Deaths in Custody
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
I am today announcing that the Government will be establishing an independent review into the self-inflicted deaths of 18 to 24-year-olds in custody.
The Government are committed to the safety of offenders and in particular to reducing the number of deaths in custody. Although there are already comprehensive investigations into individual deaths we recognise there is benefit at this time in collating lessons that may be system-wide. The purpose of the review will be to make recommendations for reducing the risk of future deaths in custody. Although the review will focus on 18 to 24-year-olds it will identify learning that will benefit any age group.
The review will be conducted by the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody. I am grateful to Lord Harris of Haringey, chair of the IAP, for agreeing to lead the review. The review will report by spring 2015. Full terms of reference are available at: http://www.justice. gov.uk/about/deaths-in-custody-independent-review and copies will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The Youth Justice Board will also shortly be publishing a report setting out action taken and lessons learned in respect of deaths in custody in the under-18 secure estate. A summary of some the key actions taken by the Youth Justice Board and the Government to respond to findings from the deaths of children in custody is available at the link above. The YJB’s report will be published after it has taken steps, where appropriate, to contact the families whose children are mentioned in the report.
The Government issued a consultation in November 2013 on transforming management of young adults—aged 18 to 20—in custody. As the IAP review will focus on deaths in custody of this particular age group we want to receive the recommendations from the review before we respond to the consultation. We will consider the responses to the consultation alongside the outcome of the review process, and will issue the Government response to the consultation having taken into account the responses and the recommendations from the IAP’s review.
We will continue to make improvements to relevant operational practice as regards the current young adult estate, such as bolstering the system for young people transitioning from the youth to young adult estate.
Transforming Rehabilitation
Chris Grayling Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
I would like to update the House about the fact that we have now moved into the next phase of the competition to award new regional rehabilitation contracts. Engagement continues with around 50 providers who make up the 30 bidders involved in our probation reforms and we have now formally invited them to submit bids.
Alongside this, an updated version of the target operating model for the reforms will be published shortly. The target operating model explains how the new system will work on the ground, and what the respective roles of the national probation service and community rehabilitation companies (CRCs) will be, including where CRCs will have the opportunity to innovate in how they rehabilitate and support offenders, including through mentoring.
I will also shortly publish a revised list of designated resettlement prisons following a review undertaken as a result of changes to the prison estate and discussions with criminal justice partners.
Copies of the revised targeted operating model and list of resettlement prisons will be shortly made available in the Libraries of both Houses. Copies of the draft contracts will be made available in the Libraries of both Houses later this month.
Judicial Review
Chris Grayling Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
Today I am publishing the Government response to the consultation “Judicial review: proposals for further reform” setting out the package of reform I intend to take forward. The consultation ran from 6 September to 1 November and attracted 325 responses.
Judicial review is, and will remain, an important means of ensuring that the actions of Government and other public bodies are lawful. But I am clear that a wide-ranging package of reform is necessary to ensure that cases, particularly significant planning cases, are dealt with more quickly and that judicial review cannot be abused to generate publicity and delay perfectly lawful decisions. This is an important part of the Government’s programme to tackle public burdens, promote growth and stimulate economic recovery.
Three of the reforms I am taking forward were previously announced in the national infrastructure plan and autumn statement on 4 and 5 December respectively. These are the establishment of a specialist planning court, with time scales for case progression in civil procedure rules, which will speed the consideration of challenges to planning decisions; changes to the way in which the courts deal with cases raising defects that are highly unlikely to have affected the outcome, so that judicial review focuses on matters of substance and not mere technicalities; and reforms to enable more cases to “leapfrog” directly to the Supreme Court, ensuring they are resolved more quickly.
In addition, I intend to take forward a robust package of reforms which will see claimants carry a more proportionate measure of financial risk when deciding whether to bring or continue weak claims. This package includes limiting the use of protective cost orders to exceptional cases with a clear public interest; ensuring that details of anyone financially backing a judicial review are disclosed, even if they are not named as a party, to ensure that costs can be fairly awarded; strengthening the implications for a legal representative of receiving a wasted costs order on account of their unreasonable or negligent behaviour; and making third parties who intervene in a judicial review case responsible for their own costs and any costs incurred by a party as a result of their intervention.
I will also bring forward changes to restrict payment to legal aid providers unless permission is granted, subject to discretionary payment by the Legal Aid Agency on my behalf. This change will help to ensure that limited legal aid resources are targeted where they are needed most, which is essential if the legal aid system is to command public confidence and credibility.
Clauses in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill being introduced today will give effect to several of these reforms, with the remainder delivered through changes to secondary legislation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Grayling Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
14. What progress he has made on reducing the cost to the public purse of legal aid.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
I welcome the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) to my Front-Bench team. I also inform the House that Lord Faulks has joined my team in the House of Lords. I pay tribute to Lord McNally, who has left the Front-Bench team, for the excellent work that he did on behalf of the Government.
I will shortly publish final proposals covering the two areas that are subject to consultation in the “Transforming Legal Aid: Next Steps” document: the procurement of criminal litigation services and reform of the advocacy fee scheme. I anticipate that the total saving from the transforming legal aid proposals will be £220 million per year by 2018-19. That is in addition to the £320 million that has been saved as part of the Government’s previous reforms, which were enacted in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.
Yvonne Fovargue
Trafford law centre closed last week, Barnet law centre faces closure in March, and many more advice agencies and citizens advice bureaux face closure or redundancies, which will reduce services for the most vulnerable. What assessment is being made of the impact of those closures, which have been caused by the cumulative effect of cuts to civil legal aid and other cuts, through an increased demand on other public services, such as the health service?
Chris Grayling
We will clearly continue to review those matters. The decisions that we are making are of course difficult, but we have to make them because we have to bring down the cost of legal aid to deal with the enormous financial challenges that we face. We would not have wished to take these decisions, but given the inheritance that we received from the last Government, there is no option but to do so.
Oliver Colvile
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the reforms are designed to impact on those who receive the most in legal aid fees, while protecting those at the lower end of the scale?
Chris Grayling
I can confirm that. In taking a range of difficult decisions, we have sought to ensure that the impact is felt most significantly higher up the income scale. I am well aware that people at the junior end of the income scale face considerably more financial pressure than those who are further up. We have sought to put together a package that has a disproportionate impact further up the income scale, for example through our changes to very high cost case fees.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The Justice Secretary’s plan A of dismantling the independent legal Bar seems to be going very well. Will he tell us about his plan B and the public defender service?
Chris Grayling
I am having to take difficult decisions on the fees that we pay for the independent Bar, but I have absolutely no intention of dismantling it. It is an important part of our justice system and will continue to be so.
Sir John Randall (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is to be congratulated on trying to get the costs of legal aid down. He knows that I have concerns about the impact on the criminal Bar. What alternative funding has he looked at or will he be looking at to get costs down?
Chris Grayling
We have looked at a variety of ways of minimising the impact on different parts of our justice system of the difficult decisions that we have had to take. I reassure my right hon. Friend that the decisions that we are taking on legal aid are in proportion to the decisions that we are having to take in the rest of the Department—the legal aid budget is coming down by the same proportion as the overall departmental budget. In relation to the Bar, I have sought, where I can do so, to put in place ameliorating measures, such as the offer to introduce a staged payment system, which at the very least will improve the cash flow of working barristers, even if we have to take tough decisions about the amount that we pay.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
I, too, welcome the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) to his position and congratulate him on his promotion.
The Government’s salami-slicing of civil legal aid over the past three years and of criminal legal aid over the next 15 months will, according to independent experts, deny hundreds of thousands of citizens access to decent advice and representation. Law centres and high street firms are closing down, as we have heard, and junior barristers are leaving the profession. That should worry us all. If the Justice Secretary was provided with costed proposals that would make similar savings over the next 15 months but without the devastating consequences, would the Government reconsider their plans?
Chris Grayling
I sometimes find the Opposition’s attitude completely breathtaking. It is but two and a half years since they attacked our proposals to reform civil legal aid, saying that the savings should be found from criminal legal aid instead. Now they appear to have done a complete U-turn. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to commit in the House today that if a Labour Government are elected at the next election, they will reverse the cuts? I suspect that the answer is no.
Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
2. What assessment he has made of the potential role of mediation in reducing the number of court cases.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
4. What recent discussions he has had with judges on the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights on whole-life tariffs.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
I have had no recent discussions with the judiciary about the Strasbourg Court judgment in Vinter and others about whole-life orders. The reason for that is that the Government have been arguing in the Court of Appeal that whole-life tariffs are wholly justified in the most heinous cases. That process is continuing and we await the Court’s decision with interest.
Philip Davies
Mr Justice Sweeney has already refused to give a whole-life tariff to a murderer due to a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights, and he has deferred the sentencing for the murderers of Drummer Lee Rigby, who most right-thinking people think should get a whole-life tariff. When are we going to withdraw from the European convention on human rights and the increasingly barmy European Court of Human Rights, so that we can ensure that a life sentence means a life sentence for the murderers of Lee Rigby?
Chris Grayling
I agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments. We have gone to the Court of Appeal to ensure we can continue to give whole-life tariffs in this country. My view is that this should always be a matter for Parliament, but as he knows, while we have good collaborative relationships across the coalition and while we agree on many things, there are some things we do not agree on, and this is one of them, so I am afraid that wholesale change to our relationship with the European Court of Human Rights, which I personally think is urgently needed, will have to await the election of a majority Conservative Government.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
Will the Justice Secretary think about what he just said? He might agree or disagree with an individual decision of the ECHR, but does he not recognise that having a Europe-wide convention which protects the human rights of everybody in every country that is a signatory to it is good for all of us, including victims of irrational justice decisions in other jurisdictions? Will he not declare that we support the idea of a European convention on human rights and that we will not withdraw from it?
Chris Grayling
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman and I take a different view on this matter. I simply refer him to the recent comments by Lord Judge, the previous Lord Chief Justice and distinguished judicial figure who commands respect around the country. He said he believed the Court had overstepped the mark, and I agree with him. It is a tragedy, given the Court’s history, but it is the reality, and it has to be dealt with.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Does the Justice Secretary think it helps those of us campaigning for LGBT+ rights in Russia, for example, or trying to persuade Belarus to behave more like a responsible country for this country to be so negative about the European convention on human rights and the European Court? These are our standards, and we should be trying to export them, not pull away from them ourselves.
Chris Grayling
Fundamentally, in my opinion, the problem is that the Court is interpreting the convention as an unfettered jurisprudence that allows it to move into areas never envisaged by the people who wrote the convention. My clear view is that the Court is moving into areas that are matters for national Parliaments and which do not belong within the remit of an international court. It is a matter of disagreement between the coalition parties—we are open and honest about that—but we will leave it to the electorate in 14 months to decide which of our approaches they prefer.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
Would the Secretary of State care to reflect on the role of the European Court of Human Rights in protecting fundamental freedoms in this country that he would support? For example, it was due to the Court that journalists were not forced to reveal their sources and that people were allowed to go on wearing crucifixes when they had been told not to wear them. These are essential and fundamental freedoms that I know he agrees with. Would he care to comment on that?
Chris Grayling
Where I differ is that I do not believe it is necessary to have an international court deciding things that should be a matter for this Parliament and our courts. That is what needs to change.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
I strongly support my right hon. Friend’s stand on this matter. Does he agree that just one example of how far the European Court of Human Rights has moved from its original foundations is that the British Government and the lawyers who were instrumental in setting it up were also responsible for the largest programme of judicial executions—of Nazis at Nuremburg—in modern British history?
Chris Grayling
It is certainly the case that the jurisprudence of the Court has moved a long way from where it started, and some things have clearly changed for the better, but I would argue now that the decisions coming out of the Court are matters that should be addressed in this and other Parliaments. Of course, this is an area where there are divisions between all the parties in the House, and I have no doubt that it will be an area of lively debate as we approach the general election, when the people will decide.
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
16. What his policy is on the tendering of shared services; and if he will make a statement.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
As part of the next generation shared services programme, the Ministry of Justice is reviewing the options available for the future delivery of our shared services.
Katy Clark
A foreign multinational that has been awarded hundreds of millions of pounds of Government money to undertake work that was previously carried out in the public sector has admitted to exploring options to offshore that work. Surely the Secretary of State accepts that it is the Government’s responsibility to maximise employment in this country. Will he undertake to intervene if necessary to prevent that work from being offshored?
Chris Grayling
I have a track record of saying that I do not believe in offshoring UK jobs, and I will always look carefully at any such situation that arises. Whenever possible, the Government should prevent that from happening. I cannot say that it will never happen, however, as these are often decisions with a number of factors behind them, but I am not sympathetic to the offshoring of UK jobs.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
This Government are committed to reducing the number of foreign nationals in our prisons. While Labour was in power, the number of foreign prisoners more than doubled, at great expense to the taxpayer. Since 2010, we have begun to clear up Labour’s mess. We have reversed that rising trend, and we are now looking at every option to send more foreign criminals back to serve their sentences in their home countries. Earlier this month, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) travelled to Nigeria to sign a compulsory prisoner transfer agreement between our two countries, and I congratulate him on doing that. This is a significant achievement for the UK, particularly as Nigeria has one of the highest foreign national populations in our prisons. The agreement will be ratified in the coming months, and we expect to see Nigerian offenders being sent home within a year.
Mark Pawsey
The Secretary of State is working hard to improve the chances of those who have completed a prison term. Does he agree that locally managed schemes such as Future Unlocked, which he visited in Rugby last year, have a key role to play in achieving that objective?
Chris Grayling
I very much enjoyed that visit, and I pay tribute to the work being done in Rugby. In setting out our probation reforms, we have taken steps to ensure that smaller organisations not only have the opportunity to participate in that way but have the simplest possible mechanisms to enable them to do so, with transparency of risk in the supply chain, with common contracts to save on bureaucracy and with measures to prevent anyone being used as what is commonly known as bid candy. We want to guarantee that supply chains will remain intact—without changes—through our consent.
Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
Having seen the way in which the Ministry of Justice has been taken for a ride by G4S at Oakwood prison and by ALS in relation to the court translator services—both of which contracts were awarded by this Government—will the Secretary of State tell us just how bad a private company running a probation contract will need to be in order to be sacked?
Chris Grayling
Let me tell the House what being taken for a ride is. It is what happened under the last Government, under the contracts for electronic tagging, and we have been dealing with that and clearing up the mess in the past few months. I will take no lessons from Labour Members, who presided over an appalling system of contract management and exposed the taxpayer to considerable risk, leaving behind the mess that we have had to clear up. They are shocking, they were shocking, and I will take no lessons from them.
Sadiq Khan
The Justice Secretary has been in the job long enough to understand that the way it works is that I ask the questions and he answers them. He and the Minister with responsibility for probation claimed that the main reason for privatising probation is that the savings can be used to provide probation services to those who currently do not receive them as their sentence is less than 12 months. The Justice Secretary has refused to publish costings and to pilot his plans, and he is already two months behind schedule. I will ask him a simple question, and I hope to get an answer: by what date will all those on sentences of less than 12 months be receiving through-the-gate supervision?
Chris Grayling
We will begin rolling out the part of the reforms set out in the Offender Rehabilitation Bill in the latter part of this year. I say to the right hon. Gentleman that he represents a party that was in government for nearly 15 years, during which time tens of thousands of offences were committed by people on short sentences who had no supervision when they left prison. The Labour Government did nothing about it. We are doing something about it, and it is not before time.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
T2. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 is one of the great achievements of this Government but it left a few issues unresolved, one of which relates to humanist weddings, which are very popular in Scotland but currently not allowed here. The Act required the Secretary of State to conduct a review. What progress has been made on it, so that we can get on with allowing such weddings to happen?
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
T3. The Secretary of State had previously been adamant that no further contracts would be awarded to Serco until it had received a clean bill of health from the Serious Fraud Office. Will he therefore explain why he awarded it a contract for the extension of Thameside prison on 20 December? When is a contract not a contract?
Chris Grayling
I can only assume that the hon. Gentleman was not in the House last June when I made the original statement about the electronic tagging situation and said that I had decided, in the interests of justice in this country, to proceed with two extensions at prisons run by the two organisations involved. I was completely clear about it, I explained why at the time and he clearly was not listening.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
T4. Residents in Monmouthshire were recently very concerned when a man convicted of manslaughter absconded from Prescoed open prison. Will the Minister ask his officials to look into the risk assessments being used before prisoners are transferred to Prescoed to ensure that they are suitably rigorous?
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
T6. Does the Secretary of State agree that prisoners released on licence who reoffend or breach the terms of their licence should serve the remaining part of their original sentence in prison in full? If he agrees, what is he doing to ensure that that always happens? If he does not agree, why not?
Chris Grayling
As my hon. Friend knows, I have a lot of sympathy with him on these matters in areas such as breach of licence and automatic early release. For resource reasons, I cannot do everything that he would like me to do, but when he reads the Bill that is due to be laid before this House tomorrow, he will find things in it that are at least a step in the right direction.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
There are 33 firms doing legal aid-backed criminal work in South Yorkshire, but only one in four or five will get duty contracts in the future, which means less competition, less choice and less access to justice. Surely what we are seeing is the slow, lingering death of legal aid at the hands of the Justice Secretary.
Chris Grayling
The argument for consolidation in the legal aid world goes back well before the last election to reviews carried out, and arguments made, by the previous Government. Our current reform proposals allow those firms to retain own-client work, which is what they argued for. What we are setting out around duty work is designed to ensure that, in tough times, we can guarantee that everyone arrested and taken to a police cell will always have access to legal advice.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
T8. I welcome the Government’s transforming rehabilitation programme to cut reoffending, but will the Secretary of State reassure me that those suffering from mental health problems, both inside and outside prison, will also get the help they need? Will he outline what steps or initiatives his Department is taking, in conjunction with the Department of Health, on the matter?
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
Why is the Legal Aid Agency expanding the public defender service and recruiting barristers when reports from as far back as 2007 have found that it is between 40% and 90% more expensive than the independent professions? Furthermore, it cannot act in cases of conflict.
Chris Grayling
The public defender service was, of course, set up by the previous Labour Government, and it is always important to ensure that it is staffed properly.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
The Secretary of State will recollect the prisoner deportation shambles of 2006, when huge numbers of foreign prisoners were allowed to stay in the country on release simply because of administrative incompetence. Will he assure me that foreign prisoners who should be considered for deportation are now properly being so considered?
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
One of the many excellent things the Secretary of State inherited from the previous Labour Government was an outstanding Probation Service in County Durham, which is now at risk from the Government’s privatisation. Will he now pay attention to the many issues raised in the Select Committee on Justice’s report of 22 January, and scrap that botched privatisation?
Chris Grayling
I do not recall the Justice Committee asking us to scrap our plans. Although good work is being done around the country by probation officers, we cannot go on with this situation in which 50,000 offenders are released from prison every year and left with no supervision on our streets, so that tens of thousands of crimes are committed, with victims around the country. We cannot go on in that way.
Legal Services (Red Tape Challenge)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
The Ministry of Justice wishes to implement its policies in the most effective way, ensuring that the rules that oversee the justice system are proportionate and effective. However, it is always important that we balance this aim and ensure we do not place unnecessary burdens on business or hamper economic growth.
In May 2012, the Ministry of Justice launched the legal services theme of the red tape challenge to help us examine where we could improve regulation. We sought views from a broad range of stakeholders and the public on the governance of legal services and the regulation that underpins our system of justice. We asked whether these regulations were still necessary or whether they could be improved so that the overall system is easier to understand and navigate.
I would like to inform the House that the Government are today announcing the outcome of the legal services red tape challenge. Of the 189 substantive instruments considered, we propose to scrap or improve 69 statutory instruments: a significant number of these changes will create real benefits for business, the public or the taxpayer.
Through these planned and ongoing reforms we will simplify the legislation around bailiffs, setting out clearly what bailiffs can do under what circumstances, and the fees that they can charge, giving both business and the public clearer guidance on how bailiffs can behave. The rules that regulate claims management companies have been improved by introducing a ban on paying or receiving referral fees in personal injury cases and offering cash incentives or similar benefits to consumers to make claims. We have also introduced mandatory requirements for written and signed contracts with clients before any fees can be taken by those companies. These changes will help strengthen existing action to drive out poor practices, better protect consumers and go some way to addressing the compensation culture.
We will work with the Land Registry to simplify the process of searching for local land charges by making the legislative changes necessary to allow the Land Registry to have sole responsibility for maintaining a local land charges register, and for supplying local search results. This should make searching simpler as there will be one register of local land charges, rather than separate registers with different local authorities as at present. It will also enable the Land Registry to standardise the price of searches, turnaround times and the format of searches and will mark a significant step towards making the Land Registry a “one-stop shop” for property searches by April 2015. The Land Registry will continue to make the necessary changes to move towards “digital by default”, including enabling all applications to update/change the Land Register to be made electronically, should people wish to do so, by March 2014.[Official Report, 24 March 2014, Vol. 578, c. 2 MC.]
Addressing the concerns raised through the red tape challenge and the legal services review, the Justice Secretary will take forward further steps on legal services regulation in the coming months.
Many of these measures are already being taken forward and some have been implemented already. We hope to make the remaining changes by the end of this Parliament.
EU Treaties
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
The Ministry of Justice and the Home Office have prepared the fourth annual report to Parliament on the application of protocols 19 and 21 to the treaty on European Union (TEU) and the treaty on the functioning of the European Union (TFEU) (“the treaties”) in relation to EU Justice and Home Affairs matters. The report is submitted on behalf of both my own Department and the Home Office.
On 9 June 2008 the then Leader of the House of Lords committed to table a report in Parliament each year setting out the decisions taken by the Government in accordance with protocol 21 (“the Justice and Home Affairs opt-in protocol”) and to make that report available for debate. These commitments were designed to ensure that the views of the Scrutiny Committees should inform the Government’s decision-making process.
The Minister for Europe confirmed this commitment on behalf of the coalition Government in 2011, and this is the fourth such report. It covers the period 1 December 2012 to 30 November 2013. For completeness, the report also covers the application of protocol 19 to the treaties on the Schengen acquis integrated into the framework of the EU (“the Schengen opt-out protocol”).
Over the period covered in the report, the Government took 21 decisions on UK participation in EU Justice and Home Affairs legislative proposals. Of these, the UK opted in to 13 proposals. The Government have not taken any decisions under the Schengen opt-out protocol during the period covered by this report. At the point of publication, 11 EU legislative proposals are subject to ministerial and parliamentary consideration with regard to an opt-in decision. The report also provides an indicative list of legislative proposals which are expected to be brought forward over the next 12 months that are likely to require a decision on UK participation under the Justice and Home Affairs opt-in or Schengen opt-out protocols.
Transforming Rehabilitation
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
All probation trusts have now received formal notification of the termination of the probation trust service contract as part of the transforming rehabilitation programme.
Trusts are now completing the allocation of staff to their new roles, and every trust is on track to do so by 1 April. We will then test key aspects of the new model so that those who will be in both the community rehabilitation companies (CRCs) and in the National Probation Service (NPS) can trial the new ways of working before we formally complete the transfer to the new governance arrangements. Over a two-month period from April we will prepare for the full transition to new IT and support systems in areas like HR.
We will also start new interim account management arrangements from 1 April, to allow the account management team to start to work closely with emerging CRC and NPS teams right away and prepare for contract mobilisation from the end of May. Full commercial contract management will follow at the conclusion of the competition process.
A copy of the letter terminating the probation trust service contracts has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Transforming Youth Custody
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
The Government are today publishing their response to the Transforming Youth Custody consultation, setting out its plans to put education at the heart of detention and launch the first purpose-built secure college.
Although both overall crime and proven offending by young people are down, 71% of young offenders sentenced to custody go on to reoffend within 12 months. Furthermore, youth custody is too expensive, with the average cost of a place standing at around £100,000 per annum, and education provision across the estate is inconsistent. The Transforming Youth Custody consultation set out the Government’s ambition to tackle these problems. Responses demonstrated support for the principle of youth custody achieving a sharper focus on equipping young offenders with the skills, qualifications and self-discipline they need to turn away from crime and fulfil their potential.
I am today announcing plans to introduce secure colleges, a new generation of secure educational establishments for young offenders, and to open a pathfinder secure college in the east midlands in 2017. If the pathfinder proves successful, my vision is for a network of secure colleges across England and Wales. Secure colleges will have strong educational leadership delivering a daily regime designed around education, vocational training and life skills, as well as tackling the wider causes of offending. They will replace existing expensive and inconsistent provision, raise educational attainment, reduce cost and act as a catalyst to reduce reoffending. I will shortly bring forward legislation on secure colleges.
While I introduce this new model of youth custody, I am taking important steps to improve provision for those young people currently in custody. At present 15 to 17-year-olds in young offender institutions (YOIs) receive an average of only 12 hours contracted education a week. I am today launching a competition for new education contracts in publicly-run YOIs which will seek to more than double the number of hours young offenders spend in education. In addition, the Government are taking steps to ensure that when a young offender leaves custody more effective plans are in place to support their resettlement in the community, with more going into education, training or employment and fewer going on to reoffend.
By putting education at the heart of youth custody, the Government will set young offenders on the path to becoming law-abiding, hard-working citizens, and make communities safer.
Copies of “Transforming Youth Custody: The Government’s Response to the Consultation” will be available in the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office.
Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Third time.
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who served in Committee and those who have spoken on Report. The Bill contained many excellent measures when it was introduced in the other place last May, but following the House’s scrutiny it returns there with important improvements.
Before I set out the detail of the Bill as it is now, and although words have already been said in the House on this, it would be appropriate to refer to the tragic loss of the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East, who played an active role in the debate on the Bill. The news we heard at Christmas time was distressing for hon. Members on both sides of the House. He will be much missed. All involved in the Bill send our best wishes to his family.
On restorative justice, the Bill gives many more victims the means to bring home the impact that crime has had on them. On drug testing, the Bill provides for testing after release for a wider range of offenders whose drug abuse contributes to their offending. For offenders who enter the justice system as juveniles but leave as adults, the Bill gives the support they need, either from an adult probation provider or a youth offending team, whichever is best suited to their needs.
I commend the excellent work in Committee of the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), who has responsibility for prisons and rehabilitation, and who has done a fine job of leading on the Bill to this stage. I pay tribute to those on the Opposition Front Bench for engaging in lively and constructive debate. We may not always agree on the detail, but this has been a constructive debate of the kind that does credit to the House. I also thank the Clerks and the Bill team in the Ministry of Justice for their advice and support.
For too long, the criminal justice system’s efforts to reduce reoffending have been hampered by a major gap in the law—the lack of any statutory supervision for offenders released from short prison sentences. As a result, the most prolific offenders have historically received the least support. The Bill will change that. It will put an end to offenders who cause havoc in our constituencies leaving prison with only £46 in their pockets and little or no support. It is not a surprise that about 60% of them go on to reoffend within a year. It is often easier for them to return to a life of crime than to sort their lives out. The Bill begins to address that huge problem.
The human cost of not providing support for that group is enormously high: 85,000 crimes every year, including hundreds of serious sexual and violent offences. The Bill will significantly reduce the terrible harm that that group of offenders currently causes to victims and communities. It will also help those people to turn their lives around.
The Bill will give 12 months of licence and supervision after release to every offender who is given a short sentence. That will give those working with them the time and professional discretion to deliver the rehabilitation necessary to provide proper mentoring support after offenders leave prison to help them turn their lives around. It will create a light-touch framework for dealing with breach of supervision that allows for sanctions in the community or a warning, as well as a return to custody. It will expand the group of offenders who can be tested for drugs after release from prison to tackle what is a major cause of reoffending, and it will make reforms to the community sentencing framework to create equivalent flexibility and discretion to what we are creating for post-release supervision and mentoring. All of those are sensible and long-overdue reforms. They will, I believe, make major inroads into the current reoffending rate of nearly 60% for short sentence offenders. They should command the unanimous support of this House.
It has been disappointing to see a long list of flawed wrecking amendments from the Opposition to our wider reforms to probation that are the polar opposite of policies that only three years ago they supported, and which they seek to undo even though they emanate from their own Offender Management Act 2007. What they have tried to undo are reforms to the supervision of offenders that will harness all sectors, bringing in the right expertise from the voluntary, community and private sectors to reinforce the work of the public sector. The reforms will bring new ideas and new approaches to rehabilitation and will deliver more for less for the taxpayer. Crucially, they will finally deliver a proper through-the-gate resettlement service for offenders leaving custody, so that support starts well before people leave prison and follows them through the gate in a seamless way. They will create a new, single national probation service dedicated to managing offenders who pose the highest risk to the public, working alongside 21 community rehabilitation companies drawing on the best of other sectors.
I am happy to say, too, that following intensive negotiations before Christmas, in principle an agreement has been reached with the trade unions on the terms and conditions for staff transferring to the new organisations. We are currently awaiting ratification by the formal probation collective negotiating machinery later this month. The unions have written to all their branches, making it clear that local trade disputes are suspended pending ratification, after which the disputes will be formally withdrawn.
The great irony of all this is that the Opposition’s approach to reducing reoffending when in government was very similar, recognising that organisations from a range of sectors have something to offer offenders. I remind the House once more of what Lord Reid said on this topic when Home Secretary:
“The Secretary of State, not the probation boards,”—
as they were then—
“will be responsible for ensuring service provision by entering into contracts with the public, private or voluntary sectors. With that burden lifted, the public sector can play to its strengths while others play to theirs.”—[Official Report, 11 December 2006; Vol. 454, c. 593.]
That is precisely what these reforms do. I could not agree more with him. That is why the Offender Management Act gave wide powers to commission probation services from across all sectors, yet only a few years on it is disappointing to see that the Opposition have returned to many of their roots and want to forget that they ever passed the 2007 Act.
In spite of that, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) said on Second Reading:
“we agree with the broad objectives of the Bill.”—[Official Report, 11 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 671.]
I very much hope that this remains his position, and that right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Benches will join us in giving the Bill a Third Reading tonight. It is a Bill about giving rehabilitation to a group of offenders who desperately need it. It is about reducing the 85,000 crimes committed against individuals and communities across the country. It is about giving those working with offenders much greater freedom to pursue what works in stopping offenders, without all the constraints that can often exist within the public sector and without central diktat. It is about taking action for the victims of the 85,000 crimes committed by those short sentence offenders every year. Last but not least, it is a long overdue offer of rehabilitation to offenders who have been let down by the rest of society.
The Bill is designed, no more and no less, to fill a gap that is wholly unjustifiable in our criminal justice system. We cannot go on for year after year with people who are most likely to reoffend released from prison with £46 in their pocket, and with nowhere to go and no one to support and mentor them. More often than not, they simply return to the same streets and the same people, and reoffend all over again. The Opposition might not like our approach to these reforms, but in government they looked themselves at trying to do the same, and decided they could not. If they understand the importance of the step we are taking, they should at least give us credit for following a line that we believe could make the difference we have all sought for so long, and I urge the House to give the Bill its Third Reading tonight.
Sadiq Khan
I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the six-month time scale.
No one can disagree with the objective of extending supervision and the accompanying help to all those released from prison. In this regard, I want to place on record our admiration for the massively important work that professional probation staff around the country do to rehabilitate some of the most troubled individuals while keeping the public safe. Much of the public do not realise the work of the probation service, and it is a sign of its success that the Government will leave to it the most high-risk offenders. It is welcome that offenders released from sentences of less than two years will be subject to at least 12 months of mandatory supervision in the community, but it is multi-national companies with no track record in this area that will be responsible for this, rather than the probation service, which we know can do the job very well.
It has always been an anomaly that short-sentence prisoners—the group with the highest risk of reoffending —are the ones left to their own devices when released from prison. As has been mentioned and the House knows, the previous Labour Government tried to address this with custody plus, but financial constraints prevented it from being implemented. The House also knows, from Paul Goggins’ Second Reading contribution, that by contrast the Government have no idea how much the extension of supervision to those serving 12 months or less will cost. Their impact assessment skirts around this, saying that
“the cost will be dependent on the outcome of competition”.
The Government have done nothing to update the House on this and so the plans remain uncosted.
The Justice Secretary and the Minister with responsibility for probation say that extending supervision will be paid for by privatising probation. But if that is the case, one would assume that the Justice Secretary and his officials must have figures to support it. It is hardly surprising that experts and others are suspicious about why the Government will not come clean on the numbers. The Justice Secretary has linked the cost of extended supervision to savings delivered by privatising probation, so the Bill is directly related to the wider probation privatisation plans. The two issues simply cannot be separated, which is one of the reasons new clause 1 was inserted by the other place.
The changes that flow from the Bill are untried and untested and will see supervision of serious and violent offenders fragmented. I must give credit to the Justice Secretary, whose plans have created an impressive coalition of those opposed to them: probation officers, chief executives and chairs of probation trusts, The Economist, his own officials and, most recently, the chief inspectors of both probation and of prisons, who questioned the system’s ability to cope with his plans. The chief inspector of probation warned that the plans would lead to
“an increased risk to the public.”
The Economist called the plans “half-baked.” The Ministry of Justice’s own risk register warns that there is an 80 per cent. risk of an unacceptable drop in operational performance, which when dealing with offenders can only lead to higher risks to public safety.
But still the Justice Secretary pushes ahead, with the same arrogance and dismissal of expert advice that led to the disaster that is the Work programme—a Work programme so bad that someone has more chance of still being in work after six months if they do not go on it.
Chris Grayling
We may be going slightly off track, Mr Speaker, but may I just point out that the Work programme is doing about twice as well as the predecessor programme that we inherited from the last Government?
Mr Llwyd
I hope I do not suffer a sex change, which with this moustache would be awful to see!
When we enter the legislative processes, we usually start with a lot of unanswered questions. What distinguishes the process for this Bill is that we have almost as many such questions now as we had at the very beginning. The Justice Committee took evidence very recently, and experts in the field are asking some fundamental questions about how the procedure will work and how safe it will be. I do not know; obviously, I do not profess to know all the answers.
We have had an interesting debate or two during the Bill’s passage so far. I pay particular tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright)—he is the man steering the Bill through the House—for attempting to engage constructively with the process at all times. I am sure that, on occasion, that has been as difficult for him, as it has been for Opposition Members.
Let me also associate myself, warmly and sincerely, with the tributes that have been paid to our friend and colleague Paul Goggins. He played a large part in the Bill’s progress, speaking as he did with great knowledge.
I welcome the provisions for the rehabilitation of female offenders and for the extension of restorative justice. I also welcome the parallel process—if I may call it that—of over the weekend appointing the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) to prepare a report on veterans. That is all to the good. Overall, however, I still feel uneasy, because there are a great many unanswered questions. I do not pose the following question in expectation of an answer today, but I should be pleased if the Lord Chancellor could respond to it in due course.
During our debates, including those that have taken place today, the Government have prayed in aid the Peterborough social impact bond pilot. The original published figure for crime reduction was 6%. The Under-Secretary of State said on Radio 5 Live that it was 12%. In Committee, the Justice Secretary said that it was 20%, and today, in the Chamber, the Under-Secretary of State said that it was 8%. All four figures cannot be right. It would not be a bad idea for us to be given a single figure, because that disparity underlines my unease about some of the facts and figures that have been cited. I do not think that we should be prodding around in the dark when it comes to such a potentially dangerous area of law.
Chris Grayling
I hope that I can help the right hon. Gentleman. Two sets of statistics have been published. The comparators are between the absolutely numerical reduction at Peterborough and the reduction among a comparable group at a prison elsewhere in the country. The 20% figure, which is the highest, refers to the number of further crimes committed by the cohort, while the lower figures show the overall reduction in the absolute rate of reoffending—the binary rate. I should be happy to write to the right hon. Gentleman and set out the figures in detail, but I can tell him now that the experience of mentoring at Peterborough has been very encouraging indeed.
Mr Llwyd
I thank the Justice Secretary for his response, and I am sure that he is right about mentoring. I think he will find in due course, when the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border reports to him, that it is key to any improvement in dealing with the rehabilitation of ex-service people, and I am sure that that experience will translate into other forms of rehabilitation.
I do not want to elaborate on the position that I have taken, or, indeed, on the position that anyone else has taken. We have had a good-natured tussle over the past few weeks; I only hope that some of our worst fears are misplaced, for the sake of the British people.
Contracts Update
Chris Grayling Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
On 11 July, Official Report, column 573, I made a statement to the House about significant anomalies that my Department had identified in the billing practices under MOJ’s electronic monitoring contracts with G4S and Serco. An initial audit of the contracts had found that the MOJ had been charged by the two companies in ways not justified by the contracts and for people who were not in fact being monitored. Their conduct under these contracts is now subject to a criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
G4S and Serco withdrew from the ongoing competition for the next generation of electronic monitoring contracts. The new contracts will deliver state-of-the-art GPS tracking technology, better value for money and robust contract management arrangements.
From the outset I made clear that I intended to take robust action to deal with evidence of unacceptable conduct by suppliers under my Department’s contracts, and to recover any monies overpaid as a result of these practices.
I requested an audit of every contract my Department holds with G4S and Serco. I also asked for an independent review into the health and robustness of all aspects of contract management across the MOJ. Today marks the conclusion of these reviews. This statement deals with matters relating to my Department’s contracts. The Minister for the Cabinet Office will be making a separate statement on the cross-Government review of contracts held by the two companies and on their progress in achieving corporate renewal.
Serco
Serco agreed to a forensic audit of the electronic monitoring contract, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, including examination of email traffic relating to the contract. On the basis of this analysis Serco has now agreed to repay £68.5 million excluding VAT. This figure reimburses the Government for money owed on the electronic monitoring contract and for other costs incurred, including the cost of investigating these matters. It also includes £4.2 million which will be set against future costs incurred as we transition to new electronic monitoring arrangements. I am satisfied on the basis of PricewaterhouseCoopers’s forensic audit, and having taken appropriate advice, that this represents a good deal for the taxpayer. As with all full and final settlements, in the event of criminality being established with material impact, we would look again at our contractual position.
On 28 August I announced that Serco’s contract for escorting prisoners to courts (the PECS contract) had been referred to the City of London police. This followed the discovery that members of Serco staff had been recording prisoners as having been delivered ready for court when in fact they were not. Serco agreed at that point to repay past profits and forgo future profits earned on the PECS contract, and the company has now confirmed that it will repay past profits amounting to £2 million excluding VAT. The contract remains subject to MOJ supervision and is being robustly managed.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers audit did not find any further evidence of material issues on Serco contracts beyond electronic monitoring and PECS.
G4S
MOJ’s audit of G4S contracts has uncovered problems with two further contracts held by G4S for facilities management in the courts. Specifically, the audit revealed serious issues relating to invoicing, delivery and performance reporting against both contracts. While at this stage my Department does not have evidence to confirm that dishonesty has taken place, we have today, following legal advice, referred both matters to the Serious Fraud Office in order to establish whether this is the case.
The PricewaterhouseCoopers audit did not find any further evidence of material issues on any other MOJ contracts held by G4S.
Unlike Serco, G4S has not yet agreed a position on repayment. However, discussions are ongoing and I remain determined to pursue all legal options to recover the taxpayers’ money.
Rehabilitation Reforms
In the light of these developments, both G4S and Serco have decided to withdraw from the MOJ competition for rehabilitation services. This means that neither company will play a role as a lead provider of probation services in England and Wales in this competition.
However, the Government have left open the possibility of either supplier, as part of their corporate renewal, playing a supporting role, working with smaller businesses or voluntary sector providers in order to support our objective of achieving a diverse market. Any proposals will be considered as part of a rigorous evaluation process, and will take account of the Government’s wider assessment of the companies’ progress in achieving corporate renewal.
MOJ contract management review
While it is evident that both suppliers’ conduct under these contracts has been wholly unacceptable, I made clear in my statement in July that my Department had been found wanting in its management of the electronic monitoring contracts. Officials took immediate steps to address the emerging issues. A new contract management team was put in place to manage the electronic monitoring contracts and members of MOJ staff were placed permanently at each contractor’s site to monitor performance on the ground. The PECS contract was immediately placed under close supervision.
I also asked Tim Breedon, the MOJ’s lead non-executive director, to conduct an independent review of all aspects of contract management across the Department. This review was informed by a detailed assessment by PricewaterhouseCoopers of the 15 largest and highest risk contracts from across the MOJ. Each was assessed against the NAO framework of best practice in contract management.
The review found evidence of good practice but also significant and long-standing weaknesses in the MOJ’s management of contracts. The report makes proposals for action to achieve best practice across seven distinct areas. These proposals are consistent with those emerging from the cross-Government review. I am very grateful to Tim Breedon for overseeing this comprehensive review. I have commissioned a programme to implement the report’s findings in full across the MOJ and will have processes in place to do this by the end of March 2014. A copy of the report is being placed in the Libraries of both Houses.