable adult broke new ground, and the associated evidential and procedural provisions were controversial so a staged approach made good sense, but the existing provisions have worked as intended and we agree that the time is now right to extend them. Cases in which it is clear that serious harm suffered by a child or a vulnerable adult must have been sustained at the hands of one of a limited number of members of a household should not founder because there is insufficient evidence to point to the particular person responsible.

The crucial aspect of the section 5 offence is that the prosecution need not prove whether the defendant is responsible for causing or allowing the victim’s death, so the defendant will be convicted of the same offence whether he was personally responsible for the unlawful act that killed the victim or if he was a member of the household that failed to take steps to protect the victim when he knew, or ought to have known, about the risk of harm that existed in that household. This means that it is much harder for those co-accused of the death of a child or vulnerable adult to evade justice by virtue simply of remaining silent or of blaming each other. The section 5 offence has been used successfully in a number of cases, including the profoundly shocking one of baby Peter Connelly.

The section 5 offence is a serious stand-alone offence that carries a high maximum penalty—14 years’ imprisonment—but the aim was, and remains, that the person who caused the victim’s death should be identified and convicted of murder or manslaughter, if appropriate. Those offences, of course, carry life sentences. Accordingly, section 6 of the 2004 Act modified certain evidential and procedural provisions in relation to alternative charges in trials involving the section 5 offence. The modified procedures apply when a defendant is charged with the section 5 offence and with murder or manslaughter in the same proceedings relating to the same death. The procedures are intended to encourage defendants to give evidence, and to ensure that the more serious charge remains available if, during the trial, evidence emerges of who was responsible for the death. The Government consider the extension of those principles in the way proposed in the Bill appropriate and proportionate to the harm being addressed.

Restricting the extended section 5 offence to serious physical harm is consistent with the need to show a pre-existing risk of “serious physical harm” in subsection 5(1)(c) of the 2004 Act. The extended section 5 offence does not criminalise behaviour more broadly than is necessary. A broad offence that covered psychiatric harm, for example, could deter people from caring for vulnerable adults because they fear being prosecuted for failing to foresee a psychiatric injury. Similarly, restricting the modified procedures in clause 2 of the Bill to the more serious offences that are likely to be tried with the extended section 5 offence is appropriate, given the extraordinary nature of the provisions. A maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment for causing or allowing serious physical harm is proportionate when we consider the maximum penalties for causing or allowing death and for other offences of grievous bodily harm.

Concerns have been expressed about potentially criminalising those who are themselves vulnerable, such as victims of domestic violence; indeed, those concerns were raised during the passage of the 2004 Act, too. However, it is important to bear in mind the high threshold that must be met for an offence under section 5 to be made out. To prove the existing offence, it is necessary to show that the defendant either caused the death of the victim or allowed it by failing to take reasonable steps to protect the victim from a foreseeable risk of serious physical harm. What constitutes “reasonable steps” will vary, depending on the circumstances of the person and his or her relationship to the victim. The court will take all the circumstances into account.

If one of the defendants has been the victim of, or a witness to, domestic violence, the steps that the defendant could reasonably have been expected to take may be more limited than the steps that someone not suffering or witnessing that violence could reasonably have been expected to take. Depending on the facts of the case, the court may find that it was not reasonable for the defendant to take some of the steps that might otherwise have been available to them. The same principles will apply to the extended offence. In other words, the offence will be sensitive to the circumstances in each case.

As is the case with the existing offence, the extended offence will not apply when the serious harm resulted from an accident. Nor will it apply when there was one specific known risk within a household, such as a violent or abusive person, but the child or vulnerable person suffered harm from a different cause. The offence does not criminalise members of the household for allowing the serious harm if it was the result of an event that they could not have anticipated or avoided. The extended offence and procedures are intended, like the existing ones, to be a fair and proportionate package of measures.

As hon. Members know, the Government are committed to preventing the creation of unnecessary criminal offences. However, we consider the extension of the criminal law in the relatively limited way proposed in the Bill to be justified and appropriate. In reaching that conclusion, we have had regard to the possibility that those responsible for very serious injury may escape conviction; the vulnerability of both child and adult victims; and the special responsibility that members of the same household bear for the vulnerable with whom they live.

We have considered the evidence that is available on the harm that we are attempting to address by supporting this Bill. In 2010, chief Crown prosecutors in six Crown Prosecution Service areas identified 20 potential cases involving children, and three involving vulnerable adults, that could not be prosecuted under existing legislation, and that they believe could have been prosecuted under an extended section 5 offence, subject to the case meeting the two-stage test in the code for Crown prosecutors.

The Government have examined the Bill’s financial consequences for the Ministry of Justice, using two sets of data. The first set, to which I have referred, was provided by the Crown Prosecution Service and was about the potential number of cases. Our estimate, based on the CPS evidence, is that the annual cost to the Ministry of Justice of extending the section 5 offence will be in the order of £20 million a year. That is not an insignificant sum, but the measure will provide increased protection for some of the most vulnerable members of society. That is why the Government have decided to support my hon. Friend’s Bill.

My hon. Friend produced for us another set of data, supplied by a former member of the London Metropolitan police. Those data covered only children, rather than children and vulnerable adults, caught by the Bill. They suggested that the cost impact of the extended offence would, in a steady state of affairs, be £10 million a year. Having examined both sets of data, our view is that the cost is likely to be further towards £20 million a year, as we believe that the CPS study is rather wider and more comprehensive. There will inevitably be uncertainties about the case load and the likely sentence length that will arise from the new, extended offence, but I have set out the basis of our assumption.

The CPS data suggest that we are looking at around 150 cases a year, subject to the uncertainty to which I alluded. That forecast is based on the idea that the number of cases in 2010 will be representative of the number of cases going forward. The survey was undertaken by chief Crown prosecutors in Sussex, Northumbria, Merseyside, Norfolk, Hertfordshire and Thames Valley. They were asked to identify the number of cases in 2010 in which they had been unable to prosecute for grievous bodily harm or cruelty to a child, or grievous bodily harm to a vulnerable adult, because there was insufficient evidence on which of the members of a household who were in frequent contact with the victim was responsible for the injury. Those prosecutors identified a total of 20 cases involving children, and three involving vulnerable adults, that could not be prosecuted under any existing legislation, and which they believe could be prosecuted under an extended section 5 offence, subject to the case meeting the two-stage test in the code for Crown prosecutors.

Those areas collectively account for 15% of national Crown Prosecution Service business. If we extrapolate from those data, we get to a national figure of potentially 133 cases involving children, and 20 cases involving vulnerable adults. That is 153 cases in total, each of which, of course, will necessarily involve a minimum of two defendants. That is a broad estimate that makes assumptions about the volume of cases in the CPS areas that did not supply data, so the actual number of cases across the country could be larger or smaller. Of course, statistically, the size of the sample, as any statistician would make clear, brings its own level of unreliability to the data.

The data supplied to my hon. Friend indicate that over a three-year period from 2005-06 to 2007-08 there were 179 cases in which children suffered grievous bodily harm. Sixty-nine cases involved more than one suspect in a “Which of you did it?” scenario, and did not result in prosecution. According to the police, further scrutiny of those 69 cases identified at least 39 in which prosecution would have been probable had the section 5 offence been extended to include serious harm. That implies that there were about 13 cases a year over the past three years in London alone that would have been prosecuted under the extended section 5 offence.

We have been unable to verify the data—indeed, the police have acknowledged that they were partly supposition—which did not cover vulnerable adults. The CPS has looked at the papers provided by the police, but they contain insufficient information either to form a view on whether any of the cases could have been successfully prosecuted under an extended section 5 offence or in getting them to the CPS case papers. However, the financial implications are not insignificant if the Government are to accept the measure in the current financial climate. The fact that we are prepared to do so gives a sense of the importance that we attach to the measure and of our enthusiastic support for the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend. Members on both sides of the House have agreed to plug that particular gap.

You implicitly set me the challenge of managing to keep this going until 2.30 pm, Mr Speaker, but you will see that I have only managed to stagger on until 10 o’clock. Plainly, I did not begin to speak with any other intention, and it would be wholly improper to do otherwise. At least the time at which I shall conclude will satisfy you that I did not begin with any other intention.

[Chris Bryant]

Why stop then?

[Mr Blunt]

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) tempts me, but I will ignore his remarks, as I wish to conclude by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley again, even at the risk of upsetting you, Mr Speaker, and by renewing my thanks to my officials in the Ministry of Justice who have assisted me in preparing the Government’s response to the debate. I am delighted to commend the Bill to the House, and I hope that its passage through another place will be equally successful.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Justice and Security Green Paper

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

It is very important that my hon. Friend raises this issue. We have indeed consulted the Northern Ireland Office. The issue applies to Northern Ireland, and these matters come up frequently in the Northern Ireland context. In the course of our consultation on the Green Paper, I expect that we will receive quite a lot of representations based on the experience there.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

We clearly need some form of closed material procedure, if only to deal with the counter-intelligence threat, which is very strong at the moment, from countries such as Russia, but may I urge the Lord Chancellor to look at whether the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee could not, as is the case with the Public Accounts Committee, always be a member of the Opposition? The Member who currently holds the post could perfectly well have held it when we were in power, so would it not make greater sense for the Chair to be a member of the Opposition?

[Mr Clarke]

Well, we will look at that, because I stress that this is a Green Paper and we are seeking cross-party consensus, which, were we ever to go into opposition again, I trust we would maintain on such subjects. The shadow Home Secretary made the same point, and we will look at it, but the idea that the Chairman’s party allegiance is an important consideration is not immediately obvious to me. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman confirms that the current Chairman, who happens to be a Conservative MP, is a former Foreign Secretary and whom nobody criticises as Chairman, is the right person to be Chairman. A rule that the Chair switches party might be relevant to other Committees, but for this Committee it is not quite as necessary as it obviously is for a Select Committee.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

This Government are determined to swap bureaucratic control of the police for local democratic accountability, replacing police authorities with directly elected commissioners. In the past there has been too much central interference with decisions that should have been taken locally and by professionals, yet too often the centre has been weak where it needed to be strong, such as in ensuring the fight against serious and organised crime or better co-ordination between forces. Our aim is to reverse this position, giving greater freedom to professionals to do their job and sweeping away central interference and bureaucracy, while refocusing the Home Office on key priorities and threats.

But we cannot just take away central direction and leave the police to get on with it. Like any public service, the police must answer to someone. Politicians do not and should not run the police, but they should and they must hold the police to account on behalf of the public whom the police serve. Officers must be accountable for their actions and forces must be accountable for their performance. Both parties in the coalition were committed in their manifestos at the last election, in differing ways, to enhancing the democratic accountability of policing. The coalition agreement pledged the introduction of directly elected individuals, subject to strict checks and balances, by locally elected representatives.

The Bill seeks to establish clear and democratically accountable leadership for police governance, but amendments in another place would remove those provisions. The Lords amendments do not try to increase the local accountability of the police. They do not even try to ensure that there are adequate checks and balances in place. The amendments simply say that the status quo should be preserved and that the chair of a police authority should be called a police and crime commissioner. This rebranding of the status quo will not suffice.

The whole purpose of the Government’s reform and its strength is that local councillors will still be involved in the governance of policing, but an elected individual, with a mandate from the people, will take the executive decisions.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Minister is preaching a great sermon on how everything will be transformed by the creation of commissioners, but my concern is that what he means by the word “local” is not at all what is going to be brought about. The South Wales police force area covering Swansea and Cardiff—two cities that have never particularly loved each other—and large chunks of the valleys, which have a very different policing agenda from those two cities, could not possibly be constituted as a single political unit by anybody who was starting afresh. So my worry is that there will be less political accountability to local people and more accountability to one individual, who will probably be more likely to represent somebody in Cardiff and Swansea than somebody in the valleys.

[Nick Herbert]

Although I think there is a serious debate to be had, I disagree with the hon. Gentleman for a number of reasons, principally that he may be making an argument for smaller forces—that is not a proposal that the Government are making, or one that, I suspect, the Opposition would support. Also, if a single chief constable can be in charge of that whole force and be responsible for the operation of the force across the varied area that the hon. Gentleman describes, why should not a single individual be capable of holding that chief constable to account? In London we have seen the Mayor taking responsibility for policing over a very much greater population, including a diverse population with a large number of local authority components.

[Chris Bryant]

What I have found in the past few years in South Wales police is that although it is true that the chief constable is not particularly accountable, what has made the police accountable is the local PACT—Police and Communities Together—meetings, where members of the public get to know they can get in touch with their local beat police officer. It is that transformation of the police that will render policing far more effective, rather than the somewhat bureaucratic system that the Minister is setting up.

[Nick Herbert]

We are hardly setting up a bureaucratic system. It is one that involves direct democratic accountability. The two things that the hon. Gentleman describes are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to maintain neighbourhood policing and local accountability while still introducing direct democratic accountability and governance, for the reasons that I set out.

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[Chris Bryant]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Nick Herbert]

I am just going to make a little more progress. Let me deal with costs, and then I will come back to the hon. Gentleman.

The shadow Home Secretary says that the reform will cost “well over £100 million”. No, it will not. She reaches that figure by counting in the running costs of police authorities—money that, apparently, should not be spent. So, this is Labour's latest policy: not just no elections for those who hold the police to account, but no one to hold them to account at all—because, apparently, police authorities would go as well.

The only additional cost of the Government’s reforms is the cost of elections. That will normally be £50 million every four years, £12.5 million a year on average, or 0.1% of what is spent on police forces.

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[Nick Herbert]

No, I do not accept what the Opposition have constantly been saying, which is that the overall cost of this reform is over £100 million. That is based on a figure that the Association of Police Authorities has been using, where it appears that it has been counting two elections into the cost. I go back to the point that I have made: the only additional, ongoing cost in relation to this reform is the cost of holding elections. It is a very bad argument to suggest that a democratic reform should not go ahead simply because elections will cost money, and it is not an argument that Labour Members were willing to use in the past when they supported all sorts of proposals for elections, including in relation to the Mayor of London.

I now give way to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who has been very patient.

[Chris Bryant]

I have never supported the politicising of the police, and I will not do so under the Minister’s plans. My anxiety is that when a politician comes along, they usually do not just want a little office in the corner; they want lots of other people to service that office. I suspect that the cost that he is allowing for now will be hideously understated by the time we have had these people in place for four years. However, the bit that I completely do not understand is why we have to have elections next November. Surely, if we were trying to save money and one believed in having these elections, they should be at the same time as the other local elections six months later.

[Nick Herbert]

I will come to that issue. However, I will say to the hon. Gentleman now that if the elections were delayed for a further six months to take them to May 2013, incoming police and crime commissioners would be unable to participate in the budget that would already have been set for that year. They would be unable to take the key decisions—[Interruption.] It will still be the case, even though the elections will be delayed by six months, that incoming police and crime commissioners will be able to set the budget and the plan for the following year, as originally intended. I do not accept that there would be no difference as a result of a delay until the following year.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Nick Herbert]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I am going to move on.

I want to come back to the issue of London’s Mayor, which was much discussed in the other place, as it has been here. I want to credit the Opposition for the creation of the office of Mayor, which, as I have said before, has been a popular reform. As we debate these issues, the Mayor has been playing a key role in the decision over who will next lead the Metropolitan police. He has given Londoners an important voice in policing. How many Londoners would prefer their police force to answer to an invisible committee? Now the Opposition are criticising the Mayor’s role in policing—well, they invented it. Of course the Opposition do not like the current Mayor. They may not like what he does, but that is not a reason to dislike the office or to object to the same principle of greater democratic accountability being introduced in the rest of the country.

Let us be clear: the Mayor does not run the police in London; he holds them to account, and that is the principle that we are advancing. The British model of impartial policing must be retained, and it will be retained. Our aim is not to abandon the tripartite arrangement of police governance between the Home Office, local representatives and forces, but to rebalance it.

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Additionally, we will ensure, through regulations, that proper procedures are put in place. Police and crime commissioners must have the power to dismiss chief constables, just as police authorities currently do, but we must guard against capricious decisions, and we will put in place the arrangements to ensure that we do so.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Nick Herbert]

I will give way quickly to the hon. Gentleman, who can also have a final intervention.

[Chris Bryant]

If what the Minister says is true, how could Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, say that the phone hacking allegations were just codswallop, and that the police should not investigate because the story was dreamt up by the Labour party?

[Nick Herbert]

I apologise to the hon. Gentleman, but I was reading a note and was not properly listening to what he said. Will he say it again?

[Chris Bryant]

Do concentrate! If all of what the Minister says is true—that the police and their operational independence should not be politicised—how can it be right for the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to say that the phone hacking allegations at the News of the World were codswallop, and that the police should not investigate any further because it was a story got up by the Labour party?

[Nick Herbert]

Surely the hon. Gentleman misses the key point. First, the Mayor should not seek to direct an investigation any more than the Home Secretary should. Secondly, the Mayor will be held accountable for all issues, which is what Londoners expect. The point is that, before the Mayor, accountability was invisible. We seek to introduce that greater accountability elsewhere. The issue is not whether the hon. Gentleman thinks that the Mayor was right or wrong. There is now a figure who can be held accountable for the performance of the Met.