Public Health (Coronavirus) (Protection from Eviction) (England) (No. 2) Regulations 2021

David Lammy Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 General Committees

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

It is self-evident that a ban on evictions should stop evictions, but that is not what the Government’s so-called ban is achieving. Eviction attempts by landlords doubled during the winter coronavirus lockdown and more than 500 households were forced out by county court bailiffs. However, the problem is even bigger than that. In 2020, between the start of April and the end of November, 207,543 households approached their council for help with homelessness. A combination of illegal evictions, tenants being put under pressure to leave before eviction, and lodgers never having had protection, has meant that hundreds of thousands have faced the indignity and threat of homelessness.

We all remember the words of the Housing Secretary last March, that

“no one should lose their home as a result of the coronavirus epidemic”.

How do the Government square their promises with the misery that they delivered? In the middle of the lockdown they created loopholes in the eviction ban that meant that hundreds of evictions continued to go ahead. No wonder the London Renters Union branded it a fake eviction ban. The Government promised to put their arms around the British people; but instead they pushed them out into the cold in the depths of the winter lockdown. Everyone deserves security in their home, but throughout the covid crisis the Government consistently made last-minute decisions that put renters at risk. Why does the Minister think it is right to allow arrears that have built up since the start of the pandemic to lead to evictions?

The Government should give people security in their homes by strengthening the ban so that it means what it should. Why does the Minister think it is right to extend the ban only to 31 March when we know that restrictions on our liberty, lives and work will go on much longer? It is becoming a farce that every couple of weeks we end up here debating yet another extension to the evictions ban. In a few weeks we will inevitably be back here again, debating the same problems, without any solutions.

Labour has the solution for renters and homeowners. I shall repeat what I said the last time and perhaps the Minister will listen. We need to strengthen and extend the ban on evictions and repossessions until restrictions are over, extend the mortgage holiday, raise the local housing allowance to cover median market rents, reform housing law to end automatic evictions through the courts, reduce the waiting period to receive support for mortgage interest payments, retain the £20 uplift to universal credit beyond six months, end the five-week wait and suspend the benefits cap.

People face the threat of losing their homes, and the biggest intervention that the Government will make is to extend the stamp duty holiday to help the owners of second homes, and buy-to-let landlords. Get your priorities straight. Stand up for those who need help. Do not turn this health crisis into a homelessness crisis as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Lammy Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

As he is so often, my hon. Friend the Chair of the Justice Committee is correct. Often when a Nightingale court is set up, it does not have the required custody facilities, but it does free up space in our existing Crown court estate, which does have custody facilities, and allow more Crown court or jury trials in which the defendant is remanded to take place in existing facilities.

Crown court sitting days are very important. We have been clear that in the current financial year Crown court sitting days should not impose any constraints on listing and sitting cases. The situation for the coming financial year, starting in April, is the subject of discussions between my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon, but it is fair to say that we are expecting a substantial increase in Crown court sitting days.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

The Government’s answer to the question about the scale of the crisis in our justice system is that the backlog has been higher in the past, but the Minister knows that this is just a distraction. In 2010, Crown court cases took, on average, 391 days to complete. By 2019, the Government had closed half of the courts and had 27,000 fewer sitting days, meaning that each case took an average of 511 days. A total of 30% fewer cases were completed, but they took 75% longer. Each year that the Minister’s party is in government, justice for victims is further delayed. How can he be so complacent, announcing just 40 extra rooms? We have 20 Nightingale courts and the head of Her Majesty’s Courts Service said that we needed 200. When are we going to get them?

[Chris Philp]

A range of other measures are being used, not least the roll-out of the cloud video platform, which led last week to more than 20,000 remote hearings across all jurisdictions, and, as I have said, 290 jury court rooms, which is more than we had before. The right hon. Gentleman asked about the past, but he rather conveniently skated over the fact that the outstanding caseload in the Crown court before the pandemic in 2020 was 39,000, whereas in 2010, under the last Labour Government, it was 47,000. He asked about the number of cases and the number of cases being disposed of, but he neglected to mention that crime, according to the crime survey—the only Office for National Statistics-certified source of statistics—had fallen from 9.5 million cases in 2010 to 5.6 million in 2020 under a Conservative Government delivering reductions in crime. I notice that, last week, the shadow Justice Secretary talked about wartime juries of seven. I also noticed that, in June of last year, writing in The Guardian newspaper—

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Buckland]

I join my hon. Friend in his tribute to staff not only at HMP Bure but at every institution in the prison estate and the wider Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service community for the tireless work they have been doing since the outbreak of the pandemic.

My hon. Friend is right to point to the importance of vaccination. Already, prison staff who come within the existing criteria in wave one are being vaccinated in accordance with the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advice. For the next phase, I am strongly and actively supporting the prioritisation of prison staff. My officials are working on that with the Department of Health and Social Care. The JCVI has already said that

“those involved in the justice system”

should be considered for prioritisation. I strongly agree.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Cases of covid-19 are now getting out of control in our prisons. In December, there were 75 cases per 1,000 in prison compared to 46 in the wider community. There are 87 outbreaks, across an estate of 170, in prisons in England and Wales. There have been reports of prisoners who have tested positive for coronavirus leaving cells and being taken to court, putting all at risk. In December, the total number of deaths in prison throughout the whole pandemic spiked by 50% in just one month. Can the Secretary of State tell the House how many prisoners and prison staff died after being infected by the coronavirus in the month of January?

[Robert Buckland]

I will furnish those precise figures to the right hon. Gentleman when they are finally available, which will be very shortly. May I deal with the general points that he makes? It is important to note that an outbreak is defined as any number of cases in excess of two in our prisons. Every case is regrettable, but it is important to put this in context: at the moment, as I speak, two thirds of the prison estate either has no outbreaks at all or outbreaks of fewer than 10 cases. That is an important qualification. Clearly, as a result of testing, which we have ramped up right across the estate, we are able to identify more asymptomatic prisoners, and we test prisoners before they go to court. Nobody who presents with symptoms should be presented at court anyway.

This work has been impressive. The quarantine compartmentalisation work that the right hon. Gentleman knows about continues, and I am confident from my daily briefings with Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service that everything is being done to control outbreaks in our prisons. It is not right, with respect to him, to say that this is out of control in our prisons. That, frankly, is an insult to the hard work that staff are doing every day to contain covid-19.

Public Health (Coronavirus) (Protection from Eviction) (England) Regulations 2021

David Lammy Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 General Committees

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Mr Paisley,

“no one should lose their home as a result of the coronavirus epidemic.”

So said the Government’s Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), last March. It was an honourable sentiment, which rightly enjoyed the support of those on both sides of this House. Unfortunately, in the months since, we have witnessed the Government’s promise be broken again and again.

Between the start of April and the end of November 2020, 207,543 households approached their local councils for help with homelessness or the threat of homelessness. Of those, 50,561 were judged to be threatened with homelessness; 70,309 were already homeless. Ministry of Justice statistics show no possessions were recorded between April and September, but clearly those numbers are hiding the reality on our streets. Most people leave their homes before their case ever gets to court, let alone wait for a bailiff.

A dangerous cocktail of illegal evictions, tenants put under pressure to leave before eviction, and pressure on lodgers—who have never had protection—has meant that hundreds of thousands have faced the indignity of the threat of homelessness.

Why does the Minister think it is right to allow tenants to be kicked out for arrears that they have built up since the start of the pandemic? This breaks the Housing Secretary’s promise. Why does the Minister think it is right to extend the ban on evictions only to 21 February, when we know that restrictions on our liberty, lives and work will go on for much longer than that? That breaks the Housing Secretary’s promise. Why does the Minister think that there is a difference in seriousness between this lockdown and March’s lockdown, when his Government put in place a clear ban on evictions? That again breaks the Housing Secretary’s promise.

Instead of creating another cliff edge just a few weeks away, we need a package of support for renters and home owners to ensure that nobody loses their home because of the pandemic. It is time to extend the ban on evictions and repossessions, extend mortgage holidays, make the six-month notice period that will soon come to an end permanent, raise the local housing allowance to cover median market rates, reform housing law to end automatic evictions through the courts, reduce the waiting period to receive support for mortgage interest payments, retain the £20 uplift to universal credit, end the five-week wait and suspend the benefits cap.

People are facing the biggest crisis of a generation because of this Government’s incompetent management of the pandemic. The last thing they need now is to lose their homes. Labour will not oppose the regulations today, because any extension to the eviction ban is better than none, but we will not vote for them either, because we are urging the Government to go further—to stick to their promises and not let anyone else lose their home.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Lammy Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

We anticipate that the additional places will deliver a mix of places based on population type and category, which will enable us to ensure that prisoners are kept in the right security category according to their risk assessment. In September, the Lord Chancellor published “A Smarter Approach to Sentencing”, which sets out our plans for a system that protects the public. These reforms will ensure that serious sexual and violent offenders and those who are dangerous are kept in prison for longer.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

England and Wales already have the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe. Shocking figures released last week show that the prison population is going to explode from 79,000 to 100,000 by 2026. Overcrowded, understaffed and crumbling prisons can never be safe. In 2016, the Conservatives pledged 10,000 extra prison places by 2020, but they have only managed 200. They pledged another 10,000 last year, but the Ministry of Justice says that the business case has not yet been approved. Trust matters in politics. It is fatally damaged when pledges are missed and promises are broken. The Secretary of State said last week that he would provide 18,000 new prison places. Why should anyone believe him?

[Lucy Frazer]

The right hon. Member mentioned the fact that we had overcrowding. I would like to point out that overcrowded accommodation has gone down since the Labour Government in 2004. He also mentioned the increase in the prison population. That is not something that has just occurred under this Government. Labour failed to reduce the prison population, which increased by nearly 25,000 between 1997 and 2010. We have already made significant progress on the development of two prisons, and we have made a commitment to build others. Those plans are well under way, and we will be delivering them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend the Chair of the Justice Committee is absolutely right to highlight the impeccable credentials of the chair, Sir Peter Gross, not only as a distinguished former Lord Justice of Appeal, but of course as the judge responsible for international relations: he understands very well the issue of judicial diplomacy, which is very much at the heart of this review. I am glad that the geographical representation also includes an academic from the Republic of Ireland, because it is my fundamental belief that we need to look at the position in all parts of our islands to respect not only the human rights settlement, but the Belfast agreement.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

The independent review of the Human Rights Act will have an enormous impact on the basic rights and freedoms that British citizens enjoy. The Government caused outrage by failing to publish submissions to the independent review of administrative law. Transparency and accountability are fundamental parts of our democracy. Will the Secretary of State guarantee that both the submissions to the human rights review and the review itself will be published in full?

[Robert Buckland]

I think perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is to be forgiven for his descent into hyperbole when it comes to the ambit of this review. It is all about the mechanism, and comments about fundamental rights being affected are way wide of the mark. First, with regard to the process in the review, it is a matter for the review as to what precise submissions it publishes, but I can assure him that the outcome of the review and the Government’s position will of course be published in full, so that he will be able and others will be able to digest it and we will be able to debate the matter.

Courts and Tribunals: Recovery

David Lammy Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement and for seeking to keep me and the shadow Attorney General up to date on his plans, on Privy Council terms.

However, the Secretary of State paints a rosy picture, and I wonder whether he is making the fatal mistake of believing his own hype. Let me remind the House of the state of the justice system under his watch. The backlog in the Crown court is now a staggering 51,000 cases, and in the magistrates court there are record numbers of outstanding cases—around half a million. He has just told the House that justice cannot wait, but jury trials are being listed in 2022 for offences committed years earlier. Lawyers have warned that victims and witnesses will avoid the justice system altogether because of the delays.

In June, the chief executive of Her Majesty’s Courts Service said that we need 200 Nightingale courts to fill the gap, but as of 23 November this year just 16 were up and running. The pandemic has played a role, of course, in bringing the Crown court backlog to 51,000 cases, but the truth is that it already stood at 39,000 before the pandemic, and that has left victims, witnesses and defendants in limbo for years.

If the Government are serious about resuscitating the justice system, does the Secretary of State recognise the importance of acknowledging that the main causes of the backlog were the cuts to sitting days and the court closures that his Government imposed? We have 27,000 fewer sitting days than we had in 2016. Between 2010 and 2019, more than half the courts across England and Wales were closed, and he is not finished: the Government plan to close a further 77 courts by 2026.

That the Secretary of State is announcing more Nightingale courts after so many closures exposes this Government’s record on justice as a complete farce. The Ministry of Justice suffered some of the deepest cuts under this Government’s austerity agenda. It was a false economy. The failure to tackle reoffending rates cost the economy more than £18 billion a year. Millions were wasted on outsourced prisons and maintenance contracts that had to be brought back in-house, and let us not forget the £467 million of taxpayers’ money that was squandered on the failed part-privatisation of the probation service, which the Opposition consistently warned against. Does he accept that today’s announcement is the result of a catalogue of errors that the Ministry of Justice, under his watch and that of previous Secretaries of State, previously imposed?

It is welcome that the Government have listened to the Opposition, made this U-turn and finally decided to put some cash into the justice system when it so desperately needs it, but this one-year plan does not provide the certainty we need. Courts, judges, lawyers and all parts of the justice system need long-term, sustained investment. I wholeheartedly agree with the Secretary of State that it is right to praise the extraordinary efforts of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service staff—the justice system would have collapsed and our democracy would be under tremendous strain were it not for their hard effort—but how on earth does he have the cheek to praise them with one hand while freezing their pay with the other?

The backlog for individual cases in employment tribunals has already passed the post-2008 financial crash record, with 37,000 workers in the queue. Analysis by Citizens Advice suggests that if it continues to grow at the current rate, the number of outstanding claims could pass 500,000 by spring. Will the Secretary of State stop the Chancellor’s job crisis becoming a justice crisis by targeting support for employment tribunals? It is critical at this time, as he must appreciate.

We are now halfway through the 16 days of action against gender-based violence and it is clear to see that, despite the Lord Chancellor’s rhetoric, the Government are letting down victims on every front. Due to the enormous backlog of cases, victims of domestic abuse and harassment have been encouraged by the police to take civil action rather than a criminal prosecution because the system is so overwhelmed.

Despite a spike in calls to domestic violence hotlines over the pandemic and an increase in the number of cases reported to the police, the latest statistics show that domestic abuse prosecutions are down 19%. Rape and sexual violence prosecutions are at their lowest ever level in England and Wales. If the criminal justice system does not even have the capacity to get justice for victims of rape and domestic abuse, how can the Lord Chancellor say it is functioning well? Victims need to have faith that the criminal justice system will be there to support them throughout.

Today, the Lord Chancellor says he is delivering a recovery plan. He likes to pretend that all we are recovering from is the pandemic, but the truth is that we need to recover from 10 years of Conservative Government, which had left our justice system on the verge of collapse even before the pandemic began.

The Secretary of State has failed to provide any significant additional support to legal aid practitioners. The breaking point for many firms is likely to arrive in early 2021, especially as the volume of completions in the Crown courts remains low. Many legal aid firms and practitioners urgently need financial support to survive. We know that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are too busy attacking and insulting lawyers, but where is the Lord Chancellor’s recovery plan for legal aid in this country?

Since the start of the coronavirus crisis, the Ministry of Justice has broken the public’s trust. The Government dithered and delayed, failing to provide our courts, prisons, probation services, youth justice system and publicly funded legal aid lawyers with the support they need. After a decade of Conservative cuts and the Government’s mishandling of the pandemic, our justice system works for the wealthy and the powerful, but what about everybody else?

[Robert Buckland]

I listened very carefully to the right hon. Gentleman, and I am afraid that, as is sadly so often the case, his peroration was a direct contradiction of the reality of what is happening on the ground across the justice system. We acted from the outset to protect lives, to protect staff and to make sure that our prisons were safe, and the results are well-known. There has been considerable achievement in our prison system, and I know that he would want to acknowledge the work of staff; I am sure he would.

The same can be said about the work done in our courts. This was an unprecedented challenge. We were the first jurisdiction in the world to reopen jury trials, in late May. We are now rapidly reaching the position with regard to jury trials being heard, or guilty pleas being tendered at or just before trial, that we were in before the beginning of this pandemic.

The right hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the past in the justice system, which is why in July I announced the biggest increase in court maintenance in not 10 years, but 20 years; he can do the maths and work out the time that he had partial responsibility for the system. This is not a pure story of life since 2010; I have inherited a system that, frankly, needs a fundamental change, which is what I am doing.

The settlement that I have reached will hugely support the increase in sitting days in the year ahead. Already, before the pandemic hit, I had increased the number of sitting days, with the agreement of the Lord Chief Justice, from the year prior to my taking office. I was already acknowledging the pressure on the system. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that while 39,000 cases is of course a significant number, it is not the historic high that we have seen in the past. I am working to ensure that the number of trials in that particular statistic is dealt with as quickly as possible, together with all the other important hearings.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about victims. I am sure he would readily acknowledge not only the £25 million announced in the spending review for next year but the in-year funding of £15 million on victims’ services that we continue to roll out. The covid funding that has been administered on behalf of my Department by police and crime commissioners for local victims groups totals over £25 million. Indeed, the announcements I made last year rapidly and significantly increase funding for independent sexual violence advisers to levels that we have never seen before in our country. We have also introduced the revised and streamlined victims code. We are, at every step of the way, taking action to support the victims of crime. I can assure him that when it comes to domestic abuse and sexual violence, the courts are giving priority to those hearings and making sure that they are dealt with as quickly as possible.

On legal aid, again the right hon. Gentleman misses a hugely important development this year, which was the extra funding of up to £51 million for criminal legal aid lawyers via an improvement to the graduated fee scheme as part of the first stage of criminal legal aid review. We are going to embark on stage two very soon, and I will keep him fully apprised of that. He will, I am sure, note with interest that that will result in more investment in criminal legal aid in the year to come. [Interruption.] Oh yes, it certainly will. I know that it is sometimes difficult to accept positive news, but I am grateful to partners in the criminal justice system and those practising in the professions for having given an encouraging welcome to the news last week. I accept, with them, that there is a way to go, but we are now turning the corner, and I am confident that in the years ahead we can enhance, improve and build on the success of our justice system.

Justice

David Lammy Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from Topical Questions to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice on Tuesday 3 November 2020.

[Mr Lammy]

A decade of cuts, court closures and mishandling of the pandemic has created a backlog in the Crown courts of nearly 50,000 cases. It could reach 195,000 by 2024. The Courts Service says we need at least an extra 200 venues to fill the gap, but on 19 October 2020, the Judicial Office confirmed only five Nightingale courts were hearing jury trials. That is a failure of epic proportions, leading to thousands of victims of serious crime being denied justice. Has the Lord Chancellor failed to ask for enough resources to get justice moving, or has he been denied it by the Treasury?

[Robert Buckland]

The right hon. Gentleman is wrong on all fronts. First, we secured an extra £80 million of funding from the Treasury to deal specifically with covid court recovery. That came on top of the largest investment and increase in court maintenance in 20 years, including during his stewardship. That has resulted in the scaling up of courts, so that today we have 255 courtrooms hearing jury trials, which is ahead of the target I had set for the end of October. We will go further. We have already opened 19 courtrooms under the Nightingale court scheme. This is not a story of failure. This is a story of success and hard work on the part of everybody in the court service. The projections that he mentioned are based upon some pretty inaccurate predictions that do not bear the closest scrutiny.

[Official Report, 3 November 2020, Vol. 683, c. 155.]

Letter of correction from the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice:

An error has been identified in the response I gave to the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy).

The correct response should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

David Lammy Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

The Chair of the Justice Committee puts the matter into its fullest context. Sadly, from Shakespeare onwards, and probably before, lawyers have come in for criticism. The question is how far that goes. We live in a lively democracy and none of us is above criticism, but I say to him that in all my years in practice, I did precisely what he did, which was to leave my politics at home whenever I went into chambers or into the courtroom.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Our country is a country that prides itself on the rule of law. Without lawyers, the rule of law would collapse. In recent weeks, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have launched repeated attacks on lawyers representing asylum seekers. Even after a man launched a knife attack on an immigration solicitor days after the Home Secretary condemned “activist lawyers”, the Government continue to pour petrol on the fire. Does the Lord Chancellor agree with his colleagues’ characterisation of legal professionals as “activist lawyers”, or does he have the courage to publicly condemn that vile rhetoric?

[Robert Buckland]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that on two occasions in public forums, I have made my defence of lawyers very clear and made it clear that physical and verbal attacks and the other types of threat that we might see are entirely unacceptable. He talks rightly about a very serious case that is ongoing—I do not think it would be right for me to comment directly upon it—but we all know the context within which we operate. I can assure him that I will continue in my resolute defence of lawyers. I will say this: I think there are times when there is a legitimate debate to be had, and I firmly believe that lawyers who are passionate about politics are best advised, if they wish to pursue politics, to do as he and I did, which is to get elected and pursue politics here or in other democratic forums.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Buckland]

I take it that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Bill that will be debated this afternoon, which contains important provisions to get the balance right between the need to make sure that our armed services are supported properly and their contribution is valued and the need to make sure that, like everybody else, no one is above the law. There have at times in years gone by been a number of examples where members of our gallant armed services have been unfairly exposed to the potential of legal action, which has caused real hurt, disquiet and genuine concern among the general public. It is right that in the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill we take corrective action to get that balance more finely adjusted.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

A decade of cuts, court closures and mishandling of the pandemic has created a backlog in the Crown courts of nearly 50,000 cases. It could reach 195,000 by 2024. The Courts Service says we need at least an extra 200 venues to fill the gap, but on 19 October 2020, the Judicial Office confirmed only five Nightingale courts were hearing jury trials. That is a failure of epic proportions, leading to thousands of victims of serious crime being denied justice. Has the Lord Chancellor failed to ask for enough resources to get justice moving, or has he been denied it by the Treasury?

[Robert Buckland]

The right hon. Gentleman is wrong on all fronts. First, we secured an extra £80 million of funding from the Treasury to deal specifically with covid court recovery. That came on top of the largest investment and increase in court maintenance in 20 years, including during his stewardship. That has resulted in the scaling up of courts, so that today we have 255 courtrooms hearing jury trials, which is ahead of the target I had set for the end of October. We will go further. We have already opened 19 courtrooms under the Nightingale court scheme. This is not a story of failure. This is a story of success and hard work on the part of everybody in the court service. The projections that he mentioned are based upon some pretty inaccurate predictions that do not bear the closest scrutiny.[Official Report, 9 November 2020, Vol. 683, c. 8MC.]

Ministry of Justice: Legal Aid Spending

David Lammy Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), on securing the debate, and I associate myself with the remarks of my hon. Friends the Members for Westminster North (Ms Buck), for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), and those of the hon. Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), in particular, to whom I am very grateful. I declare an interest as an associate tenant at Doughty Street Chambers, which uses legal aid.

The right to a fair hearing is a human right guaranteed by the Human Rights Act 1998 under article 6. Just like the right to no punishment without law, the right to freedom of expression and the right to participate in free elections, it is a fundamental part of our democracy. A legal verdict is not fair if one side is able to pay a team of expensive lawyers to fight on their behalf while the other is left to make their case on their own. That is why paragraph 3(c) of article 6 states that if a party

“has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance”,

they should get

“it free when the interests of justice”

require it, and they do require it. In this country we have legal aid, which gives assistance to people who are unable to afford representation.

Too often, legal aid is not given to those who deserve it. Consider the case of Zane Gbangbola. On the evening of 7 February 2014, seven-year-old Zane and his mother and father went to bed in their Surrey home. Due to circumstances that remain unexplained, Zane tragically died in his sleep and his father was left paralysed for life. The 2016 inquest into Zane’s death found that he died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by the use of the petrol pump used to remove water from their flooded home. However, numerous doubts have been expressed regarding the verdict reached by the coroner from both sides of the political spectrum, including the local Conservative council.

Over the course of the past seven years, Zane’s mother and father, Kye and Nicole Lawler, have fought tirelessly for answers to what caused his death. One of the reasons justice does not appear to have been reached in this case is that Zane’s family were denied legal aid after the case was deemed not to be in the public interest. It is completely unjust that the family, at the time of their greatest need, were left to present their case with just one crowdfunded lawyer against a team of six QCs. Extraordinarily, the coroner was also given his own legal team. Of all those present at the inquest, Zane’s parents were the only ones not to have a barrister in some way funded by the public purse.

Access to the justice system and the ability to enforce our rights should be open to every person, regardless of their wealth, social class or background. Legal aid has long provided this for many of us, and for many of the most vulnerable people in society at their most vulnerable moments, but legal aid spending and access to justice has reduced significantly since the passage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. A review of the Act published in February 2019 moved in the right direction, but there is still so much more to do.

Two years since the post-implementation review, recommendations on early advice, legal aid, means tests and support for litigants have not been implemented in full. The impact of LASPO, combined with the 8.7% cut to criminal legal aid providers in 2014, as well as inflation and small profit margins, have resulted in the contraction of the market for both criminal and civil legal aid.

The criminal legal aid review is designed to look at the sustainability of the profession, but we do not have time to wait for action. The report is not likely to be published until 2022. By then it will be too late to save money, or to save many firms that are going out of business. Already in June 2020 there were 124 fewer criminal legal aid firms than the 1,271 there were in 2019, a drop of almost 10% in the past year and far fewer than the 1,861 firms that existed in 2010. How many more firms are the Government prepared to lose? Without urgent steps there is a genuine risk of the system collapsing on itself.

Between 2010 and 2016, net spending on legal aid fell by an eye-watering 38% in real terms, from £2.6 billion to £1.6 billion. It has since increased slightly, to £1.7 billion, out of the Ministry of Justice total budget of just more than £10 billion. As the Chair of the Select Committee put it, it is just a fraction of a fraction.

To put that £1.7 billion into perspective, last night Serco CEO Rupert Soames revealed to UK taxpayers that his outsourcing company had £1.2 billion per year of Government funding. That is even before its failed £12 billion experiment with track and trace. Labour has repeatedly called for access to legal aid to be a priority for this Government, especially during a time when people are so vulnerable.

As a result of LASPO, large areas of civil legal aid are deemed out of scope. This leaves thousands of people each year without the representation they need. When legal aid was first introduced by Clement Attlee’s Government after the second world war, around 80% of people were eligible for it. By the 1990s, that figure had dropped to 45%. Today it is a miserly 20%.

In 2020, most housing, employment and family disputes do not get legal aid. This causes real injustice. In 92% of domestic violence cases in the family courts in 2019, one or more parties was left without legal representation. But it is not just for adversarial cases that we need legal aid. It is a crying scandal that those who were deported and detained as a result of the Windrush scandal could not access legal aid.

At a time when the court backlog is approaching 50,000, we cannot expect legal aid practitioners to weather the coronavirus storm with warm words alone. Even before the pandemic, there was a 45% reduction in prosecutions over the past decade, but since the crisis began, many areas of legal aid work have been nearly cut in half. There has been a 41% decrease in police station attendances, a 45% decrease in applications received for representation in the Crown courts, and a 42% decrease in applications received and representations made in the magistrates court.

When asked what support this Government would offer to keep the professions functioning, the Minister responsible pointed to unbilled work. He stated that legal aid providers were sitting on hundreds of millions of pounds for unbilled work, interim payments and hardship payments. This, he explained, was why legal aid providers were being hung out to dry. Legal aid providers were essentially told to pull themselves up by their bootstraps in the worst crisis since the second world war. The implication behind that was that they were not working hard enough to claim unbilled work.

Even if we accepted the dodgy maths, is the total that the Minister pointed to enough to keep a vital part of our democracy functioning? The Minister’s statement was made back in May, when the Government pretended that they had a grip on the crisis. Now we know that the crisis will go on right through 2021, what will happen when the unbilled payments are billed? Will the Government finally rethink? The breaking point is likely to arrive early in 2021, especially when the volume of completions in the Crown court remains so low. The legal aid profession has received little support, if any, during the covid-19 crisis, and that must change.

Much of this debate has been financial. It is about CLAR 2—the second criminal legal aid review—LASPO, court backlogs, funding cuts and legal aid, but if we zoom out of the detail, this is a debate about the type of society that we want to build. There are two paths we can go down. The first is to continue on the route that the Government have set, letting legal aid collapse and allowing advice deserts to grow. A new legal wild west would result, and how someone does in legal disputes will depend not on their right to a fair trial but on how deep their pockets are compared with the person against them. The vast majority of the public will be unable to pay for representation in any serious legal matter. The wealthy 1% will be able to bully and buy their way to the verdict that they desire. That is a vision not of a democracy but a plutocracy—a society controlled by people of great wealth or income. It is a step back to pre-enlightenment, a period we should have long left behind.

However, there is room for hope. The second option is to give legal aid the support it needs, restoring it to where it was as a public service back in 2010. By doing so, we can build a better society at the heart of a real democracy founded on justice, fairness, equality and opportunity for all. I know that is a society worth fighting for.

Lord Chancellor’s Oath and the Rule of Law

David Lammy Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) on securing this important debate. I declare an interest as an associate tenant at Doughty Street chambers, a non-practising member of the Bar, and a visiting professor in practice in the department of law at the London School of Economics

Magna Carta, the Charter of the Forest, habeas corpus, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights, the system of common law—for centuries, the United Kingdom has led not only in the creation of the rule of law, but in spreading that around the world. That simple but revolutionary idea was born out of two others: first, that there should be no power beyond or above the law and, secondly, that the law applies equally to all people—women and men, rich and poor, black and white.

Today, it is too easy to assume these principles always existed; they did not. For many parts of the world, they still do not. Ask the people of the Congo, China, Russia or Venezuela how life is without the rule of law. It was won in this country only as a result of human ingenuity, struggle and tremendous sacrifice.

I am shocked to be standing here today debating the importance of the rule of law with a Conservative Government. I have never been shy about my disagreements with Tories, but this is an issue on which I have previously respected the party now in government. The rule of law used to be fundamental to capital “C” Conservative thinking. It was the basis for all that Tories once valued—the ownership of property, security, the right to personal liberty, the freedom to live in a society without anarchy, fairness in business, law and order. From Edmund Burke to Margaret Thatcher, and even up to the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), the rule of law has been just as valued on both sides of the House.

So bipartisan was the British devotion to this idea that we became the global home of the law. The UK has the second largest legal sector in the world, second only to the United States of America. It contributes £60 billion to the UK economy and is one of our strongest global exports. Businesses and individuals from all parts of the globe flocked to this country to write contracts in English law and settle disputes in our courts. They did that because they trusted us. Whichever party was in government, the rule of law would be respected. That is no longer the case.

There are previous political decisions that were made by Governments when the law was not entirely clear and when it was arguable either way whether an action was lawful. That is not what we are talking about today. Last month, a Cabinet Minister stood up in the House of Commons and stated openly that the Government will deliberately break the law. That did not force the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to resign. It was a decision plotted in No. 10 and supported by the whole Cabinet. Most shamefully, it was backed by the so-called Attorney General and the so-called Lord Chancellor. Both ignored the special obligations of their offices in order to keep the keys to them.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland’s comments were not an aberration. They were a statement of intent from a Government who appear to believe in lawlessness and disorder. The country will not forget the Government closing down Parliament unlawfully. The public will always remember the arrogance with which Dominic Cummings broke the law after months of national sacrifice—we will not forget the shamelessness and mendacity with which he explained away the breaking of a law that he helped to create.

Under this Government, the public are all thinking the same: one rule for us, another rule for them. One fool for us, and another for them. The law must be the same for everyone. If it is not, respect for the rule of law ends. That should be self-evident. It is a great shame that a principle this fundamental now has to be fought for once again.

It is not only the law that is to be targeted by this Government, but the lawyers and judges who spend their time dedicated to upholding it. When Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán rammed a law through Parliament undermining the independence of the country’s judiciary, we all condemned the regime’s shift towards authoritarianism. When the Polish Government passed a law to make it possible for judges to face disciplinary measures when they make rulings that the Government do not like, Labour and Conservative supporters were equally appalled. Brits from all political traditions should be just as outraged by the UK Government’s attack on judicial review, because it is from the same authoritarian playbook.

On 3 September, the Home Secretary said that deportations were being “frustrated by activist lawyers”. In saying this, she was not attacking activists, but inciting anger against immigration lawyers for representing some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Words have consequences. On 7 September, a man with a large knife entered a London law firm and threatened to kill an immigration solicitor—cause and effect. The Law Society was forced to write to the Government to say:

“It must be ensured that no further lives are endangered as a result of her untruthful and deliberately inflammatory rhetoric. Put simply, this must stop now, before innocent lives are taken and other irreparable damage is done to those who work in this field.”

Who will stand for the law? Not the Prime Minister. At the Conservative party conference, he launched his own attack on “lefty lawyers”. This debate is not about partisan politics; it is about the future of our democracy. It is about the safety of our communities and the freedom that order can bring. Respect for the rule of law is for the benefit of every person in this country, whatever their political views. Without it, we descend into barbarism: the rule of the jungle, anarchy, lawlessness, disorder and mob rule. Attacks on the rule of law undermine the very basis of our civilisation. Enough is enough. This Conservative Government must remember their principles before they are lost for ever. As Margaret Thatcher once said:

“Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law”.

Private International Law (Implementation of Agreements) Bill [Lords]

David Lammy Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee stage: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

I rise to speak in support of the amendments in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and myself. As other Members have said, there is a degree of consistency across a number of the amendments on the selection paper.

I welcome the action to enhance transnational co-operation. For once, instead of measures that seek to breach international agreements or upset international partners, this is a step in the right direction and a move that I hope we will see reflected in other bits of legislation that the Government bring forward.

I wish that this Bill was not necessary, but, having left the European framework, it is essential that we make alternative arrangements to ensure that the three Hague conventions still apply, to prevent Scottish businesses and families from being disadvantaged. The conventions add legal certainty for parties to cross-border commercial contracts, and they help with family maintenance decisions across borders and the protection of children in disputes where parents have separated but live in different countries. These conventions may be technical, but they are very practical for those caught in difficult and tangled situations. There is therefore a clear need to replace the previous mechanisms whereby the EU reached agreements on these types of cross-border disputes on behalf of member states.

Aspects of this legislation fall within the devolved competencies, forming parts of Scots private law relating to choice of jurisdiction, recognition of judgments and enforcement of decisions. The Bill, if passed, will provide reassurances, in particular, to those affected by cross-border family support and custodial mechanisms, so we are keen to see that move forward. The Scottish Government have considered the aspects that require a legislative consent motion under section 28 of the Scotland Act 1998 and will seek consent from the Scottish Parliament to allow agreement to the Bill. The Bill has been drafted with great respect for devolution and, again, I very much welcome that. It is the proper and democratic way to proceed. It is a great pity that that is not always the case with this Government, but certainly it is very much to be welcomed in this case.

I speak in favour of the amendments proposed by myself and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West. I pay tribute and give thanks to the Law Society of Scotland, which has supported us in the drafting of them. Amendment 10 has a particular focus on the Lugano convention, and the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) has already told us of the significance of the need to put the mechanism in place and of having it on the face of the Bill. Given the Government’s confirmation that they are intent on continuing with the convention, putting it on the face of the Bill would be a proper and appropriate way of doing that. The convention created common rules across the EU and EFTA, avoiding multiple court cases taking place on the same subject and saving the costs of all those involved. I welcome the steps taken.

The regrettable decision not to be part of the single market may yet come back to hit us. However, we are where we are, and if the UK joining the convention in its own right is accepted by 31 December, we will need to work quickly to introduce a simple mechanism to implement the convention. That is what the amendment from me and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West seeks to achieve, and I argue that the Government should amend the Bill to provide for a regulation-making power focused specifically on the implementation of the Lugano convention. That point is not being made just by Scottish National party Members; it is reflected on all sides of the House. That, in itself, speaks volumes.

It is important to note that that move would not preclude us from reinstating the previous regulation-making powers under clause 2 that were removed from the Bill during its passage in the other place. As was said earlier, that debate raised legitimate concerns about the lack of parliamentary scrutiny of delegated legislation, and I strongly suggest that the Government strongly reflect on that when seeking to reintroduce those powers.

The Bill fulfils a commitment in the political declaration between the UK and the EU, and I recognise that. I certainly welcome the fact that in this situation at least the Government appear to be looking to keep their promise and to keep private international law clear after the transition. As a proud internationalist, I welcome any measures that will continue to help to support and facilitate cross-border co-operation.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

On Second Reading, the official Opposition made it clear that they would oppose any attempts by the Government to reintroduce clause 2, which was removed by a majority in the other place. On Second Reading, numerous Members on both the Opposition and Government Benches made very sensible suggestions on how the Government could modify clause 2 and harness cross-party support. Sunset clauses, placing Lugano on the face of the Bill, as has been suggested by Members across the House this afternoon, and limiting the power of clause 2 were all among the suggestions discussed. Very sadly, the Government did not listen. That is surprising, particularly for this Minister, who is known to be attentive and a very able lawyer indeed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Chalk]

But ultimately, my hon. Friend cannot have it both ways. If we accept that it is not contentious, it is important that the mechanisms that are in place are proportionate to that. Indeed, the Opposition knew this when they were in government, because of course all these rule-making powers were on the statute book and they did not repeal them. There was the Administration of Justice Act 1920, the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933, the Maintenance Orders (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1972—I could go on. They stayed on the statute book because they are not really offensive to the constitutional balance that we enjoy, but not only were they not repealed; they were used.

The right hon. Member for Tottenham knows that because he was the Minister at the time. He was Minister at the Department for Constitutional Affairs when the British Government used the Foreign Judgments (Reciprocal Enforcement) Act 1933 to bring into force an international agreement with who? With Israel. He knows that because he was the Minister at the time. Who was the Lord Chancellor at the time? Lord Falconer. The right hon. Gentleman cannot very well say that these are a monstrous and egregious affront to our constitution when they were used, because they were used a second time in 2007. They created a power to give effect to bilateral agreements with the United States on reciprocal enforcement of family maintenance orders.

Just to complete that point, not only were those powers used; the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have enormous respect, created new ones of his own. In 2005—[Interruption.] He is laughing, but he knows it is true. He was the Bill Minister on the Mental Capacity Act 2005, which, incidentally, on this very rainy weekend I had a chance to re-read. That Act created a wide delegated power to introduce international agreements in that area.

I do not want to labour this point too much, but I had a chance to look at proceedings in Committee on that Bill, during which a Conservative hon. Member talked about that specific power and effectively asked the right hon. Gentleman, “Is he sure that he wants to do this?” He added:

“Those in another place get very excited about any sort of Henry VIII clause.”

The right hon. Gentleman responded, effectively, “Don’t worry,” saying that

“they are technical and necessary provisions.”––[Official Report, Mental Capacity Public Bill Committee, 4 November 2004; c. 406-407.]

Is not that precisely the point? What was technical and necessary when he was in government has now become an egregious affront to our constitution.

[Mr Lammy]

The very able Minister has put his argument, but I remind him that under the previous Labour Government, we were in the European Union. This debate is about being outside it, and the best architecture for scrutiny in this House in those circumstances.

[Alex Chalk]

But the point is that when we were in the European Union and the European Union had competence to enter into PIL agreements, those would be brought into effect in the United Kingdom via the doctrine of direct effect. What role did this Parliament have? None. We are seeking to introduce much more by way of parliamentary scrutiny—the points, respectfully, that the right hon. Gentleman did not advert to. First, there is the CRaG procedure, and secondly there is the affirmative procedure.

I am at pains to mention that because I talked just a few moments ago about the Israeli agreement and the United States agreement. How did those come into force? Not through the affirmative procedure, not even through the negative procedure, but through an Order in Council. In other words, normal hon. Members—mere mortals like most of the people in the Chamber—had no say at all; just Privy Counsellors. We therefore respectfully say that it does not lie in the mouth of the Opposition to raise these concerns.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison) made the point powerfully that this precedent, which the Opposition understood when they were in government, recognises that there is an opportunity cost. If we start filling up the parliamentary timetable with such legislation, which everyone accepts is not controversial, there is less time and less space for schools, hospitals and transport, etc.

On the point about criminal offences, which was made powerfully by the Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), this is an area where it is important to move cautiously. We will continue to reflect on the range of views expressed. I agree with him that an awful lot of offences are created by statutory instruments, but we need to take care, none the less.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lammy]

I join the Minister in thanking colleagues from all parties for their thoughtful contributions to this important debate. I especially thank the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), and the hon. Members for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) and for Midlothian (Owen Thompson) for their eminently reasonable suggestions on how the Bill could secure cross-party support.

On Second Reading, Labour made it clear that we supported the fundamental principle behind the Bill. The Opposition fully accept that as we leave the largest network of private international law agreements in the world, we must have a legislative framework in place to replace it. As we leave the European Union, we must protect our country’s proud reputation as the international forum of choice for the resolution of commercial and legal disputes.

We should also remember the human aspects of private international law. Helping parents separated by borders to come to custody agreements in the interests of their children is very important, as is allowing the safe return of a child who has been abducted. That is why the Opposition have always been fully supportive of the Government’s desire to implement the international treaties listed in clause 1, each of which has been fully scrutinised by this House and is being brought into domestic law by primary legislation. That is how the implementation of international agreements has always been done, and how we would like to see it done in future.

Unfortunately, we have seen during the Bill’s passage the Government’s desire to prise parliamentary scrutiny away from this House and these Benches. That is something we regret and something to which the other place will no doubt return in the debate ahead. Once again, we see a Government keen to do all they can to avoid proper democratic scrutiny—a Government more at ease with ruling by decree than daring to test the will of this House.