Oral Answers to Questions
Dominic Raab Excerpts(2 years ago)
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Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
We are increasing victim support funding to £185 million by 2024—almost double the amount in the 2020-21 core budgets, and more than quadruple the victims funding in the last year of the last Labour Government.
Selaine Saxby
Will my right hon. Friend expand on the specifics for victims of an alleged crime who are under 16 and who attend the same school as the accused? Are there opportunities to expedite such cases, which typically take years to progress?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the particular vulnerability of children in such cases. The courts already have the power to prioritise cases, for example those with a particular risk of the victim or a witness being intimidated. The Department for Education’s statutory guidance for schools and others makes it clear that they can take appropriate measures to safeguard children, which can include transfers to and from schools where necessary.
James Sunderland
The Thames Valley police and crime commissioner, Matthew Barber, provides excellent support to victims of crime through his office’s Victims First support service. One challenge that he faces is that the Ministry of Justice does not allow victims funding to be used to support victims of antisocial behaviour. That is a real concern for my constituents in Bracknell. Might the Secretary of State be willing to review the policy?
Dominic Raab
I pay tribute to the work of Commissioner Matthew Barber. In 2022-23, we are providing PCCs with £69 million of core funding to commission victim support services. How they allocate the funding is at their discretion, based on their assessment of local need, but it can include services to support victims of ASB that reaches the threshold of a criminal offence. As my hon. Friend will know, we are consulting on new powers for courts to consider community impact assessments in trials so that the blight and oppression that antisocial behaviour causes in whole communities can be properly factored in.
Suzanne Webb
Ryan Passey was tragically killed in 2017, at the mercy of a perpetrator with a knife. The case went to court and the perpetrator was acquitted, which was considered a bizarre verdict. You will be pleased to hear, Mr Speaker, that I and the Passey family have secured a review of the police investigation. That review is ongoing, but the family feel let down by the lack of support after the trial, at the time when they most needed it. They have lost their only son, but had no support despite the verdict. Will my right hon. Friend meet me and the family to understand how improvements can be made in the provision of support for victims’ families, not just during an investigation but after the verdict, particularly when a bizarre verdict is given?
Dominic Raab
My deepest sympathies go to the family and friends of Ryan Passey. I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing an independent review; I will be happy to make sure that she can see an appropriate Minister.
We have made £130 million available this year to tackle serious violence. As my hon. Friend will know, the latest data shows a 4% decrease in recorded cases of knife crime. On post-trial support, we are providing £4.6 million a year in funding for the national homicide service, which provides a range of services, including counselling and emotional support, that can continue as long as is needed for a bereaved family, including after trial.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will be aware that I have worked across Government for many years to secure support for victims of crime, particularly victims and survivors of child abuse and sexual assault. I welcome the introduction of the victims Bill, the enshrining in law of the victims code and the Secretary of State’s commitment to funding, but we need more sexual assault referral centres, more independent sexual violence advisers and more special measures in courts; indeed, we need more courts and prosecutors. Has the Secretary of State done the analysis to show that the money he is bringing forward will cover all that?
Dominic Raab
I am pleased to see, in the context of the latest data, that rape convictions are up 67% on the previous year. We will be bringing forward our response to the consultation on the victims Bill and the associated package very shortly. There will be a step change—a quantum leap—in the number of ISVAs and independent domestic violence advisers as a result of the settlement that I have secured with the Treasury. I am happy to give the hon. Lady specific details.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
Over the years, many people have been coerced, often through violence, into being filmed in pornography that has been put online for people to see for years to come. Will the Government consider making provision in the Online Safety Bill for people to withdraw their consent and have that content removed from the internet?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman has raised an important point, which I will certainly convey to the Home Office in the context of the online harms Bill.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
Four years ago, Jackie Wileman was tragically killed on her daily walk by four men joyriding a stolen HGV around Barnsley. The men responsible had 100 convictions between them. I pay tribute to Jackie’s brother, Johnny Wood, for his campaign to increase sentences for causing death by dangerous driving, and I welcome the change in the law, but Johnny has now been informed that one of the offenders may shortly be released from prison on temporary licence without the proper process being followed. Will the Secretary of State meet Johnny and me to discuss what more can be done to support victims?
Dominic Raab
I am not aware of the specifics of that case, but I take this issue very seriously. If the hon. Lady would like to write to me, I will ensure that we can not only address the specifics very carefully, but arrange for her to meet a relevant Minister.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
As announced in Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech, the Government will replace the Human Rights Act 1998 with a Bill of Rights to be introduced in this parliamentary Session.
Patricia Gibson
Will the Secretary of State follow last year’s recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and ensure that there are no changes to the Human Rights Act—the provisions of which are embedded in the Scotland Act 1998—without the consent of the devolved Administrations? If that consent is withheld and his Government unpick the Act unilaterally on behalf of the four UK nations, what message does he think it will send to citizens across the devolved nations?
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Lady. As she knows, we will assess the question of the applicability of the Sewel convention, quite rightly, when the full Bill of Rights text is provided. This reform will strengthen free speech, but curb the ability of, for example, criminals to take advantage of and abuse the system. I believe that that will be welcomed in all four nations.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that reform of our human rights framework will help to prevent foreign national offenders from avoiding deportation and help to restore some public confidence in our human rights legislation?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is right. The still high volume—around 70%—of successful challenges, on human rights grounds, of deportation orders by foreign national offenders is on article 8 grounds. That is exactly the kind of thing that our reforms will address and the public across the UK will welcome.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
Thank you again, Mr Speaker. The Human Rights Act 1998 has become a cornerstone of justice and democracy in the United Kingdom. It is pivotal legislation not to be tinkered with lightly. Given that cross-party MPs have today found that the now Justice Secretary presided over a
“disaster and a betrayal of our allies”
and
“a lack of seriousness, grip or leadership at a time of national emergency.”
in relation to Afghanistan, I have to ask in all seriousness why he should be allowed anywhere near such fundamental legislation and indeed why he is in ministerial office at all.
Dominic Raab
I am surprised that the SNP has nothing to say on the issues at hand in relation to criminal justice, whether in Scotland or in the rest of the UK.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
The reoffending rate for prisoners who leave prison has fallen by nine percentage points—from 51% to 42%—since 2010. The rate of prison leavers who secure a job within six months has risen by almost two thirds in the past year alone.
Matt Vickers
Getting prison leavers into work is crucial to reduce reoffending, turn ex-offenders’ lives around, cut crime and protect the public. Employment advisory boards have an important role to play in building links between prisons and local businesses. Will my right hon. Friend update us on progress in this policy area?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely bang on. More than half of resettlement prisons now have a business leader who chairs their EAB. That puts us ahead of schedule for our national plan to deliver for every resettlement prison by April next year. To be clear on the results and outcomes we are looking for, let me give one example: at HMP Wandsworth, 39 prison leavers have been helped to find jobs and further training through their board and the prison’s employment team.
Sara Britcliffe
As recently as February in my Hyndburn constituency, Lancashire police had to issue dispersal orders in Accrington town centre because of antisocial behaviour. Will my right hon. Friend tell me how we can prevent young people in particular from reoffending or falling into bad habits, particularly when they have been through the youth justice system?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was up in Blackpool last week to announce a £300 million fund that local authorities can access to prevent youth offending. It is called the turnaround project and is targeted at around 20,000 children. The idea is to get them into sports, whether that is boxing or martial arts, or indeed into drama or other positive outlets. By doing that, we can then wraparound the pastoral care and work with the law enforcement agencies. That will not just give those children the opportunity to take a springboard into school, training and, ultimately, work, but keep our streets safer for communities.
Dr Davies
My right hon. Friend is right to focus on helping offenders to find work post release, which is crucial to reduce reoffending. Will he update the House on progress made in that respect?
Dominic Raab
In the last year alone, we have seen a step change in respect of offenders being in work within six months of release from prison; the number has increased by two thirds. The prisons White Paper sets out the strategy. We are rolling out the chairs of employment advisory boards and now have chairs for 48 out of 91 prisons. We have also stood up 29 of the employment hubs in our prisons. Those are the links between prison governors and local businesses that will get offenders into work and to stay on the straight and narrow.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
A recent report showed that thousands of severely mentally ill prisoners who had been assessed as requiring hospitalisation were not being transferred because of the shortage of NHS beds, or they were facing long delays. Does the Secretary of State agree with the director of the Prison Reform Trust who said that this guarantees that
“people will leave prison in a worst state than when they came in, with every likelihood that the behaviour that originally led to their arrest and conviction will continue”?
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Lady. I think that there will cross-party support for the work that we are doing with the mental health Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech, absolutely ending prison as a place of safety, if you like, for those with mental health issues and making sure that those who are seriously mentally unwell can be transferred into secure hospitals. I recently met the Health and Social Care Secretary to expedite those arrangements.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Approved premises house the highest risk offenders—terrorists and serious sex offenders—on release from custody. Their location is sensitive both for rehabilitation and protection of the public. Why on earth, therefore, is the Ministry of Justice building approved premises next to the main entrance of Wormwood Scrubs Prison, when the counter-terrorism security assessment lists 18 vulnerabilities, including potential assaults on staff, observation over the prison wall, use of a launch site for drones and undermining rehabilitation? Will the Secretary of State abandon this dangerous and counterproductive scheme?
Dominic Raab
Approved premises are vital. Of course we take all the requisite security advice on the matter and I am very happy to write to the hon. Member about any of the details. However, may I suggest that he write to me to set out the facts that he asserted, so I can test them very carefully and rebut them very clearly?
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Does the Secretary of State agree that more needs to be done to promote programmes that lead to reductions in reoffending rates, particularly in prisons such as Magilligan prison in my constituency, so that the wider community can feel safer as a result of successful programmes?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Member is right. The prisons White Paper sets out an overhaul of the regime. We want to assess offenders in week one, whether it is for their addiction, mental health or state of mind, or for things such as numeracy, literacy and their educational qualifications. We then want a pathway right the way through that gets them sustainably off drugs, not just abandoned on methadone. We want to give them the skills and education that they need and, fundamentally and critically, a step change in the approach to getting offenders on licence into work. Those are the keys to driving down reoffending beyond the 9 percentage point reduction in reoffending that we have seen from offenders leaving prison compared with the last year of the last Labour Government.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
Since the last Justice questions, I have published the Government’s response to Jonathan Hall’s independent review of terrorism in prisons and the Government’s root-and-branch review of the parole system in England and Wales. I have also discussed action to hold to account the perpetrators of war crimes in Ukraine with International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan and United States war crimes ambassador Beth Van Schaack.
Esther McVey
Delays in family courts were already far too long before covid, and the problem has only got worse since then. It often means that a parent is not able to see their child in the meantime—a point raised by many parents in my constituency of Tatton. Will the Minister make the reduction of those delays in the family courts a priority?
Dominic Raab
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. As was mentioned earlier, something like 50% to 55% of cases that go to the family court are safeguarding or domestic abuse cases. I do think those need the authority of a judge, but the rest, frankly, should by and large be dispensed with before court through an alternative dispute resolution of one sort or another. We talked about considering making mediation compulsory, but crucially, we need the incentives and disincentives for early resolution to be unequivocal.
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
Voters in Wakefield are furious that the Conservative party ignored a victim of child sexual abuse and allowed his paedophile abuser to become their MP. Will the Justice Secretary back an independent investigation into why his party failed to act on what this courageous victim told them?
Dominic Raab
Can I just say to the hon. Gentleman first of all that to politicise a case that has been subject and potentially remains subject to judicial proceedings is quite wrong? If he wants to talk to the voters of Wakefield about the choice at the upcoming by-election, it is a choice between Labour, which is weak on crime, and us. Violent crime has fallen by more than half since Labour was in office. We can talk about tougher sentences for dangerous sexual and violent offenders, which he voted against. We can talk about reoffending, which is lower than it was under Labour, or we can talk about funding for victims, which we have quadrupled since the last Labour Government.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Let me just talk him through what we are doing. The in-cell technology in the new prisons will give them much greater access for the purposes he described. We are also delivering digital upgrades to a further 11 prisons. The prison employment advisory boards will be crucial in linking local businesses with prisons. Critically, not only have we got key performance indicators, but I have increased the weighting for employment and skills from below 1% to 20%, so that governors focus on it. That will drive a step change in getting offenders into work.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Gentleman for highlighting good examples of best practice, particularly in getting offenders off drugs. We know that that is the key, along with skills and getting them into work. If he writes to me on the facts of the case, I will certainly make sure that we look at it very carefully.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)
Dominic Raab
A man after my own heart. My hon. Friend is right that it is a total abuse, which the Opposition seem to want to give succour to, to allow the freedom of speech and the right to peaceful protest to become a right to sabotage. It will be very interesting to see in the weeks ahead whether they stand on the side of the public or on the side of those saboteurs. The Public Order Bill will help us to address this issue, and I can also assure my hon. Friend that courts already have the power to impose compensation.
Mr Speaker
Order. I know that we may have some by-elections coming, but the fact is that we are on topicals, and they are meant to be short and sweet. Lots of Members want to get in, and you are stopping Members from getting in. It is not fair.
Dominic Raab
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I mentioned earlier the increase in rape convictions that will be promoted by the use of section 28 to allow pre-recorded video evidence for the victims of rape and other serious sexual violence. She should also know that, working closely with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, we are making great progress on Operation Soteria to make sure that the focus is on the accused rather than overwhelmingly on the victim who comes forward with the courage that that takes.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
Dominic Raab
It is very telling that the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), did not want to talk about those issues or Scotland’s record and asked us something totally outside the realm of Justice questions. My hon. Friend makes a compelling point, but we will not rest on our laurels south of the border. We will introduce a victims Bill that will place the victims code into law and send the clearest possible signal that the justice system must deliver for victims as a matter of moral correctness and to ensure the efficacy of the system.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Dominic Raab
First, we have seen a step change increase in convictions by 67%—two thirds—over the last year. I think the hon. Lady is wrong, if I may say so, to use the statistic that she used. In fact, the conviction rate has increased from 68% in July to September 2021 to around 71% in the last quarter. Through Operation Soteria, section 28 and changes that are being made to disclosure, we will drive a step change in support for victims with the quadrupling of victims funding, which will help to support victims through the process and secure more convictions.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Secretary of State aware of the growing concern on both sides of the House about people in prison who have been charged with joint enterprise, and the fact that there is now a campaign to look at those cases and the kind of convictions that are taking place? Many people who are charged and imprisoned are later found to be on the autism spectrum. That is a real concern, so will he meet me and JENGbA—Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association—to talk about it?
Dominic Raab
I am very concerned about the endemic levels of mental health challenges and illness in prison. Interestingly enough, I have talked particularly to the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation about the link between autism and at-risk offenders. If the hon. Gentleman writes to me about the findings and learning that he has had, I will be happy to look at them carefully with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Given the constitutional importance of his role, is the Lord Chancellor considering his position in the Cabinet in the light of the Foreign Affairs Committee report on the withdrawal from Afghanistan?
Mr Speaker
That is a quick answer—the best we have had to today—and we can learn from that.
Terrorism in Prisons Update
Dominic Raab Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
In accordance with section 36 of the Terrorism Act 2006, Jonathan Hall QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation (IRTL), has prepared a report on terrorism in prisons which was laid before the House today.
Today, I am publishing our response to the IRTL’s report, setting out how we are implementing the changes that he has recommended. This will also be published on gov.uk.
I welcome the IRTL’s review of terrorism in prisons, and thank him for carrying out such a detailed and thorough review. His findings present an invaluable opportunity for us to assess progress and further strengthen our approach in prisons, covering areas including terrorist risk behaviour, governor accountability, separation centres, joint working and legislation.
In his report, the IRTL acknowledges the significant improvements made to the counter-terrorism system since the horrific terrorist attacks in 2019-20 at Fishmongers’ Hall, Streatham, Reading and in HMP Whitemoor. We have already strengthened the law through the Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Act 2020 and the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021, putting an end to the automatic early release of terrorist offenders and introducing tougher sentences for the most serious terrorist offences. We have also invested in our ambitious step-up programme which provides a step change in our counter-terrorism capabilities through a raft of improvements including a joint intelligence hub to boost information sharing between security partners, a counter-terrorism assessment and rehabilitation centre to research, implement and evaluate rehabilitative interventions, and overhauling our counter-terrorism training offer to frontline staff.
These measures are critical to strengthening our approach to fighting terrorism in prisons, but we are determined to go further. That is why I have accepted 12 of the IRTL’s recommendations, partially accepted another, and in some areas propose going beyond them.
We will invest an additional £1.2 million over three years to create a new separation centre and high-risk casework team. The specialised team will ensure that decisions to place prisoners in separation centres are taken in an effective and targeted way, in order to avoid the dissemination of poisonous ideology, prevent terrorist recruitment, and more generally protect the public.
We will also invest £6.1 million over three years to create a new close supervision centre unit with an extra 10 cells, increasing our capacity by 20%. These will hold some of the most violent men in the prison system who pose a significant risk of harm to our staff and other prisoners.
We have collaborated widely in considering each of Jonathan Hall’s recommendations, and I am grateful to the Home Secretary and partners across the criminal justice system for supporting this work. We honour the victims, families and communities that have been traumatised by terror by doing all we can to prevent future atrocities.
[HCWS790]
Judicial Conduct Investigations Office Annual Report 2020-21
Dominic Raab Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
With the concurrence of the Lord Chief Justice, I will today publish the 15th annual report of the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO).
The JCIO supports the Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor in our joint statutory responsibility for judicial discipline.
The judiciary comprises approximately 21,000 individuals serving across a range of jurisdictions. Over the past year, the JCIO received 1,236 complaints against judicial office-holders. Fifty-three investigations resulted in disciplinary action.
I have placed copies of the report in the Libraries of both Houses, the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office. Copies are also available online at: https://www.complaints.judicialconduct.gov.uk/reportsandpublications/.
[HCWS786]
Parole System: Public Protection
Dominic Raab Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
Today, the Government are publishing the “Root and Branch Review of the Parole System: The Future of the Parole System in England and Wales”.
As Secretary of State for Justice, I am committed to protecting the public and improving victims’ experience of the criminal justice system. The parole system has a critical part to play in ensuring both aims are met; it prevents criminals that continue to pose a threat from leaving prison and helps victims to feel they have the information they need and a voice in the process. So, it is paramount to maintaining public confidence that our parole process functions effectively. In recent years, a number of decisions to release offenders who have committed heinous crimes have led to a loss of public confidence in the parole system. People have questioned how safe it really is to release certain offenders and why those recalled to prison were allowed to leave in the first place. I share these concerns, which is why I am determined to refocus the system to put public protection at the forefront of all parole decisions.
I want to see the parole process take a more precautionary approach when it comes to decisions affecting public protection. In particular, in cases which involve those who have committed the most serious crimes, it is right that Ministers should provide a measure of oversight and be able to intervene more directly in decisions on release. The key proposed reforms set out in this review will ensure public protection is the overriding consideration for release decisions.
The current release test used by the parole board has moved away from Parliament’s original intention. A court judgment in the case of Bradley in 1991 stated that the role of the Board is to
“carry out a balancing exercise between the legitimate conflicting interests of both prisoner and public”.
The statutory test has therefore changed over time to become a “balancing exercise” between public protection and the rights of the prisoner. We will revise the test to reinforce it, so its overriding focus is on public protection.
At present, 5% of all parole board members come from a law enforcement background. We will increase substantially that number, because those with operational law enforcement experience have greater first-hand experience in dealing with serious offenders and the risk they present. This will ensure a greater focus on public protection.
The review also announces our intention to introduce ministerial oversight over parole decisions to release serious offenders in the top-tier of higher risk cases. That top-tier will be defined as offenders serving sentences for murder, rape, terrorism and causing or allowing the death of a child. Where the parole board has directed release, the Secretary of State will be able to review the release decision of any “top-tier” cohort offender. We will further consider the details of the procedural mechanism and set out two options in this review for how this power could operate in practice.
Alongside this is the Government commitment to increase victim participation in the parole process. For the first time, we will allow victims to attend a parole hearing in full should they wish to do so. In addition, we will require the board to take account of submissions made by victims and allow for victims to ask questions in those submissions.
The review also outlines the new process on the transfer of life and other indeterminate sentenced prisoners to open prison conditions. Similar considerations of risk and public concern arise here, and in December 2021,1 changed the process to introduce a ministerial check on such decisions, delivering greater oversight to the process in the interests of public protection and public confidence.
Protecting the public is this Government’s top priority and the proposals in this review will reinforce public safety and increase confidence in our justice system. As we continue to develop policy and begin legislating, we will consider fully the impact of the proposals and have due regard to the requirements of section 149 of the Equality Act 2010.
[HCWS744]
Parole System: Public Protection
Dominic Raab Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
Today I am publishing the root and branch review of the parole system, and copies have been deposited in the Library.
I start by paying tribute to the chief executive officer and the chair of the Parole Board for England and Wales, Martin Jones and Caroline Corby, and to all the staff who work so tirelessly to discharge their important responsibilities. They are dedicated and committed public servants.
Before I address the detail of the statement, and with your forbearance, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will update the House on this morning’s news. In the light of the Parole Board’s direction to release Tracey Connelly, and having carefully read the decision, I have decided to apply to the Parole Board seeking its reconsideration.
More generally, the role of the Parole Board in deciding on the appropriateness of releasing a criminal offender from prison, including many convicted of very serious violent and sexual offences, is clearly of paramount importance to protecting the public and to maintaining and sustaining public confidence in our justice system. It is the first duty of Government to protect the public.
In recent years, a number of decisions to release offenders who committed heinous crimes have led to disquiet, concern and, regrettably, an erosion of public confidence. Take the case of John Worboys, who is serving a discretionary life sentence for rape and other sexual offences. The Parole Board’s decision in January 2018 to release him on licence caused deep concern among his victims and the wider public. It was subject to a successful legal challenge, after which the Crown Prosecution Service successfully prosecuted him for attacking four further women.
I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised the case of Colin Pitchfork, who was convicted of the rape and murder of Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth. The Parole Board decided to release Pitchfork in 2021, and it rejected the challenge by the then Justice Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland). The understandable public anxiety was further compounded when Pitchfork was recalled to prison just two months after release for approaching women in breach of his licence conditions.
I make a broader point that in these kinds of cases, and in many others that do not attract the same level of media attention or public interest, victims feel their trauma and raw fear are neither recognised nor understood. Likewise, the public inevitably begin to question the reliability of decision making when serious offenders are recalled to prison for breaches of their licence or for committing further offences on release.
To give the House a sense of scale, in 2020-21 the Parole Board’s annual report stated that 27 offenders went on to be charged with a serious further offence following release directed by the Parole Board panel. There were 40 cases of serious further offences being charged in each of the preceding two years. Placed in context, it is fair to say this is only a fraction of all cases, but more than once a fortnight an offender goes on to commit a serious offence while subject to supervision.
At present, victims who wish to challenge a decision by the Parole Board to release a prisoner have the option of asking the Justice Secretary to apply for the decision to be reconsidered, which is an important innovation that I exercised today for a person convicted in the harrowing case of Baby P. There have been 39 interventions since the challenge mechanism was set up two years ago, with four leading to a change in the release decision.
Following the review published today, I believe the case for reform is clear and made out. In arriving at this conclusion, it is worth pausing to acknowledge the shift in the Parole Board’s approach over time. The statutory test was established in 1991 and states
“The Parole Board must not give a direction”—
for release—
“unless the Board is satisfied that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that the person should be confined.”
It is clear from this that the overriding test focuses on public protection. However, in the absence of further guidance from Parliament, the way in which the release test has been interpreted and applied over time has shifted, moving away from Parliament’s original intention. In fact, as early as the Bradley judgment in 1991, the High Court concluded:
“The Parole Board have to carry out a balancing exercise between the legitimate conflicting interests of both prisoner and public.”
To summarise, the statutory test has morphed over time from a strict public protection test to a balancing exercise between, on the one hand, the responsibility of the state to protect the public and, on the other hand, the rights of the prisoner. Whatever the rights and wrongs, that was palpably not the original intention of Parliament.
I make it clear that I am not criticising the courts, which have sought to apply a generic statutory test without more prescriptive guidance from Parliament, nor am I criticising members of the Parole Board, as I hope I have made clear. It is worth saying that, contrary to public perception, it is often fiendishly difficult to come to a reliable assessment of an offender’s risk many years after their original crimes. Although psychiatric assessments and social science can offer guidance, risk assessments in such cases are inherently uncertain and imprecise. We need to be more honest and open about that in our public debate.
In any case, I believe the focus in this critical decision making has become adrift from its original moorings. This Government will again anchor Parole Board decision making on the cardinal principle of public protection. When it comes to assessing the risk to victims and public safety, we will introduce a precautionary principle to reinforce public confidence in the system. In cases involving those who have committed the most serious crimes, we will introduce a ministerial check on release decisions, exercised by the Justice Secretary.
The package of reforms published today will strengthen the focus on public protection at every stage. First, we will revise the statutory test for release and replace the current approach that balances the rights of dangerous offenders against public safety with an overriding focus on public protection, by providing in primary legislation further detailed criteria for the application of the statutory test.
Secondly, we will make sure that the Parole Board is better equipped to make credible and realistic assessments of risk. It is striking that, as of last year, only 5% of all Parole Board panel members come from a law enforcement background. Again, I make no criticism of the current panel members, but that is a significant deficit. I believe the deficit is wrong, and our reforms will ensure that the people we charge with making finely balanced assessments of future risk have greater first-hand operational experience of protecting the public from serious offenders. We will change this imbalance by mandating the Parole Board to recruit more members with operational law enforcement experience, and the Ministry of Justice will run a recruitment campaign to bolster its numbers. Critically, in Parole Board cases involving the top-tier cohort of serious violent and sexual offenders, we will require by law that at least one of the three panel members has a law enforcement background.
The third key reform is that, for the top-tier cohort of high-risk offenders who have committed the most serious offences, we will introduce ministerial oversight of Parole Board decisions to release such offenders back into the community, based on our assessment of the dangerousness of the offender, the risk of serious further offending and public confidence. These top-tier offenders will comprise those serving sentences for murder, rape, terrorism and causing or allowing the death of a child. In those cases, we will make two specific changes. The Parole Board will be able to refer a case to the Justice Secretary if it cannot confidently conclude whether, on the evidence, the statutory test for release has been met. In addition, we will introduce ministerial oversight over any decision to release any offender in the top-tier cohort of serious offenders. Under our reforms, in that top tier of cases the Justice Secretary will have the power to refuse release, subject to judicial challenge, on very clearly prescribed grounds, in the upper tribunal. I believe that is warranted as an extra check and safeguard to protect the public. I have not yet ruled out entirely an alternative model that could establish a three-person panel chaired by the Justice Secretary with the same power to refuse release, subject to judicial review in the normal way. We will consider further detail of the mechanism in order to strike the most effective balance.
We are making these reforms because the concept of risk is notoriously difficult to assess in these kinds of cases. We are doing it because the public expect their safety to be the overriding consideration and because, ultimately, it involves a judgment call about public protection, and the public expect Ministers to take responsibility for their safety. Let me be equally clear that there is no such thing as a risk-free society; we cannot guarantee that no one released from prison will go on to commit a serious crime. Let us be very clear about that as we have a more honest debate about the assessment of risk. Nevertheless, I believe that these measures are necessary to reinforce public safety and public confidence, and we will legislate for them as soon as possible. I should also say that we will do so alongside our proposed Bill of Rights, to ensure that the will of Parliament and that focus on public protection is not undermined by the Human Rights Act. Indeed, our reforms to parole yet again highlight the compelling case for a Bill of Rights.
Our fourth reform will increase victim participation in parole hearings, thereby delivering on this Government’s manifesto commitment. I recognise that parole decisions will be immensely and acutely traumatic moments for many victims, as they are forced to remember, go through and revisit the ordeal and suffering that they have already been though. Some will not wish to be involved, whereas others will want their voices to be heard, and I believe they should have that right. So we will give victims the right to attend a parole hearing in full, for the first time, should they wish to do so. In addition, we will require the board to take into account submissions made by victims and allow victims to ask questions through those submissions. The voice of victims will be at the centre of the process, not just some lingering afterthought.
Finally, although separate from parole decision making, similar considerations of risk and public concern have arisen in the context of decisions to transfer prisoners to prisons in open conditions. That is why in December 2021 I changed the process to introduce a ministerial check on such decisions, guided by similar principles to those that I have already set out. That is what led to my decision this month to reject the Parole Board’s recommendation to move Steven Ling, who raped and killed a woman, to an open prison. I declined the move in the interest of public protection and public confidence.
In sum, our reforms will ensure that those offenders who present the highest risk to public safety are reviewed more rigorously, with additional ministerial oversight. Protecting the public is the Government’s top priority. The proposals in this review will reinforce public safety. I commend this statement to the House.
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement earlier today. It is hugely timely, given the disturbing news about the potential release of Baby P’s killer. I fully support the Secretary of State in seeking a review of that. In broad terms, I welcome his statement too. It is crucial that public protection is paramount and that victims are right at the heart of the criminal justice system. Currently, too many victims feel that their views are not taken sufficiently into account, either in parole decisions or in sentencing, and that leads directly to public safety concerns, which must be taken more seriously. Labour will put public safety at the core of our contract with the British people. Sadly, the same cannot be said of this Government.
It is less than two months since the convicted sex abuser Paul Robson walked out of a low-category open prison in Lincolnshire. After he escaped, the public were warned that Robson was a serious danger to women and children. He clearly should never have been in a low-security prison in the first place. The Parole Board made that recommendation, but it was the Secretary of State who approved it. He or his predecessors already had the necessary powers, they just did not use them. So what will stop him making serious mistakes like that again when he exercises his new check and oversight powers in, potentially, hundreds more cases? Labour wants victims to have the right to make a new personal statement saying how they would feel if the prisoner is released. We would like any assessment of the risk to the public to include the risk of re-traumatising the victim, and to prevent released prisoners from living near their victim if that is against the victim’s wishes. Will the Secretary of State consider those additional proposals?
The appalling decision to release the multiple rapist John Worboys was only stopped after the Centre for Women’s Justice sued the Government, using rights established by the last Labour Government. Sir Peter Gross’s review made sensible proposals to improve these rights, including the UK’s margin of appreciation over interpretations we would all object to. But the Secretary of State will be throwing the baby out with the bathwater if he uses that concern as an excuse to take away British rights that protect British people from dangerous criminals, as they did in that case. Too many victims of crime do not get a say over what happens to criminals because those criminals are never prosecuted in the first place. That is because this Conservative Government cut 21,000 police officers and still have not replaced them, despite imposing the highest rates of personal taxation for 70 years —that is 21,000 people with law enforcement experience that his party sacked, whom he might now approach to sit on parole boards, as he suggests.
The Secretary of State spoke about rape cases in this statement, but only 1.5% of reported rape cases ever make it to court. Those that do now take more than 1,000 days, on average, before the trial starts—these are the longest delays in British legal history. What message does he think that sends about public safety and public protection? Under this Government, prosecution rates for crimes including burglary, robbery, car crime and fraud are so low that they have, in effect, been decriminalised. There are so few police left that victims are told to fill in a form online and hardly any of them ever hear anything again. It is no wonder that the Government stand accused of going soft on these crimes. Does he recognise that letting criminals get away with crime damages public safety and erodes confidence in the justice system, which is something he is telling us this afternoon that he wants to strengthen? The Victims’ Commissioner has called on the Government to establish a new victims’ right to review. That would give victims the power to challenge decisions by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute or to drop prosecutions. The Secretary of State did not mention that in his statement, so will he tell us whether he intends to introduce proposals along those lines in future?
Public protection requires victims to be active participants throughout the criminal justice process, including in parole decisions. Their insights strengthen public safety and public confidence in the system. Today’s statement is a step forward and it recognises some of the Government’s mistakes, but it could have been bigger.
Dominic Raab
Let me start by thanking the hon. Gentleman for his support for the decision taken today in the Tracey Connelly case. I think he also gave wholesale backing to the reforms I set out in my statement, which is important. I want to welcome what I therefore hope will be cross-party support when we come to legislate for them; he cannot support the aims and then not will the means, and I hope that that becomes clear as we take the proposals through the House.
The hon. Gentleman asked about absconds, which is an issue of significant concern. I should say to him that between 2009-10 and today, the level of absconds from prisons has fallen to a third of the level it was under the last Labour Government. He might want to think a little about that before he makes unfounded assertions.
In fairness, the hon. Gentleman did ask about the case of Shane Farrington, who absconded on 24 March but was rearrested on 26 March. He is ineligible for a return to open conditions for two years. The hon. Gentleman made a point about our being empowered to do something; actually, that took place in October and I changed the rules in December, as I have made clear to the House.
I welcome what the hon. Gentleman said about the role of victims. We are making important changes and I welcome his support for them. I gently point out that, even before the spending review, the level of victims funding was three times the level it was at under the Labour Government. He talks about victims; our record is infinitely better, but we are restless to do far more.
More generally, the history of the reforms we are undertaking took place on Labour’s watch, because in 2008 Labour gave up the power to block the release of prisoners who had been sentenced to more than 15 years and then legislated to make the changes—in fairness, they were forced on that Government by the Human Rights Act—permanent. As a result, the number of those recalled on life licence skyrocketed, going up almost sevenfold. The hon. Gentleman should, then, have a little more humility about where the problem came from.
The hon. Gentleman criticised our approach to the Bill of Rights, but it is clear that we cannot pursue the reforms I have set out and reverse the challenges that were made under the Human Rights Act without our Bill of Rights. Again, the question for the Labour party is going to be whether it just wills the ends or is willing to back the means.
Last month, I picked up my copy of the Daily Mirror, as I do, and read through it. I read that the hon. Gentleman had said that under the previous Labour leader, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), Labour had appeared to care
“more about criminals than their victims”.
That is a greater measure of humility, but the hon. Gentleman should take a bit of responsibility for his record. He and the shadow Cabinet voted against extra funding for more police officers. They voted against the tougher sentences for dangerous offenders in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill—the kind of thing that would protect victims and the public. I am glad that, on this issue at least, the hon. Gentleman is showing that he is willing to support measures that will stand up for victims and protect the public. The proof of the pudding will be in how the Opposition vote when all the measures come before the House.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The statement was excellent. My right hon. Friend is clearly revelling in an area of policy in which he has a great deal of expertise. One aspect of which I did not hear mention was the concept of punishment. Some offences, particularly the sort we are dealing with in this context, are absolutely heinous. It baffles the public as to why, for example, someone who led a home invasion in the New Forest that resulted in the burning alive of an entire family, although not until after the woman had been repeatedly raped, should be considered for release at the end of what is admittedly a long sentence. Most people would feel that people forfeit their right to liberty when they commit offences of that gravity. Where does punishment fit into all this?
Dominic Raab
I totally understand the point that my right hon. Friend makes. In truth, parole is about risk and, rightly, public protection. Either the tariff or the overall sentence should deal with the element of punishment, rather than parole. Nevertheless, my right hon. Friend makes an important point. He will know that whether it was Harper’s law, Tony’s law or the wider reforms to sentencing that we are making in the PCSC Bill, we have strengthened sentencing, in the teeth of opposition from Opposition Members.
In fairness, I do need to draw a distinction in respect of the reforms I have set out: they are really about public protection and the amorphous concept of risk in these cases. That itself also goes to the issue of public confidence in relation to the tariff and the punishment element that my right hon. Friend mentioned. Both are important, but with parole we focus on risk. I say that because I want to be clear that we are not adding another sentence on top of a sentence. The question, from the point at which an offender becomes eligible for parole, is whether they satisfy the statutory criteria. Is it safe to release them, or do they present an ongoing risk to public protection? That is the core focus of the reforms I have announced today, but I heed my right hon. Friend’s wider point.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and welcome the broad thrust of his recommendations. I notice that the second reform deals with the assessment of risk. The Secretary of State’s proposal is to employ more people with a law and order background, which I am quite happy to accept. I also notice that the report by the charity Justice published in January this year recommended:
“Enhancing the Parole Board’s programme of training to include”—
among other things—
“critical analyses of offending behaviour programmes and risk management tools”.
Does the Secretary of State have any plans to take that recommendation on board?
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his constructive and reasonable question. We will look at everything on training. The truth is that the members of the Parole Board come with a vast depth of experience; my question is whether we have the range right. Psychiatrists and psychologists have a critical role to play, and judges and lawyers inform the process, but if we say that our overriding focus is public protection and we have finely balanced questions of risk in relation to people who have committed a so-called index offence many years previously, I would have thought that, particularly for top-tier cases, the public would want to know that the grizzled police officer, for example, who has seen such cases before and knows the pattern of behaviour is also there to provide that dimension of critical thinking.
The hon. Gentleman is right in what he says about critical thinking. We need to make sure that the Parole Board panels, particularly for the serious, top-tier cohort, have a broad diversity of experience so that we can take a precautionary approach and protect the public.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and continue to be impressed by how he and the Ministry of Justice are gripping so many complex justice matters all at once. This is about not only public safety but the perception of public safety. The public rightly care about law and order. I hear strong words from those on the Opposition Front Bench, but we can see from the lack of turnout among Labour MPs that they prefer to politick on this issue rather than to do the hard graft of scrutiny.
On scrutiny, I really welcome that my right hon. Friend is putting victims at the heart of Parole Board decisions and allowing them input. Will he say a little more about how the Parole Board has taken to those proposals? How can we support victims as they go through that process? Some of them will find those steps distressing even if they want to take them.
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend for her tenacity on these issues. She makes the same point as the one my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) made about public confidence. There is no escaping that, particularly if we think of the history of parole and licence conditions and of how we ended up with life terms after the abolition of the death penalty. The public need to have confidence that sentences match the crime and that their safety is of paramount importance.
My hon. Friend asked about how we will help victims through the process; that is critical, because it must be gruelling and traumatic for them. I know from the consideration that I have given the matter and from the evidence I have seen how difficult it will be. We have already made some improvements in the process for victims: in 2018, we introduced written decision summaries to improve transparency for victims; in 2019, we introduced the reconsideration mechanism, which I exercised today; and in 2021, we announced our intention to enable public hearings and for victims to be able to attend them as observers, and we are now giving them a much fuller role, as I explained in my statement. On top of that, of course, is the statutory release test. When the Parole Board considers that test, it will take clear account of victims’ submissions and victims will be able to ask questions through their submissions.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Lord Chancellor for the statement; I am encouraged by the steps he has introduced today to address what one victim said to me was a “reprehensible” parole system. That lady contacted me after the murderer of her son was released and she saw him in the local Tesco. She received no warning that he had been released early. Will the Lord Chancellor confirm that the legislation will include a legal obligation to inform victims and their close family? Will he be in touch with the Minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly to discuss the legislation proposed for this place that can also be introduced in Northern Ireland?
Dominic Raab
The root and branch review will set out all the victims’ rights in the process. The hon. Gentleman will be able to see that. Copies are now available in the House. Of course we respect the devolved settlements on this, but we are always willing to engage with the devolved Administrations around cross-cutting issues and those of common concern.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
The public will rightly expect that their protection is the overriding concern when serious offenders are assessed either for release by the Parole Board or, indeed, for transfer to an open prison, a subject on which my right hon. Friend touched. I know from my own time as non-executive director at Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service that open prisons can be an extremely important part of an offenders’ rehabilitation, especially at the end of a very long sentence. We have seen recent cases where the current test has clearly not worked effectively. Does my right hon. Friend agree that time in an open prison should always be regarded as a privilege, certainly never an automatic right? Will he confirm that the measures that he has already introduced, and that he is going on to introduce later today, will result in a more cautious approach that will make sure that the public is always safe?
Dominic Raab
I agree with everything that my hon. Friend said. I do not think that there is a trade-off. In fact the two things go together: we want to protect the public as well as identify those who can be released into open conditions or into society—those who are ready to play the right role, to reintegrate back into society, to work, to look after their families and to stay clean of drugs. All of those things go together. Ultimately, our objective is to protect the public, drive down crime and reduce reoffending.
Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and for engaging with me over my one-punch awareness campaign, something about which I am deeply passionate. Victim support is at the very heart of that campaign, because, as we all know, the victims of crime and their families do not stop suffering the moment the crime stops being committed; they can suffer for months, years and even the lifetime that follow. That is why the victims of crime need to be at the very heart of our criminal justice system to ensure that they receive the support, protection and reassurance they need. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that these proposals will improve victim support and public protection, particularly for victims of the most serious crimes?
Dominic Raab
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her tenacious campaign and say that I know how difficult that must be for her. None the less, it is very important, and she brings a huge amount of experience, particularly personal experience, to the Chamber and to the changes that we are making. I agree with what she has said. I have set out for the House the changes that we are making for victims in relation to the parole decision-making process, but they are only one element of a much broader strategy, and we will, of course, be introducing a victims’ law. Again, I hope the whole House can rally around that, so that victims feel that they are front and centre of this, that they are listened to, that they are taken into account, and that they are part of the criminal justice system, not an appendix to it.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
When Paul Robson escaped from the North Sea Camp open prison in my constituency, the sudden presence of this violent rapist in the community was deeply traumatic not just for his victims, but for all those people who live in and around the area that the prison occupies. By definition, although the Parole Board does immensely difficult work, the fact that he absconded means that he was in the wrong place. Will my right hon. Friend reassure me that what he has announced today makes it far less likely for a convict such as Paul Robson to be in those conditions and to place the public at risk in the way that he did when he absconded?
Dominic Raab
I can reassure my hon. Friend on that. The changes that we made in December should give him some reassurance. There is no risk-free approach here. What we do is try to create safeguards to mitigate as best we can while maintaining a free society. I also note that, under successive Conservative Governments, the number of absconds has fallen, from 296 in 2009-10 to 101 in 2020-21—a third of the level. We have the security right, but we will continue to make sure that we reinforce it.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement today. Does he agree that, in those most serious of cases, the public do not expect politicians to throw up their hands and say, “Well, it was a decision for the Parole Board”? They expect them, as the ones accountable for keeping them safe, to step in and do so because it is their No.1 job.
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. On that decision making, the frustration is that if we delegate from this place or from accountable Ministers, particularly when we are talking about judgment calls, not things that require a purely technocratic or scientific approach—psychiatry and psychology can only take us so far—the public feel that we have abdicated our responsibility. We are taking back control to provide a safeguard in those high-risk cases, and that is exactly what the public already expect of us.
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. We sometimes forget that the most important reason for having prisons is not necessarily as a punishment, but to keep the public safe. I know that my constituents in Peterborough would want the Parole Board always to be risk averse on public protection when it comes to releasing criminals found guilty of serious crimes. Can he reassure the good people of Peterborough that he understands their concern and that public protection is at the heart of these proposals?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is right: public protection must be the overriding priority. Moreover, it is important that the credibility of measures such as open conditions and release on licence is sustained as well. The rehabilitative work that we do—encouraging offenders into work and getting off drugs—is critical to reducing reoffending and also to protecting the public. The credibility will be eroded if we do not make sure that we have the safeguards right.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s statement. Last week, two prisoners absconded from Thorn Cross prison in my constituency, bringing the total to five so far in the first three months of this year. Shane Farrington, as the Lord Chancellor has already mentioned, was one of those who absconded. He was sentenced for killing another prisoner and for escaping from custody in 2018. Understandably, people living in Appleton Thorn in my constituency are asking what he was doing in an open prison in Warrington. Can the Lord Chancellor confirm that the changes being announced today will prioritise the safety of people living close to open prisons, and assure me that the Government’s priority is to cut the number of absconds from open prisons, such as the one in Warrington South?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Just before the Lord Chancellor answers that question, may I say that, although I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman has been waiting a long time to ask his question, he made a preamble and then asked two questions. That is not what this is about. Each person has the chance to ask one question. We do not need a preamble. The preamble comes from the Minister who is making the statement. We do not need all of that stated over and over again. I am making this point now before we come to the next statement, which I appreciate will be controversial. We will have short questions and as short as possible answers. I appreciate that the Minister has to give a full answer, but we do not need a preamble. It is not a speech; it is a question.
Dominic Raab
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I heed your advice, as always. We have already cut the number of absconds by a third. Of course the measures that I introduced in December—not the ones that I have announced today—will further allow an extra safeguard, which, I hope, will give my hon. Friend’s constituents some reassurance.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I thank the Lord Chancellor for his thorough answers. We will now move onto the next statement. I will pause to allow people to enter and to leave the Chamber. I also remind hon. Members that, after this item of business, we have six hours of very important consideration of Lords amendments. That will take us well into the evening.
Oral Answers to Questions
Dominic Raab Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
With your forbearance, Mr Speaker, may I join the expression that you gave on the fifth anniversary of the murder of PC Palmer? I send my sympathies to the family and our total solidarity in this House with those who risk their lives on the frontline.
Vladimir Putin’s regime is responsible for an illegal invasion. There is strong evidence of war crimes and we believe that those responsible must be held to account.
Dr Spencer
I associate myself with my right hon. Friend’s remarks regarding PC Palmer. What steps has he taken to ensure that the mechanisms are in place so that the evidence of war crimes can be confidently collected by the International Criminal Court?
Dominic Raab
We are doing two things in particular. First, I have convened a cross-Whitehall group, which we have done in the past, to ensure that we can provide whatever support may be needed for everything from witness protection services to the gathering of evidence and information co-operation. Secondly, I have been to The Hague and I will be going back this week. I am working with a coalition of countries that also have unique expertise in that area to provide the support that the Court needs.
Damien Moore
Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that our recently passed Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 will ensure that this Conservative Government will take every step to deprive those found guilty of war crimes in Ukraine of their illegally gotten gains?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend will know that, because of the Sergei Magnitsky regime for asset freezes and visa bans for anyone who has committed serious human rights abuses, we already have that capacity in place. That is on top of the further co-operation that we will provide with the ICC and, I should mention, that the Attorney General will provide with the prosecutor general of Ukraine.
Mr Whittingdale
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, while the shelling of civilians is itself a war crime, any use of chemical or biological weapons, as predicted by President Biden today, would be a breach of the Geneva protocol and the chemical weapons convention and would most certainly be a war crime?
Dominic Raab
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am always careful to allow the ICC, of which both the prosecutor and the chambers of the Court are independent, to make those determinations, but the points of principle that he has set out are absolutely right. There must be no impunity for those in Moscow or the commanders on the ground who commit those atrocities.
David Duguid
Can my right hon. Friend outline to the House what steps the Government have taken to build the broadest caucus of support for prosecuting President Putin and his regime over their actions in Ukraine? Will he join me in applauding the role of the British ICC judge and British prosecutor in their work on the issue?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is right. We secured the election of Karim Khan and Jo Korner. They operate independently on the Court but it is a sign of how well regarded this country’s legal profession is that we have two such senior figures there, as well as the registrar. Again, they operate independently, but we are working with the Ukrainian authorities, led by the Attorney General. I am also going back to The Hague to ensure that we understand the specific needs of the ICC, not just to provide support ourselves but to ensure that we bring together a coalition of countries with that unique expertise so that justice can be done.
David Johnston
There will not be many people watching the TV each night who think that what Putin is doing to Ukraine does not constitute war crimes. I appreciate what my right hon. Friend says about the evidence and that these things can take a while. Without going into details, therefore, can he assure the House that we have learned the lessons of previous attempts to pursue war crimes cases, so that we might bring Putin and co to justice faster?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is right, although, of course, we have a war going on and we need to be realistic that that will take time and strategic patience. We had Radovan Karadžić, the butcher of the Balkans, delivered to a British jail cell last year under a sentence enforcement agreement that I happened to negotiate with the UN in 2004. These things will take time; that is the realpolitik that we are dealing with. We are ensuring, however, first, that things such as the preservation of evidence are a priority now in conduct on the ground, and secondly, that the message goes out that we and our partners in support of the ICC are being clear that, if someone commits those kinds of crimes, sooner or later they will end up in the dock of the Court and behind bars.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
As the Secretary of State is a very senior member of the Government, would he ensure that this House is updated regularly on what is going on? So much has happened, even over the last weekend, in this dreadful conflict, so would he send a message that this House should be updated regularly? I started by thinking that this must be settled peacefully, but are we really going to allow injustice to rule in this country and to let Russia get away with it?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I thank him for what he has said. I would be happy to update the House through oral questions or other means, and I am very happy to meet him. It is absolutely right that there will not be a peaceful settlement to this. I think we can all agree that trusting Vladimir Putin to keep his word is going to be a very tall order for anyone in the community, let alone President Zelensky, and there cannot just be a brushing under the carpet of atrocities committed now or in the future.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
The Secretary of State will be aware that Russian criminality in Ukraine did not start this year; it started in 2014. Since then, there have been crimes against the people of Ukraine, including, we have to say, gross abuses of the human rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. Will he use his influence to ensure that any war crimes investigation is extended to the beginning of the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014?
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who makes a really important point. Of course, I must at this point say that it will be for the ICC, which operates independently, to determine the temporal scope of its jurisdiction.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
The Justice Secretary made a very important point earlier when he said that this is about not just those in Moscow, but the commanders on the ground, although in fact it is even about individual soldiers. What can we do as a nation to help the ICC get the message across that those in the field could find themselves before the Court?
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I think he is right. Of course, one of the things Putin has done is to clamp down on all independent sources of media, but that is of course something that we are looking at trying to support so that Russians get the facts on the ground. He is also right to say that the conscripts, as well as the commanders, are at risk here. Many of those young Russian conscripts, who were told they were going in as peacekeepers, will have points at which they are not sure whether to follow essentially illegal orders either for their own welfare or for the good of Ukraine itself.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Especially perverse have been the Russian attacks on hospitals, schools and churches—on babies, children and elderly people—in Ukraine. What steps have been taken to co-ordinate with the UN to ensure that these travesties will not go unanswered in The Hague and that evidence is collected, collated and unquestionable?
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who I know has long had an interest in this area of accountability, and he is absolutely right. Of course, one of the critical issues right now is the preservation of evidence—not just that crimes were committed, but on whose orders they may have been committed. Those are all things we are looking at, and I think it is important that we work with all our allies on this. We have some unique expertise in law enforcement, with mechanisms in relation to information co-operation, witness protection, sentence enforcement and forensic evidence, but other states also have unique capabilities in those areas. What is crucial is that the early evidence—not just of crimes, but of the responsibility up the chain of command—is preserved where possible.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
The Government were elected on a manifesto commitment to replace the Human Rights Act 1998, and we have launched a consultation on a UK-wide Bill of Rights. We intend to bring forward legislation in the next Session.
Greg Smith
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree with me that to ensure that the Nationality and Borders Bill we are debating later today is fully workable, especially in supporting those who desperately need our help, such as those coming from Ukraine, a British Bill of Rights is essential to close the loopholes that allow those who seek to abuse the system—and, in doing so, take away resources from our authorities helping those in need—in relying on existing human rights legislation?
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend, and he is absolutely right that the Nationality and Borders Bill is crucial for dealing with those issues—not just as a matter of the protection of our borders, but in stemming this appalling trade in misery. The Bill of Rights would make sure that we have the right balance of protecting our freedoms by ensuring that the Executive can be held to account, but also making sure, when Parliament makes difficult balanced judgments on qualified rights, that there is greater respect for that in the public interest.
Lee Anderson
The Secretary of State will be aware that the current human rights laws are not fit for purpose and are stopping us deporting foreign criminals including rapists and murderers, much to the delight of the leftie lawyers. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we should fast-track the new Bill of Rights so we can get rid of these foreign rapists and criminals as quickly as possible and send them back to where they come from?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is bang on; he speaks in a very straightforward way, but I think that is what the public expect. We are not talking about undermining the fundamental freedoms—in fact, we are going to strengthen them, including free speech. We are making sure that those who do us harm or have been convicted of serious offences can be returned home without elastic interpretations of rights scuppering the process.
Debbie Abrahams
Contrary to the comments of the last questioner, the Law Society has said that the Government’s Human Rights Act proposals
“do not recognise the significant benefits that have been achieved…through the HRA”,
while the General Council of the Bar says that the HRA
“has worked and continues to work well.”
Given that those who work in our justice system reject the need for changes and only despots and tyrants like Putin object to human rights other than their own, why does the Justice Secretary not scrap these proposals and stop wasting taxpayers’ time and money?
Dominic Raab
We are of course familiar with the views of the Law Society and others but respectfully disagree, and in the end it is not solely our job to listen to legal practitioners, important as they are, or indeed to serve their interests, but also to stand up for victims and the public and make sure we have a common-sense approach to justice. [Interruption.] I respectfully disagree with the hon. Lady; she might want to put herself on the side of the criminals, but we will put ourselves on the side of the victims.
Allan Dorans
The Scottish Government have committed to introducing a new Human Rights Bill for Scotland by 2025 incorporating four major United Nations rights treaties—an international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights; conventions on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women; the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination; and the rights of persons with disabilities—along with other progressive human rights. Has the Secretary of State reviewed these plans with a view to incorporating them into any future Bill of Rights?
Dominic Raab
Although I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, I pay respect to the way he has introduced this question. There is a school of thought—I have been up to Edinburgh and discussed this with the Scottish Government—that we should expand a wider range of policy issues, social and economic, and environmental goals, and turn them into judicially enforceable rights. Many of those areas involve collective issues that require finely balanced judgment calls and often require public finances to be allocated in a very sensitive way, and I think they should be decided by hon. Members in all parts of this House, accountable to the British people, not lawyers in a courtroom.
Wendy Chamberlain
It is agreed by legal experts in areas ranging from local government to the House of Lords that the HRA is a delicate and well-tuned piece of legislation, and the organisation Lawyers in Local Government said in its response to the independent HRA review that the Government’s proposals not only risk reducing the accountability of public authorities and undermining the rules but will concretely cause further delay in reaching decisions on social housing, which is worse for all our constituents and for councils. This is not about ideology but about real-world outcomes. The HRA is working well, so will the Government accept that plans to scrap it are counterproductive?
Dominic Raab
I am afraid that I will not, and I respectfully disagree. I will side with the local authorities of whatever political colour or composition who are trying to serve their constituents. They of course need to be held to the rule of law and be accountable, but I am not on the side of the lawyers suing local authorities.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
In their consultation response the Scottish Government highlighted that in the initial UK Government approach to Windrush:
“No amount of evidence or reasoned argument proved able to persuade the Home Office of the catastrophic errors which had occurred.”
The HRA was instrumental in securing justice for the Windrush victims, and the UK Government later said they would learn lessons from those failings. Should they not start by ditching plans to overhaul the legislation that was instrumental in securing justice for the Windrush victims?
Dominic Raab
It is really important that the hon. Lady raises the question of the Windrush scandal. Hon. Members across the House would agree that that should never have happened, but of course it happened throughout the entirety of the entry into force of the Human Rights Act and there was nothing about the Act that led to the situation being addressed in this House—that was down to hon. Members who became aware of what had happened because of members of our communities who had been affected. Frankly, the Human Rights Act did not stop Windrush and had absolutely no role in remedying it.
Mr Speaker
I call Angela Crawley for her second question. No, she does not want it, so let’s try somebody else. I call Gavin Newlands.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
Last week, I went to The Hague to offer British assistance to the International Criminal Court in bringing those responsible for war crimes in Ukraine to justice. Russian commanders carrying out war crimes should know that they cannot act with impunity and that, like Karadžić and Charles Taylor before them, their actions risk landing them in a jail cell. I also set out proposals to tackle strategic lawsuits against public participation—SLAPPs—to stop oligarchs using our libel laws to muzzle journalists and academics.
Felicity Buchan
My constituency has strong links to Ukraine. Can my right hon. Friend reassure my constituents that this Government will do everything to support the investigation of war crimes potentially committed in Ukraine?
Dominic Raab
We are looking at a package of measures including financial assistance and also technical assistance, which is crucial to the preservation of evidence. The kinds of things I am analysing with colleagues across Whitehall include specialist IT capabilities and other expert areas such as police and military analysis—all the things that the ICC will need.
Dominic Raab
We have set out in detail our response to the Bellamy review, and indeed we matched the Bellamy recommendations on the quantum of investment and on the 50% uplift for fees. I think it was only last week that he backed those plans pretty much wholeheartedly, and I hope he still does.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
Litigation or the threat of litigation should not be used to intimidate or to silence things that are in the public interest. I welcome what my right hon. Friend said last week about SLAPPs. Can he reassure me, my constituents, journalists across the country and the wider public that he will do whatever it takes to support the freedom of the press and freedom of speech more widely?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and we have set out our proposals on SLAPPs. I also want to bring his attention to the submission that we had from the media group that involves the i, The Times, Associated Newspapers, The Daily Telegraph and others, which talks about the specific proposals we have put forward in our Bill of Rights to strengthen and reinforce freedom of expression and media rights as critically important, alongside the other work we are doing. I hope that the Labour party will support it.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
Dominic Raab
Thank you, Mr Speaker, I will be mindful of what you say. First, let me thank and pay tribute to my right hon. Friend, who has championed the Dunn family and the memory of Harry in the most remarkable way. Of course my heart goes out to Tim, Charlotte, Bruce, Tracey and all the family right now. Indeed, I was thinking about Tracey and Charlotte in particular as we prepare for Mother’s day this week. I can tell my right hon. Friend, without tripping up in the way that Mr Speaker described, that the whole Government and I wholeheartedly support the Foreign Secretary’s ongoing efforts to secure a virtual trial so that we can see justice done for Harry and his family.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman will know, because I have said it in the House on a number of occasions, that it would be inappropriate to consider the application of the Sewel convention until we have the text of the Bill of Rights, but he will not have to wait too much longer for that.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
If, as the Secretary of State said earlier, he is concerned about the oppressive use of litigation costs in SLAPP cases, will he look into the same problems in respect of media cases? Will he consider introducing—perhaps in his Bill of Rights—the type of low-cost arbitration recommended by the Leveson inquiry?
Dominic Raab
I recognise the issue that the hon. Gentleman wants to deal with but we are not going to rake over the old coals of that debate.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
My right hon. Friend the Minister recently met me and my constituent Donna Mooney to discuss imprisonment for public protection sentences. Will he update the House on the progress of his thoughts on the matter and whether he plans to bring forward any plans for reform?
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Does not Mariupol alone demand that we go even further on sanctions in relation to Russia? Could we not sanction all the Russian banks, rather than just 60% of them? Should we not be taking action against the oil and gas companies? Should we not be removing tier 1 visas from people in the UK who have them and have not yet condemned the war in Ukraine? Should we not be putting more pressure on companies—such as Infosys in India—that have big investments in Russia? Should we not make sure that all the family members and apparatchiks are also sanctioned?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we should continually challenge ourselves. The most important thing, though, is that we are focused on and targeted at those either with direct links into the Kremlin or who fund or indirectly fund, to put the squeeze on Putin’s war machine.
Simon Fell (Barrow and Furness) (Con)
On 30 March last year, my constituent Tim Dack sadly passed away from covid-19. Before he passed away, he woke up from his coma and he proposed to his partner; she was then doubly saddened to find out that she could not be listed as his partner on his death certificate, despite the fact that they had lived together for multiple years. My understanding is that there are uncommenced provisions in the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 that would allow such listing to happen. Might one of my Front-Bench colleagues be able to enlighten me on when those changes will be brought forward?
Dominic Raab
I will look at the various variations the hon. Lady has referred to; I will make sure to get her an answer by correspondence within the week.
Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Con)
Are the Secretary of State and the Minister for prisons aware of the shocking report out this morning by Ofsted and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons, which describes a terrible level of reading ability in prisons and a lack of progress over recent years? What plans do the Government have to put in place the recommendations of the 2016 Coates report and to ensure accountability, so that prison governors understand the vital nature of teaching all prisoners to read? Without that skill, there can be no serious rehabilitation.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
On this day five years ago, our lovely friend, the policeman Keith, was tragically killed—it haunts us all.
Can I ask a question about a real crisis occurring in the criminal justice system—the failure to attract the right number of young recruits into criminal law? Civil law and commercial law are so well paid that we cannot attract young men and women into criminal law. It is a real crisis. What is the Secretary of State going to do about it?
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Gentleman. He is right to say that there are difficulties in this area. If he reads our response to the Bellamy review, he will see that there are a number of ways that we want to address the issue, including by increasing fees and breaking down some of the barriers, for example through the promotion of CILEX, so that we can encourage more non-graduate routes into the profession. That will help with not just the volume but the diversity of practitioners.
Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation
Dominic Raab Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
Mr Speaker, forgive the exuberance in communicating at least the trail of this statement. Of course, you are absolutely right, and I will make sure that it does not happen again.
Today, I am setting out the proposals to tackle strategic lawsuits against public participation—the so-called SLAPPs—to end the abuse in UK courts, and of UK laws, by corrupt oligarchs and Putin allies to protect democratic debate and to uphold our fundamental liberties of free speech and a free press.
Let me offer the House a recent illustration of the problem we seek to tackle. Earlier this month, the British journalist Tom Burgis was sued for libel in the High Court by the oligarch-owned mining company ENRC. His book “Kleptopia: How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World” seeks to chart how dirty money is being used around the world, highlighting instances of money laundering, corruption and other wrongdoing.
ENRC did not just bring its claim against Mr Burgis’s publisher, but made multiple claims against him personally, as the author of articles, tweets and podcasts about his book. The High Court dismissed ENRC’s claim at a preliminary stage, on the grounds that the statements it had complained of were not defamatory, and awarded costs to Mr Burgis. It should be said that ENRC has also been under criminal investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, and during that period, ENRC has also brought two separate High Court civil claims against the SFO itself, in 2019 and in 2021.
That is not a one-off case, however, and such cases often do not end well. Certainly, they do not always end in the way the libel suit I mentioned did. I give it as an illustration, but that one-off case is part of a worrying and growing pattern of conduct that we are starting to see, whereby those accused of wrongdoing try to use their deep pockets and the UK courts to financially bully their critics into submission.
I will try to give the House a sense of the scale of the problem. Provisional figures from the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe, CASE, estimates that there were 14 such cases in the UK last year. It is worth pausing to reflect that that is a significant increase from just two in 2020 and one in 2018. This is a relatively recent, but burgeoning, phenomenon. Across Europe, CASE has identified 538 SLAPP cases over the past decade, 26 of them brought in this country, so this is not just a UK problem.
As a matter of plain principle, it is wrong that unscrupulous individuals and corporations are able to exploit our laws and our courts in this jurisdiction with claims designed to muzzle respected journalists, academics and campaigners, explicitly to stop them from shining a light on corruption and links to organised crime. If we think about it for a moment, this is a modern-day struggle between David and Goliath. We have individual journalists, authors and academics on the one hand, pitted against billionaire oligarchs, some of whom bankroll the Kremlin, on the other. We in this House cannot, and will not, allow our courts and our justice system to be used by those kleptocrats to intimidate and harass those who lift the lid on their murky dealings and wrongdoing.
The stark reality of the problem runs far deeper than the relatively small number of cases that will ever reach court. It is fair to say that the high-profile cases that we know about are likely to represent just the tip of the iceberg. This is probably the most important point for the House today: SLAPPs have their most pernicious impact through the pre-action letters and legal pressure applied well before court proceedings are initiated. Understandably, if a researcher or campaigner of relatively modest means finds themselves on the receiving end of such bullying tactics, the risk is that they will back down before a formal case is begun, for fear of the sky-high costs and damages that most working people in this country could not possibly afford to bear.
That is the harm we must guard against—publishers and authors forced to hesitate before publishing properly grounded stories, and legitimate, well-researched investigative reporting reined in, or perhaps not begun in the first place, for fear of the crushing legal costs. The most serious and surreptitious danger in all this is that SLAPPs then have a chilling effect on the transparency that is essential to a healthy democracy.
Of course, the war in Ukraine has highlighted the urgency of tackling what is a recent but none the less growing problem. The same kleptocrats availing themselves of SLAPPs are often found bankrolling President Putin’s war machine. As the Kremlin silences Russia’s independent press and jails critics of its illegal war, in this House and in this country we will stand up for those shining a light on corruption and cronyism.
So today I have set out proposals to reform our libel laws and launched a call for evidence, a copy of which is available in the House, that asks for views on how to make these reforms as targeted and effective as possible. Let me briefly summarise the measures we are taking. First, we will consider whether it is necessary to establish a legal definition in order to create a higher threshold for SLAPP-type cases, and look at whether we need to introduce stronger powers to enable our courts to strike them out earlier as an abuse of process to deal with the risk, the threats and the bullying that these cases involve. Secondly, we will set out for consideration options to strengthen the public interest defence. Thirdly, we will consider limiting legal costs in SLAPP cases, perhaps capping the costs that claimants can receive, to address the issue of the glaring inequality of arms between the parties in these kinds of cases. Fourthly, our proposals allow courts to put restraint orders on repeat litigants and consider the case for a specific requirement for SLAPP claimants to prove malice in libel cases. Fifthly, we will review the wider existing defences in our libel laws to assess whether and how they could and should be reformed to counter the growing threat from SLAPPs. Sixthly, we will look at the regulatory regime. In fairness, I should point out that the Solicitors Regulation Authority recently issued new guidance reminding solicitors of their duty to report misconduct, identifying SLAPPs as an example of litigation for improper purposes. We will assess how that regulation is working and whether it is adequate in the light of the evidence that we have.
This call for evidence is necessary to provide us with the most robust basis on which then to move swiftly to introduce the targeted reforms to deal with the problem at hand. These reforms sit alongside our proposals for a Bill of Rights that will reinforce freedom of speech and freedom of expression. This is a good example of why that Bill of Rights is necessary.
Today in this House we have an opportunity—I hope that hon. Members on both sides will embrace it—to put President Putin and his cronies on notice. We will not allow our courts to be abused to censor those brave enough to call out corruption. We will protect our free press, which is there precisely to hold the powerful to account. We will defend freedom of speech—the liberty that guards all our other freedoms in this country. Our reforms will further strengthen free speech so that those with blood on their hands and those with dirty money in their bank accounts are no longer free to hide in the shadows. I commend this statement to the House.
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement—and so does everyone on Twitter. It certainly marks a major and welcome shift in Conservative party policy. When the Prime Minister was Mayor of London, he actively encouraged oligarchs to pursue vexatious libel claims through the British courts, and it is good to see some belated recognition today of just how wrong that was.
We are used to double standards from this Government when it comes to Russian dirty money. Senior Ministers, including the Prime Minister himself, partied with Kremlin-linked oligarchs even as their plundered wealth flooded into London. They buried the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report instead of acting on the threats it exposed to our politics and to our democracy. The reason there has been an increase in this kind of lawsuit—what the Secretary of State called a “glaring inequality of arms”—in this country is that the Conservative party got itself hooked on the Kremlin’s dirty money. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) has worked bravely to expose the Conservatives’ increasing dependency on Kremlin-linked oligarchs. Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us how many Conservative party donors have used a SLAPP to silence free speech?
These measures, welcome though they are, are too little, too late. Labour called on the Government to fix this problem way back in January. My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) demanded clearer guidance for judges, tougher regulation of law firms, and legislation to control costs so astronomical that no one can afford to stand up to Putin’s bullying billionaires. My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition demanded legislation two years ago.
The Conservatives’ track record is frankly problematic. They ignored the Leveson inquiry when it called for low-cost litigation for claimants and defendants in media cases. Instead, they sided with Putin’s oligarchs against British journalists and campaigners until it was far too late. The Secretary of State says that he wants to end abuses in UK courts by Putin’s cronies, but he is proposing a consultation that does not finish until 19 May. Has he made an estimate of how much these oligarchs will continue to abuse the current skewed system until then, as they attempt to hide their collaboration with the Kremlin? Let us be clear: their money funds Putin’s wars of aggression in Chechnya, Georgia, the Crimea, and now the rest of Ukraine. The Government must act much faster if they want to cripple Putin’s war machine and stop it slaughtering the children of Ukraine-.
The Secretary of State mentions the Solicitors Regulation Authority, but what penalties will be imposed on firms acting in these cases? What is the SRA doing to check that solicitors are doing proper due diligence on oligarch clients and the source of their wealth before helping themselves to a share of it? What action is he taking to stop law firms helping the Russian state to make money that helps to fund Putin’s war machine? Putting Putin “on notice” is not enough—the Government must end this corruption now.
Dominic Raab
It is a bit surprising, on an issue of such seriousness, that the hon. Gentleman resorted to making the usual partisan political points. Frankly, I think the House can rise above his partisan approach.
The hon. Gentleman says that this is too little, too late. In fact, in January, when he says Labour called for this, Justice Ministers had already made it clear that we were actively working on proposals. Indeed, I made that clear in the House in February. He referred back to 2018, or a couple of years ago. We had one case in 2018. As I said, this is now a burgeoning problem. Frankly, an element of “Captain Hindsight” seems to have crept along the shadow Front Bench.
In relation to the broader points that the hon. Gentleman makes about oligarchs, I set out in the House yesterday the scale and the level of sanctions that we have imposed—indeed, with cross-party support. We have led the way internationally.
The hon. Gentleman did not really make any substantive points about the consultation. [Interruption.] He did not really, actually—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) is chuntering from a sedentary position. He did not really ask me anything—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Lady should not be chuntering from a sedentary position. She is a very senior Member of the House and she should know better.
Dominic Raab
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I look forward to the hon. Gentleman taking some time to look over the proposals in a slightly more sober way. I hope that, on reflection, he will agree to that, given that some Labour Members, particularly the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), as well as my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), have shown that this can be done in a cross-party way.
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
I unreservedly welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement. This has been a seriously cross-party issue. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has taken a terrific part in it, and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) and many others have engaged in it, because it is so important: we are talking about a fundamental defence of free speech. This is going to be difficult but it is also going to be urgent. The one point on which I agree with the Opposition spokesman is that dealing with this will be urgent, because it is not just about oligarchs. We have already debated in this Chamber cases like that of Mohamed Amersi—a disgraceful case brought against a former Member of this House. The timetable is important. I unreservedly welcome to this, but will my right hon. Friend give the House some indication of when he expects legislation to come out of the call for evidence he has announced?
Dominic Raab
I thank my right hon. Friend. He is absolutely right to pay tribute to the cross-party nature of this, notwithstanding the statement by the Opposition spokesman. That is very important, and he has helped to lead it, as is often the case. He asked about the timetable. As he will see, these are substantive proposals—not a Green Paper but a set of proposals. It is important, with regard to libel, which is there to defend the reputation of decent, upstanding people, that we get this right. It is about testing the evidence so that when we go to legislation, we get this right. After the consultation, I will look for the earliest opportunity and the earliest legislative vehicle. It may end up being a third Session Bill, but he has my reassurance that we are already looking at the appropriate legislative vehicle. It depends how much of this we do in primary legislation. I suspect most of it will require primary legislation.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I welcome it, and the sentiments behind the proposed changes. For too long, Russian oligarchs have used their ill-gotten wealth to threaten and silence those who would rightfully seek to expose them. We know that the UK is awash with dirty money, whether it is the London laundromat, golden visa schemes or utilising UK law firms to silence journalists and intimidate activists who rightfully call out their unethical behaviour. Vladimir Ashurkov, a Russian political activist who was an executive director of Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said that SLAPP lawsuits were
“acts of hybrid warfare which are used to weaken the UK’s democracy, judicial system and fundamental freedoms”.
Given that we know that Kremlin-linked oligarchs use SLAPP lawsuits to silence criticism and to attempt to control the public narrative, what steps is the UK taking to ensure that we cannot be manipulated to silence free speech, while protecting journalists and political activists? What steps are the Secretary of State and the UK Government taking to name and shame such companies and will specific secondary legislation be proposed to strengthen existing defamation and libel laws?
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Lady for her thoughtful and cogent statement, intervention and set of questions. I point out to her that we are dealing with the tier 1 visa, and the sanctions regime, both in the number of people and entities, plus the scope—I think it is now at $45 billion—demonstrates what we are doing on that front. The substantive proposals are all set out in the call for evidence, which is available in the House. She will find all the answers. I think it will be a combination of things. There are regulatory matters through the SRA regime that we want to look at, particularly around the ethics for solicitors, where there will be elements of perhaps secondary legislation. When we are dealing with libel law and the Defamation Act 2013, it will require changes to primary legislation, but I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of the call for evidence.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to identify what has been a stunningly quick recent phenomenon, bearing in mind the exponential increase in cases in the past year alone. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) for discussing this matter with me when I was in office. We could see this trajectory rising at an alarming rate. The Secretary of State is absolutely right now in his consultation to build on the work we did in the Defamation Act 2013, where we raised thresholds to bring libel cases, and strengthening the public interest defence is absolutely the right way to go. Will he undertake to look not only at this phenomenon, but other areas where we see individuals or groups bringing cases purely on the basis that they wish to get disclosure or information from Government that is designed to make some sort of political or power point, as opposed to wanting the merits of the case dealt with by a court?
Dominic Raab
I pay tribute to all the work that my right hon. and learned Friend did in his tenure as Justice Secretary. He and I have looked at various things in this House together over many years, and the one thing we have always agreed on is the primacy of free speech. It is not entirely unqualified—libel laws are there for a reason—but he is absolutely right that the quintessential British liberty that guards all the others is freedom of speech and expression. However troubling it may be for politicians to have the journalistic scrutiny, rigour and all that, we understand in our hearts that it is critical to a healthy, vigorous democratic society, and I will certainly look at any other examples that he may wish to raise where we see this kind of legalised bullying through the courts and our jurisdiction.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
This is all really good stuff, and I am delighted that we are moving in the right direction. I always want the Justice Secretary to go faster; he can be very slow in delivering what he knows I want him to deliver. The real trouble we have had in this country is that the people of Britain have never known the truth about Russian money, because journalists, broadcasters, sometimes politicians and Governments have been too frightened to go to court because they know that the pockets on the other side are so deep, and they are terrified they will lose their home or their business, or the Government will lose millions of pounds on behalf of the British taxpayer. Can I ask him about the seizure of goods? We will need to seize assets. Take Chelsea football club—we will not be able to sell it on until we have seized it. Will we not need legislation for that, as well, and will he ensure that there is a proper tender for the sale of that, so that it does not go to somebody who is equally dodgy?
Dominic Raab
Forgive me if I do not get drawn into Chelsea football club, which is outside the scope of what we are discussing in this statement. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman. Since doing BackBench Business debates on Magnitsky in 2012, he and I have always, whatever else we may differ on, made common cause on the need for robust sanctions. He has been one of the leading lights in relation to SLAPPs, and I will certainly look carefully at the important specific points he has made.
Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I am very impressed by the Deputy Prime Minister’s action, and I thank him. It is a great shame that over recent years, we have allowed a corrupting cottage industry of legalised intimidation and legalised gangsterism to be offered by unscrupulous law firms in this country to some of the most wretched and unscrupulous people on earth. I hope that the senior partners in firms such as Carter-Ruck, CMS, Mishcon and Harbottle & Lewis will consider whether they feel that they have played an entirely negative role in enabling Kremlin neo-fascism. My brief question is that I was bringing forward a private Member’s Bill on this issue so that the tools of abuse—data protection, privacy and libel laws—can be wrapped up in a series of amendments. Should I continue to try to bring forward that private Member’s Bill in the hope that I can help write some clauses that would be of value in an upcoming Bill, or should I offer that in evidence to the consultation process? I am keen for the Bill to be strong, just and transparent.
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend should do both. I thank him for his campaigning tenacity on all this. As ever, he is very forensic, as well as tenacious. I make one point. He makes a perfectly reasonable point about legal ethics—as I mentioned, we will look at the SRA regime, which is important—but I want to avoid this being an anti-lawyer push, because the vast majority of legal practitioners are as aghast as us at the abuses we see. Let us have a targeted approach, because we are more likely to be effective at dealing with the real problem that he has been so tenacious and eloquent in highlighting.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I have a daughter who works for a London law firm. I join my colleagues on all sides in saying that speed is of the essence. The fact of the matter is that some of the luxury yachts have already left, and we do not want that to happen in this case. When I was an undergraduate at the London School of Economics, I remember Professor Michael Oakeshott saying that the courts of England, like the Ritz Hotel, are open to everyone. That is the case, so I welcome the measures today. I want them to be speedy, and I want everything we do to make clear where our support is in terms of this terrible invasion of Ukraine.
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his long-standing interest in this area and the very constructive points he has made. We need to act swiftly, and I said that in my statement. We also need to recognise that we are constantly balancing the right of honourable people to protect their reputation—libel law has a role to play in this country—with not allowing libel law to be hijacked by those with deep pockets to muzzle the very transparency that we want in this country. That is a balance, and we need to be careful to get that balance right. We also remain a global country with a global outlook, and we want investment into this country. That is crucial and is part of our USP. What we do not want is dirty money or the money of those with blood on their hands. We will move swiftly, but the most important thing is that we do not do this in a knee-jerk way, because when this House does things in a knee-jerk way, we get it wrong and we repent at leisure. Let us move swiftly, but firmly. That is why the call for evidence is about how we shape these reforms, not whether we do them.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is right to set out the harm, intimidation and cost bullying that comes even before there is live litigation, as that happens in many libel matters generally. I also welcome him guarding against being anti-lawyer, particularly as he is doing so much work in other areas to undo the historical attacks on lawyers in this country. Thinking about the indispensable free press in this country, it is difficult for us in the UK to comprehend how narrow and limited is the information that Russian people, for example, receive, let alone what they understand can be trusted and impartial. Will he clarify what the Government are doing more widely to promote press freedom?
Dominic Raab
As ever, my hon. Friend absolutely nails the point. These reforms are targeted at a specific problem, which is recent and burgeoning, and we do not want to conflate that because it might hit other areas and do ancillary or incidental harm and because that is a displacement of our effort and our energies.
My hon. Friend asked more generally about what we are doing around the world. When I was Foreign Secretary, we ramped up the Media Freedom Coalition, which, in my time, we chaired with the Canadians. I am not sure whether it is them or us who currently hold the chairmanship—I think it is the Canadians. We expanded that coalition. The idea was to help with the legislation that countries have to protect free speech and to ensure that, when journalists come under attack, they get legal support. We raised quite a lot of money and we keep working on it. I know that the current Foreign Secretary is enthusiastic and energetic about it.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
I, too, welcome the Justice Secretary’s statement. He has well specified the problem and the need for urgency, so I urge maximum speed, although he is right to be cautious about getting the legislation right. There should be a presumption that the public interest test is right. That test is not synonymous with the British state; I hope he would agree with that. Nor is it necessarily, in this complicated world, synonymous only with the UK national interest. Will he ensure that the test takes the widest possible view about what is good for this complicated world, because that matters against the oligarchs?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and makes one of the most important points. If he looks at the call for evidence and the menu of options that we set out, we look at the threshold for bringing SLAPPs and whether there ought to be a new right of public participation. We look at the various defences in defamation law to see whether they are sufficient to deal with this problem. That includes the public defence and the serious harm test of a defamatory statement. We are trying to look at it from every angle. I should add for completeness that we will look at whether we are getting the right balance in terms of being an attractive destination for litigants to want to solve disputes, which is a great USP for the country, and whether we have allowed and given succour to libel tourism in this particularly pernicious area. We will look at all those things and I look forward to his further thoughts in those areas.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
I, too, warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. As he said, however, SLAPPs are an international phenomenon that are used across Europe to stifle investigative journalism. Most notorious, perhaps, are the 47 lawsuits that were being brought against Daphne Caruana Galizia at the time of her murder in Malta in 2017. Does he therefore agree that protecting freedom of the press properly will require international action? Can he say what discussions he has had with his counterparts in other jurisdictions to bring about co-ordinated action?
Dominic Raab
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I mentioned the European figures; it is clearly a much broader phenomenon. One of the things that we have looked at is the threshold. To give an illustration of a jurisdiction that we have looked at, in the United States, there needs to be malice, I think, for most libel cases. Under the US constitution, there are a whole series of judicially enforceable rights that are probably stronger than in this country under the European convention on human rights or otherwise in relation to free speech. We will look carefully at the bespoke libel laws that we have and we are mindful of the lessons that we can learn from other jurisdictions.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I welcome the statement and especially the Justice Secretary’s words about it being the tip of the iceberg. I was caught up in the issue when Navalny released his list and I named Abramovich in this House as someone who we needed to look at sanctioning. I then tried to do a follow-up story with a newspaper but, lo and behold, the lawyers got involved and the newspaper never printed it. I wonder how many such stories that shed sunlight on our democracy have been stifled.
The Justice Secretary will know, however, that it is not just oligarchs who do that. For example, Sienna Miller said that she had to stop her case against the News Corp newspapers in December because she could not afford to continue to take the case to court. Will the legislation cover not just the oligarchs who desperately need looking at but anyone who seeks to use the law to silence the truth?
Dominic Raab
Yes. Whatever other differences we have had over the years, I pay tribute to the hon. Lady’s campaigning tenacity on the issue. I think she is right. Of course, although we have oligarchs and Ukraine in mind, it would need to be something that applied across the board.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
As a former journalist, I believe strongly and passionately in freedom of the press. We see all too vividly at the moment how important that is with the incredibly brave journalism coming out of Ukraine, yet that freedom has been increasingly threatened in recent years, so I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Will he reassure journalists and the wider public that he will take whatever steps are necessary to uphold freedom of the press and freedom of speech more widely?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I remember him as a television news presenter, so he has first-hand experience of the issue. He is right that we need to deal with the problem. More broadly, we have seen all sorts of incursions on free speech over recent years. There has been, I think, some collective denial about this. That is partly because, in some areas, if it is an issue that we feel torn about, perhaps people turn a blind eye. We need to redevelop the culture—frankly, the attitude—that we listen and perhaps embrace views that we do not always find comfortable. Freedom of speech is the liberty that guards all the others. That is why, on top of these reforms, our Bill of Rights reforms, which will strengthen and reinforce freedom of speech, are so necessary and timely.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I welcome the statement. As ever on these occasions, the devil will be in the detail, but I share hon. Members’ concern for urgency in disabling the enablers of the oligarchs. It is a war of attrition, but it is not just against journalists; it is also against Government agencies such as the Serious Fraud Office, which ENRC took to court in a SLAPP litigation, as well as an individual who formerly worked for the Serious Fraud Office. When the Justice Secretary is considering the legislation, will he consider creating a protection for such agencies from that sort of litigation, perhaps through a complaints system for anyone who wants to take up an issue with an agency such as the Serious Fraud Office, rather than them going through really expensive litigation that wears down the resources of those agencies to do the job for which we set them up?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman makes some valid points. Yes, we will look across the board at the defendants in these SLAPP cases. We in this House, because of the privilege that Parliament affords, have the opportunity and the responsibility to ensure that, come what may, those abuses are not swept under the carpet and that the issues that need to be aired, whether through authors, academics or journalists, are not muzzled.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. I was lucky enough to meet Tom Burgis recently, who, alongside other journalists such as Oliver Bullough and others, does an incredible job of highlighting the dirty money, corruption and general economic crime. The other cohort that does that most effectively, and has been involved in every case that I have been involved in in those circumstances, is whistleblowers. Will he, with his Home Office colleagues, seek to put protections and compensation for whistleblowers into a future economic crime Bill? Those people are critical in identifying this stuff and bringing those guilty of it to justice.
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend makes good points both on SLAPPs and more widely on whistleblowers. I will make sure we have that angle in mind and speak to our Home Office colleagues on the legislation it is looking at.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I join others in thanking the Secretary of State for his clear commitment to protect our legal rights across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; it is good to hear positive stories coming out of this place. I have long expressed concern that those with money are able to tie legal knots around those with limited funds. Does he believe these proposals go far enough to protect freedom of speech and ensure money does not equate to legal victory?
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman has been a staunch supporter of our liberties in this House and in the United Kingdom. I hope when he looks at the series of options—there are over 30 pages—he will see that we have covered all the bases, whether it is the threshold for SLAPPs to bring libel claims, the cost protections, or the ability to strike out or have a permission stage to deal at an earlier stage with abusive claims. If we have not, precisely because this is a call for evidence, we will need to look at other areas as well.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
It is abhorrent that corrupt elites have sought to suppress legal criticism in this country. Will my right hon. Friend join me in saying this type of litigation has no place in our society? Could he go further and highlight what other steps the Government are taking to crack down on these dodgy elites exploiting our country?
Dominic Raab
As my hon. Friend will know, we are sanctioning over 100 individuals and entities—I think the sum involved is $45 billion—and the economic crime Bill has come in. I regard the issue we are dealing with today as a forensic target issue. We will move swiftly—I have heard hon. Members calls for that—but it is right that we move on a firm basis, identify and target the problem itself, and that the pendulum does not swing too far the other way. I am confident that we can get the balance right, but we need to test the evidence for the reforms I have put forward and then proceed as swiftly as possible to legislate.
Legal Aid
Dominic Raab Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
Today I am publishing the Government’s response to the independent review of criminal legal aid. Copies are available in the House. Our proposals will put criminal legal aid on a stable and sustainable footing for the future. They will help to deliver this Government’s objectives of delivering swift access to justice, and they will usher in the reform we need at this crossroads moment as we build back a stronger and fairer society after this debilitating pandemic.
Covid-19 has been exceptionally challenging across our justice system. We owe our whole legal profession—the solicitors, the barristers, the judges and the court staff—an enormous debt of gratitude for keeping the wheels of justice turning over the past two years. Thanks to their efforts, we are driving down the court backlog and returning to a more normal way of working—in the interests of victims, witnesses, and of course the wider public. I thank Sir Christopher Bellamy for his comprehensive and invaluable review, along with his panel of experts and everyone else who contributed their views.
As I said, this is a crossroads moment. Our legal aid system needs investment if defendants are to have access to the highest-quality advice and advocacy, and if we are to ensure a sustainable criminal legal profession right into the future. To that end, Sir Christopher made two headline recommendations in his review. First, he proposed an increase of 15% in the various criminal legal aid fee schemes. I have accepted this in almost all respects, except where it risks introducing perverse incentives—for example, if it were to be applied to the rate of pages of prosecution evidence.
Secondly, Sir Christopher recommended an overall increase in investment in criminal legal aid of £135 million. Our package of reforms, announced today, matches that recommendation. As part of that, we will hold £20 million aside each year for longer-term investment, including reform of the litigators graduated fee scheme, the youth court, and the wider sustainability and development of solicitors’ practice, so that the system pays more, and more fairly, for the work actually done. On top of our additional funding to support court recovery, this will take taxpayer funding of criminal legal aid to £1.2 billion—the highest level in a decade.
Let me now unpack some of this for the House. In the short term, our cash injection will give a 15% boost to police station work, magistrates court work, much of the Crown Court work of advocates and litigators, and the work of solicitors in very-high-cost cases, as well as some of the smaller schemes. While getting pay and conditions right is clearly critical, Sir Christopher also made a number of wider systemic recommendations about the future of criminal legal aid that we also intend to take forward. We will reform fee schemes so that they properly and fairly reflect the way our legal professions work in the real world today. We will increase the diversity of our legal professions, promote a more sustainable criminal defence market, and harness the power of new technology.
Supporting a sustainable, diverse and stable criminal defence market depends both on the right fees and on having an adequate supply of legal practitioners, so we propose to review the standard crime contract to reduce barriers to innovative ways of doing business. We will offer grants for training contracts for criminal solicitors, and for solicitor advocates to gain higher rights of audience, expanding the supply of high-quality lawyers in the system. The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives has helped to remove barriers to entry into the profession and, in particular, has helped to promote non-graduate routes into the law. We want to take those reforms further again. So under our proposals, CILEX professionals will be able to become duty solicitors without having to achieve additional qualifications.
Work as a duty solicitor often involves unsocial hours and lengthy travel, making it hard for those with caring responsibilities, who are disproportionately women, to pursue a career in criminal defence. We want to make it easier for everyone to work in this area, so we will explore new ways of delivering remote legal advice in police stations. As Sir Christopher highlighted, the sustainability of the criminal solicitor profession is a particular challenge, so today I am proposing to expand the Public Defender Service, focusing on areas where more capacity is needed. That means that when there is risk of market failure, we will have a more flexible range of options to address it.
Next, Sir Christopher recommended that I propose an advisory board that will help represent all parts of the profession and shape future criminal legal aid policy. We will also gather views on how and where the innovative new technology that is helping us with the backlog can be used to even greater effect.
Our proposals respond to the full range of Sir Christopher’s review. They will increase efficiency across our system and deliver swifter justice for victims and defendants by incentivising early advice and resolution where that is right and proper. They will reinforce a more sustainable market, with publicly funded criminal defence practice seen as a viable, long-term career choice, attracting the brightest and best from all backgrounds and providing a further pipeline for the judges of tomorrow. It is only right that, as we reinforce the supply and sustainability of legal practice, we look closely at those who our legal system and our legal aid system are there to support, namely those who need legal representation and cannot afford to pay for it themselves.
The thresholds for eligibility for legal aid, which have not been raised for more than a decade, need to be reviewed, and it is timely to review them as we consider our wider reforms. Today, we have launched a separate consultation on legal aid means-testing. Our proposals will ensure a fairer justice system that targets legal aid towards the people who need it most—those least able to pay and the most vulnerable in our society. No one’s income or financial situation should stop them enforcing their legal rights or defending themselves when they have been accused of a crime. That is why this Government propose to significantly increase income and capital thresholds for civil and criminal legal aid, so that even more people in England and Wales will qualify for that support.
A funding boost of £20 million means that more than 2 million more people in England and Wales will be eligible for civil legal aid each year, and 3.5 million more will be eligible for legal aid to fund their defence at the magistrates court. We will exclude disputed assets from the civil legal aid means test. That move will particularly benefit victims of domestic abuse where the abuser is controlling assets. We will also remove the financial cap on legal aid eligibility in the Crown court for all defendants, so that everyone can access the right support at the right time.
At the same time, we will remove means-testing entirely for legal proceedings brought by parents whose children are facing the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment. At the worst time in any parent’s life, those parents must and should have access to proper advice and representation, and they should not be expected to shoulder the burden themselves.
The proposals I have set out today represent a major investment in our legal aid system. They will ensure our justice system is fair, fit for the future and supported by a thriving and diverse legal profession, and that it delivers swifter and fairer justice across our society. I commend this statement to the House.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
I thank the Justice Secretary for advance sight of his statement. I could not agree more that we owe our whole legal profession—solicitors, barristers, court staff and judiciary—a debt of gratitude for keeping the wheels of justice turning over the last two years. I pay tribute to their hard work in helping deliver justice for victims. I also put on record my thanks to Sir Christopher Bellamy and the rest of the team for their work.
Today’s announcement and response to the Bellamy review is welcome, particularly the Government’s commitment to increase legal aid rates by the 15% that Sir Christopher Bellamy recommended. The proposed restructure of the fee schemes will benefit members of the public and the profession alike. Similarly, we welcome having an independent advisory board to keep policy matters pertaining to criminal defence under review. Can the Justice Secretary outline the membership of the advisory board? Will he ensure that it is both representative and diverse, to help deliver meaningful change?
We will study many of the other measures that the Justice Secretary has mentioned, including the reforms of the duty solicitor scheme, in more detail. However, if the Government accept that criminal legal aid is in a perilous state, the same is surely true of civil legal aid, where decades of cuts and underfunding have crippled practitioners, and we are seeing the same recruitment and retention crisis. Urgent investment is necessary, and the Ministry of Justice has yet to publish any details on the civil sustainability review. We are suffering from serial underfunding of the entire legal aid sector, paired with a strict means test and a huge backlog in the criminal courts.
We know that justice delayed is justice denied, and victims are paying the price. Between 2012 and 2020, annual legal aid spending fell by 27% in real terms, largely as the result of changes under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. That is £4.2 billion over a seven-year period—an average of £600 million a year. Essentially, we have a position where it is simply not financially viable to be a legal aid provider in many areas of law. The Government have accepted that to be the case in criminal law, but the maths is no different in civil law. There is no doubt in my mind that the legal aid sector has survived purely on good will, and I know that at first hand as a former lawyer. Chronic underfunding has brought the criminal justice system to its knees and created advice deserts across the UK. The steps outlined today are too little, too late.
There can be no surprise then that the profession has voted with its feet. Just a few days ago, 94% of the membership of the Criminal Bar Association voted to take industrial action. That will have a disastrous impact on the backlog in the criminal courts that existed well before the beginning of the pandemic. The Government may find the profession does not accept their response, their appreciation of the urgency or the time it will take to implement. Can the Lord Chancellor set out when the recommendations will take effect? Victims have waited long enough.
While the means test review for both criminal and civil legal aid is welcome, it is of little use to the public if they are eligible for legal aid but cannot access the provider base. Advice deserts are a direct result of the negative impact caused by reductions in legal aid funding. There is no justice if there is no access to justice.
The Justice Secretary claims this is a major investment in the criminal justice system, but make no mistake: it is the absolute bare minimum, and it does not fix a decade of Tory austerity. It fails victims at every turn. The erosion of access to legal aid represents a threat to the rule of law. It does not matter what legal rights an individual has on paper if they do not have the means to uphold them. The Government pay lip service to levelling up the country. When will they level up access to justice?
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he said about the criminal legal aid proposals and the means test review. The announcement today is principally about criminal legal aid, and if I have understood him correctly, he backs us on all the criminal legal aid proposals.
Can I be clear in relation to the CBA ballot? If the hon. Gentleman welcomes our proposals, presumably he would agree, as I hope would others across the House, that it is totally unwarranted for the CBA now to proceed with strike action.
The hon. Gentleman asked about timing. On criminal legal aid, we will consult for 12 weeks. I would expect him to agree that we should follow the normal public law principles to have that consultation, otherwise we are exposed to a greater risk of judicial review.
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman is nodding, and I am pleased that he does support that, even if some of his colleagues do not. We will then introduce a statutory instrument so that the proposals enter into force in October.
The hon. Gentleman talked about cuts to legal aid. I remind him that a previous Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, had plans to cut almost £200 million a year from the legal aid budget in 2009, as was made clear by the noble lord Lord Carter, who said,
“we had to break the hold of the criminal practitioners and force them to restructure so we could get more control over the costs of provision”.
In relation to our criminal legal aid proposals, we are ensuring that we have a sustainable system that supports practitioners but, above all, supports victims, witnesses and the society that we want to build after the pandemic.
I gently remind the hon. Gentleman that there will be 2 million more people with access to civil legal aid, which he mentioned, and 3.5 million more people with access to criminal legal aid in the magistrates courts. I thank him for his pretty fulsome support for the criminal legal aid proposals. I urge him to reflect on and recall the Labour party’s proposition before the 2010 election. I hope that he will be clear that it is totally unwarranted for the CBA to now proceed with strike action.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Justice Committee, Sir Robert Neill.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
This is a very welcome announcement and I congratulate the Secretary of State on taking on board Sir Christopher Bellamy’s recommendations. I join him in thanking Sir Christopher for his report and all those in the legal profession who have kept the system going under real difficulty. In appreciating the real difficulty that the profession has been undergoing in these times, does he agree that it is important, in order to get this right, to have the earliest possible increase and to take on board the words of the chair of the Bar Council, who says:
“We will work with the Ministry of Justice to make sure the funds are delivered swiftly, effectively, and fairly.”?
Can we meet the Bar Council and the profession in that spirit of co-operation and get this implemented at the earliest lawful opportunity?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee is absolutely right and I welcome the constructive responses from the Bar Council and the Law Society. He is right that we must do it as swiftly as possible, but he makes an important point that we must do it lawfully. We are following the normal public law principles in having a 12-week consultation. As I have indicated, we intend to bring the proposals into force through an SI by October. I hope that that strikes the right balance. As he and, in fairness, the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) said, we extend our gratitude to all the lawyers—solicitors and barristers—judges and court staff who have done an incredible job through a very difficult couple of years.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State now accept that the swingeing cuts in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 have hobbled access to justice for a decade? Does he accept what the chair of the Criminal Bar Association, Jo Sidhu, said about the announcement today, which was that it
“will not be sufficient to retain enough criminal barristers to keep the wheels of justice turning and that means victims will be failed”?
If he does not accept that, what effect will it have on the backlog? He currently has a pathetic target to reduce the backlog to 53,000 cases over the next three years. If this is a groundbreaking change, what effect will it have on that backlog?
Dominic Raab
We will take no lectures from the hon. Gentleman given that he was there at the time that Labour was planning those swingeing cuts and, indeed, he backed them. Only now, when we have had to deal with the financial consequences of the economic mess that the last Labour Government left behind and put ourselves on a sustainable footing with the biggest investment in legal aid for a decade, he is complaining.
The Crown court backlog and the magistrates court backlog are coming down. Again, I did not hear from him a clear statement that strike action would be not only unwarranted but the last thing we need as we build back and recover in our Crown courts and magistrates courts.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. I am glad that he has followed the excellent recommendations of Sir Christopher Bellamy and I am glad to see the work that I started coming to fruition. He is right to draw a contrast between the approach and language in the Bellamy report and some of the hostile environment, frankly, that the criminal Bar had to put up with under the last Labour Government, which I remember very well. I also commend the raising of the threshold on civil legal aid, which will be one of the single biggest extensions of eligibility that we have seen in many a year. May I press him on the consultation period? I agree that he is absolutely right to follow public law principles, but I suggest that a slightly shorter period of eight weeks followed by an SI could deliver the necessary changes in an even shorter time.
Dominic Raab
I pay tribute to the huge amount of work that my right hon. and learned Friend did, which I was fortunate to inherit, before we came forward with our proposals. I agree with much of what he has said and done in this area. He is right to talk about the environment and the climate within which we talk about lawyers, because it was of course under the last Labour Government that they named and shamed lawyers for earning too much in fees. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) is chuntering from a sedentary position, but he is guilty of doing exactly that under the last Labour Government. We have not done that; we have engaged in a sober and sensible way because we understand the value of the legal profession, both barristers and solicitors.
I understand my right hon. and learned Friend’s call for a slightly shorter consultation period but, given the legal risk that I have been advised on, shortening it from 12 weeks to eight weeks does not seem the right thing to do. The consultation period is there not just as a legal matter but to ensure that we can tease out all the detail of the reforms, such as the implications of the fees and of the wider systemic reforms that we are introducing. It is right to take that time and I cannot see how a difference of four weeks can justify strike action in this case.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
The Government cannot swerve responsibility for having made the largest cuts that have ever been made to the legal aid budget, which have brought civil and criminal providers to their knees. The whole service is held together by good will. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on legal aid, I welcome every single penny that comes back into the service, but the fact remains that there is a crisis of capacity. Our inquiry report a few months ago showed just how many providers are closing and have been closing every month over recent years. I ask the Secretary of State exactly what steps he will now take to deal with the crisis in the provision of civil legal aid—he did not answer that in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan)—not least to accommodate the additional demand for service that will now flow into it as an admittedly welcome consequence of adjustments to the means test.
Dominic Raab
I think the hon. Lady was also around at the time when the Labour Government were planning their cuts. [Interruption.] She does not like it, but I remind her that it was Tony Blair who said that the Labour Government would
“derail the gravy train of legal aid”,
so I am afraid that she cannot come to the House with those crocodile tears. On her substantive point, however, the consultation on expanding the Public Defender Service and the 15% raise in legal fees will deal with the scarcity of legal aid practitioners in certain areas. As I have already said in relation to the means test review, millions of extra people will become eligible for civil legal aid, which she should welcome.
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
I, too, welcome what my right hon. Friend has announced. He is right to focus on attracting bright young lawyers into criminal defence work. Does he also recognise that it is important to retain more experienced criminal defence lawyers who can take on the complex cases that, as he will appreciate, form a larger and larger proportion of the criminal courts caseload?
Specifically in relation to pages of prosecution evidence, I understand that my right hon. Friend is following one of Sir Christopher’s recommendations in that respect, but he will understand that that has been a proxy for the complexity and difficulty of criminal cases for some time. If we are not to increase fees in that regard, how does he intend to reflect those complex and difficult cases?
Dominic Raab
I agree with many of my right hon. and learned Friend’s points. He makes the right point that we must ensure that we still have the expertise we need at the high end of the profession. In relation to the rate of pages of prosecution evidence, he will know that we want to ensure that we do not encourage perverse incentives. I am not suggesting that that is done deliberately, but systemically it is something that we need to look at, and it is right to do so. Instead, as set out in the Government’s response, we will invite views on the longer term reform of the litigators’ graduated fee scheme to include the optimal basic structure of litigator remuneration, the role of pages of prosecution evidence in determining fees and what data should be collected to enable a thorough examination of litigator preparatory work. I hope that will address the points made.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
For years, the south-west has been called a legal aid desert. There is currently a huge backlog in the courts; legal aid is one part of the problem and workforce another. Justice delayed is justice denied. Can the Secretary of State tell me what immediate difference this statement will make to the thousands of victims in the south-west who are waiting for justice or who cannot even get justice now?
Dominic Raab
The proposals on the Public Defender Service and the means test review, and the increase in the fees, will all look across the board at areas where there is a scarcity of supply of practitioners willing to take on that work, in order to fill the gaps. I look forward to that and I hope that the hon. Lady will contribute to the consultation.
Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)
The Government are to be congratulated on accepting Sir Christopher’s headline recommendations in full. I saw how much care and consideration went into that piece of work, but I would like to ask my right hon. Friend about chapter 13 of the report, which deals with fee income at the criminal Bar. Sir Christopher found that at every level of seniority female barristers earned less than their male counterparts, on average by 34%. He also found that non-white criminal practitioners earned less than white criminal practitioners by an average of 10%. What reassurances can he provide that this significant injection of public money will not be used to sustain potentially unlawful pay disparities?
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this very important point. In 2020, the gender balance at the point of entry among specialist criminal barristers was roughly 50:50, but at the senior level there is a much higher imbalance, with a ratio of 70:30 men to women. What are we doing about that? Our fees changes, for example in relation to duty solicitors, will particularly support younger lawyers. They will disproportionately help women with caring responsibilities.
We are also looking at further diversification through the roles and the rights that CILEX members can acquire. CILEX has allowed non-graduate routes into the profession, and I think 76% of its members are women. More generally, breaking down glass ceilings and barriers to entry into the profession is important. Beyond fees, the consultation will allow us to consult and to understand what more we can do systemically to attract a broader diversity of practitioners into the profession and then, critically, allow them to flourish.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Secretary of State is right to say that we need to deliver swifter justice for victims, but if you will allow me a slight detour, Madam Deputy Speaker, do we not also need to deliver swifter justice to victims of war crimes in Ukraine? What is the Government’s attitude now towards the International Criminal Court? I think he would agree that attacking a nuclear power station or civilians is a war crime, but will he ensure that it is a war crime to initiate a war of aggression?
Dominic Raab
I share the hon. Gentleman’s interest in this subject and it is a timely, if circuitous, question, because I was in The Hague yesterday, where I met the ICC chief prosecutor and the president of the court; as he Gentleman knows, the ICC is independent and it is for it to determine those issues. I think I was the first Justice Minister to go there, and I was clear that we will provide a package of support, including financial and technical assistance, to enable the office of the prosecutor to do its job. We will be co-ordinating with our allies and our key partners so that is a concerted effort. The message needs to go out to Putin and to every commander on the ground in Ukraine that if they follow illegal orders they will end up in the dock of a court in The Hague and potentially in prison.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I will resist the temptation to broaden questions about the statement still further.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement. Will he confirm that the intention is to increase the thresholds each year in line with inflation, so that we do not get to the same position we are in now? If so, what factor of inflation will he include on an annual basis? Finally, what impact does he expect this measure to have on the youth courts?
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said. We do not plan to index the thresholds, but he makes a reasonable point. We will obviously need to keep them under regular review, but this is a big step change in the threshold and we will keep a close eye on the impact that inflation has on them. More broadly, he asks about the youth courts, which are a crucial part of the system. We are proposing a general uplift of 15% to magistrates courts fees, and the youth courts will be included in that uplift.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Will the review of legal aid specifically look at how disabled people can enforce their rights under the Equality Act 2010?
Dominic Raab
The review does not specifically deal with that, but if the hon. Lady and other groups would like to make submissions to the review, I will ensure they are properly taken into account.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement about the increased funding of £135 million a year. Can he confirm that that extra funding will mean that more of my constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme will be covered by legal aid, so that they will be able to exercise their legal rights and defend themselves if they are accused?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We should never forget that as important as the legal profession is—we have all paid tribute to its members—the legal and justice system is there for my hon. Friend’s constituents and those of hon. Members across the House; for victims, witnesses and the public at large.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
Criminal legal aid issues have become particularly acute in Barnsley in the last few days because the roof of Sheffield magistrates court has fallen in, meaning that defendants are queueing up in Barnsley. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that this a damning indictment of the legal system under his Government?
Dominic Raab
Of course we will look at all courts with maintenance issues, but in reality record investment in magistrates courts has been secured in this spending review. We have increased the sentencing powers of the magistrates courts from six to 12 months, and we are further supporting the practitioners who serve those courts with the measures we have announced today.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
Sir Christopher Bellamy’s review of criminal legal aid was based on two overriding principles: that remuneration of criminal lawyers should be such as to attract the right legal talent that the system requires, and that there should be equality of arms so that the resources available to defence are broadly similar to those available to prosecution. Does my right hon. Friend agree that those are the right principles for civil legal aid as well as criminal legal aid?
Dominic Raab
The criminal legal aid system is different from the civil legal aid system, but the overarching principles and the need to ensure access to justice are common to both. That is why under the means test review we have ensured not only that 3.5 million more people will have access to criminal legal aid in the magistrates courts, but that 2 million more will have access to civil legal aid, which I hope addresses my hon. Friend’s concern.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. Although it relates to England and Wales, I would like to see this being part of the work that the Northern Ireland Assembly is doing on policing and justice. While decent pay for lawyers, and thereby increased ability of the working poor to gain access to civil legal aid, is welcome, and while there seems to be the necessary movement towards that in what we have heard today, can the Secretary of State assure us that those who need help will now get it? Historically, that has not been the case.
Dominic Raab
The proposals that we set out today apply to England and Wales—we respect the devolved competences—and we believe they will effectively address systemic issues across the justice system. I was in Belfast recently, and I have had engagement with all parties in relation to justice issues. We have a lot to learn from all jurisdictions across the UK and we will continue that two-way dialogue.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
I declare an interest as a former practitioner both as a criminal solicitor and, indeed, at the criminal Bar. I compliment and commend the former Justice Secretary for appointing Sir Christopher, who did an incredibly difficult job and did it incredibly well. However, barristers are about to do something that they do not want to do, which is to take action—industrial action—because this Government have brought the criminal justice system to its knees over a decade. The problem is that they do not have confidence in the Justice Secretary, and for good reason. The Government have already significantly underestimated their expenditure on the accelerated items of the criminal legal aid review by 80%, so how can they believe that the money will in any event come to them? The real problem is that the money is needed now—not in three months, but immediately—and that is how he will prevent industrial action by the criminal Bar.
Dominic Raab
The hon. Gentleman seems to be the shop steward for what I think is totally unwarranted industrial action, which was balloted for before we had announced our proposals. I hope the Criminal Bar Association will take the more constructive tone we have heard from the other practitioner groups, because if he commended my right hon. and learned Friend my predecessor for appointing Sir Christopher, he surely must welcome the Government’s acceptance of the proposals he has made virtually in full.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement.
Oral Answers to Questions
Dominic Raab Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
Under this Prime Minister and this Government, before the next election, we will replace the Human Rights Act 1998 with a Bill of Rights to end the abuse of the framework and the system by dangerous criminals and to restore some common sense.
Deidre Brock
The Justice Secretary claims that his reforms will protect free speech—a right that already receives special protection in the Human Rights Act—yet simultaneously the Government want to criminalise exercise of the right to protest, through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, and there are already plans to take away whistleblower protections in the Official Secrets Act. Is it all free speech the Justice Secretary aims to protect, or only the kind his Government want to hear?
Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Lady, because she raises a good substantive point. We want to strengthen and reinforce the right of free speech, in particular given some of the judge-led privacy law we have, but also some of the encroachments on free speech we have seen in political debate. I think constituents of Members in all parts of the House would recognise the difference between free speech, lawful protest and, frankly, the downright sabotage that we have seen by groups such as Extinction Rebellion, where we are right to legislate to protect the freedoms of others.
Mr Carmichael
This is not new territory for the Secretary of State. He has been around this course. He failed last time of course, because he could only do what he wanted by leaving the European convention on human rights. That is still the situation now, so will it be Government policy that we should follow the human rights example of Belarus in leaving the protections of the convention?
Dominic Raab
We have been around this house a few times. It is precisely because our reforms through a Bill of Rights can make a substantial difference by injecting some common sense without leaving the European convention that we will proceed. I will give one example. I visited HMP Frankland in Durham. It is a high-security category A prison. One of the challenges in dealing with terrorist offenders, particularly those who could infect the minds of others, is the issue of separation centres. We are increasingly seeing litigation claims claiming article 8 as a right to socialise getting in our way. That is a good example for the common-sense approach and the balance we want to have. I am very surprised that the right hon. Gentleman is opposed to it.
Stuart C. McDonald
The position is that the Government commissioned an independent review, did not like the conclusions and so have simply just ditched them. Why should anyone have any faith that the Government will listen to their consultation responses if they are so hellbent on pursuing what Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC has labelled an
“indefensible…inward-looking and cowardly”
retreat from human rights?
Dominic Raab
I am very grateful for the independent Human Rights Act review. We looked very carefully at all the recommendations, some of which we take on board and for others we are going to innovate in different areas. I will give one example. I suspect the hon. Gentleman’s constituents would want us to reform the system to stop foreign national offenders, whether they are living in Scotland or any other part of the UK, from frustrating deportation orders on the most flimsy, elastic grounds created by article 8. That is something we will do, and I think he should support it.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I am grateful that my right hon. Friend made reference to the independent review of the Human Rights Act. I am sure he would want to join me in thanking the right hon. Sir Peter Gross, the chair of that review, and his colleagues for their exceptionally hard and diligent work in this regard. Sir Peter gave evidence to the Justice Committee last week. He pointed out that while the Government have published their own consultation document—“Human Rights Act Reform: A Modern Bill of Rights”—that document is not in fact a response to the independent Human Rights Act review report. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that it would only be fair and courteous to Sir Peter and his colleagues to ensure that once the consultation on the Government’s document is concluded, their response to that consultation includes a full response to Sir Peter’s panel’s review, including detailed replies to all the points the Government do or do not accept, exactly as was done with the Faulks review?
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee. First, I have already thanked the chair and all the panel, but I am happy to join my hon. Friend in doing so again. The IHRAR panel produced a well-considered and useful report, and I considered it very carefully. The consultation that we are pursuing is ongoing, and includes—this is an important point—areas beyond the terms of reference of the IHRAR report, such as adding a recognition of the right to trial by jury and strengthening freedom of expression, which Members have already raised. There are also areas where the Government wish to explore only a subset of the options considered by that review, and section 3 is a good illustration of that.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
Can the Deputy Prime Minister outline how his reforms to the Human Rights Act and a new British Bill of Rights can help us to take back control of our borders and stop the small boats crisis in the channel?
Dominic Raab
Clearly the issue of small boats goes well beyond issues in the European convention on human rights, but what I would say to my hon. Friend more generally is that the reforms we are pursuing allow us to take more firm action under the Nationality and Borders Bill and under wider powers to deal with foreign national offenders. He should be aware that some 70% of claims by foreign national offenders scuppering deportation orders are under article 8. That is clearly an area where we can reform.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I am tired of hearing the rights of asylum seekers so desperate to get here that they will go on these dangerous boats conflated with those of dangerous foreign national offenders. The Secretary of State needs to stop drawing that parallel.
I echo the Chair of the Select Committee in calling for a full response to Sir Peter Gross QC. Indeed, I wonder why the Government bothered to appoint him if they were not going to listen to him. Does the Secretary of State at least agree with his first recommendation, which is that there should be a full and robust programme of education about what the Human Rights Act actually is? Or would that be a bit of a hindrance to this Government’s programme of misinformation?
Dominic Raab
It is precisely through the process of consultation on our proposal for a Bill of Rights that we can have a proper, substantive debate, listen to all sides of the argument and inject some common sense back into the system, and disseminate that more widely. I think that constituents of hon. Members in all parts of the House would appreciate that.
Anne McLaughlin
The other thing that the Secretary of State keeps on doing is saying that we have to review this because there are so many dangerous foreign criminals, but will he listen to the UK security services, who know more about dangerous foreign criminals than he does? They have warned that overhauling the Human Rights Act could affect their ability to provide evidence in secret. I know he knows why that is dangerous, particularly in terrorism cases, so will he listen to them and to his predecessor in this role, who has also warned that this could make the UK, and by extension all of us, less secure?
Dominic Raab
May I gently say to the hon. Member that there is an issue around extraterritorial jurisdiction, where we will want to consult very carefully? Whether it is the deportation of foreign national offenders—and no, I am sorry, but we will keep talking about that; it is something that our constituents care about, and this is a reform that needs to happen—or whether it is parole reform, which I believe we also need to undertake, or separation centres in our most high-security prisons, these are all areas where the public, constituents of hon. Members in all parts of the House, will expect us to take a common-sense approach. That is exactly what our Bill of Rights will achieve.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
This Government are committed to bringing more perpetrators of domestic abuse to justice. It is a key plank of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, which creates new offences such as non-fatal strangulation, and extends the coercive or controlling behaviour offence to include former partners.
Laura Farris
The excellent work the Government have done on domestic abuse risks being seriously undermined by recent reports of Met police conduct published by the Independent Office for Police Conduct. One officer who had attended a domestic abuse incident said of his victim that she was mad and deserved a slap. As Members of this House will know, that was the tip of the iceberg of the remarks uncovered. Police conduct is of course the subject matter of the Angiolini inquiry, but before that concludes, what work is my right hon. Friend doing with the Home Secretary to ensure that domestic abuse victims retain confidence in the criminal justice system?
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend, who is absolutely right. The remarks she cited are utterly abhorrent I would imagine to everyone on all sides of the House. The public rightly expect the behaviour of the police to be beyond reproach, which is why we have tasked the Angiolini inquiry, as she said. In addition to that work, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Crime and Policing set out last week, inspections are ongoing in forces across England and Wales to judge their vetting and counter-corruption capabilities. More broadly, we are of course taking forward the victims Bill consultation and we have increased funding for support services. They have actually increased to £185 million by 2024-25, which will help fund an increase—by about a half, up to 1,000—in the number of independent domestic abuse advisers. So we will keep showing zero tolerance of domestic abuse while those wider inquiries are ongoing.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
Domestic abuse victims face the trauma of first, gaining the courage to report it, fearing for themselves and their children’s safety, wondering whether they did the right thing and whether their truth will be believed, then they face this broken justice system: being cross-examined, questioned and treated like a criminal. With prosecutions collapsing and criminals being let off the hook, the Government cannot keep letting victims and survivors of domestic abuse down, so will the Secretary of State commit to putting in place a proper package of training, specialist support and trauma counselling for all victims of domestic abuse and their children?
Dominic Raab
I totally agree with the hon. Lady’s sentiment and frustration. We need to do more. We have got the local criminal justice scorecards, which will deal with not just wider crime, but rape. Those are coming up in the first quarter of this year. The victims strategy and the victims consultation will put victims at the centre of the justice system. That is important: I think it is a moral duty, but it will also make us more effective in delivering prosecutions. We also have a wider domestic abuse strategy, which will be outlined later in the year. As the hon. Lady knows, we have introduced in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill an extension of the time limit for reporting domestic abuse and common assault and battery to give victims of domestic abuse longer to come forward with their claims and to prevent the perpetrators from finding themselves timed out.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
Over the last month, I have met offenders participating in the community payback scheme in Birmingham, prisoners at HMP Hatfield who are being supported back into work in partnership with the charity Tempus Novo, and frontline staff at HMP Frankland working to tackle extremism and terrorism, including through their separation centre.
Luke Pollard
On behalf of the prison officers I represent in Plymouth, I ask the Secretary of State: now that he has dropped his plans to close Dartmoor prison, what plans does he have to invest in facilities at the dilapidated prison to ensure that it can be a safe and humane environment again?
Dominic Raab
I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman about that particular prison in his constituency. He will know that we are investing almost £4 billion over the next three years to deliver 20,000 additional modern prison places by the mid-2020s. I have been to look at some of the advantages that they can have, including at Glen Parva prison, which has started the operational build. It is not just about the numbers; it is also about such things as the in-cell technology and workshops that can be a pathway to get offenders to go clean and get into work, in order to cut reoffending and protect the public.
Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
Dominic Raab
I thank my hon. Friend for his support. He is right that across a whole suite of issues, including illegal migration, the proposals for a Bill of Rights with common-sense, sensible reforms will help us to address the problems. Once the consultation results come back, we will want to listen very carefully and proceed to legislation in the next Session.
Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)
Dominic Raab
May I thank the hon. Lady and express my solidarity in the awful and harrowing case that she refers to? If she writes to me, I will be happy to look at her specific proposal.
The overall level of funding for victims this year is three times the level in 2010. Through the victims Bill consultation, we are ensuring that victims are at the very heart of the criminal justice system. Our local as well as national justice scorecards will help to monitor where there is best practice within the justice system and where we are falling short, right across the country.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
The Justice Secretary will have heard the exchange with the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers). He should be aware that there is a cohort of IRA murderers who have evaded justice, successfully fought extradition and now abide in other countries. Would he consider any Government proposals to deal with the legacy of our past to be morally repugnant if those individuals were allowed to come home and retire with a level of dignity that they never offered to their victims?
Dominic Raab
I do understand the level of pain, suffering and anxiety that the hon. Gentleman has expressed. I can understand it from communities on all sides of the troubles and the conflict, which is why the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has come forward with a set of proposals that offer a balanced approach and that we hope will allow those communities on both sides to move forward.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
In Darlington, organisations such as Family Help provide specialist domestic abuse support for women and children fleeing abuse. Our landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021 sets out a framework for the delivery of support locally. Will my hon. Friend outline the progress being made towards establishing domestic abuse local partnership boards and the role that local organisations will play?
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s defence of free speech earlier today, but the truth is that free speech is under attack in our courts. Tom Burgis is appearing in court today against oligarchs who are seeking to silence him. When will the Secretary of State bring forward a defence against strategic lawsuits against public participation—SLAPPs? If we want to live in truth, we need SLAPP-back laws now.
Dominic Raab
The right hon. Gentleman is not the only one who has raised this with me; my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) has also been campaigning on it. I am very happy to look at the specific issue. The House has periodically looked at questions of libel law and we will keep those issues under constant review. As I have said in relation to a Bill of Rights, this is an opportunity to reinvent the priority attached to freedom of speech.
Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the focus on getting prisoners into stable employment when they leave prison has been critical in achieving the current reoffending rates, which are lower than they were under Labour? Can he also outline to the House what further measures he can take in this area?
Dominic Raab
I totally agree with my hon. Friend. I was at HMP Hatfield just last week, looking at the excellent work that the governor is doing with a local charity, Tempus Novo. One of the issues is the weighting attached to this key performance indicator, which is far too low. It is currently below 1%, which is extraordinary to me, and it will be ramped up as part of the review in the prisons White Paper. It will be much more central to the work that all prisons do and we are making it a presumption that offenders can be given a pathway into employment when it is suitable and secure to do so.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Although the justice system clearly has a role to play in prosecuting offences against women and girls, it is equally important that young men and boys grow up in an environment where they understand that misogyny, in all forms, is unacceptable. With that in mind, will the Minister join me in commending the fans of Raith Rovers football club, who last week forced the club to reverse its decision to give a playing contract to someone who, in two separate court hearings, had been found guilty of rape and who refused to show any remorse for his crimes? Does the Minister agree that, given the important role models that professional footballers are for young men and boys, there must be serious doubts as to whether that is a job that can ever be performed by an unrepentant and unreconstructed rapist?
Dominic Raab
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that is absolutely abhorrent and of course I think that the club in question took the right decision. As the father of two young boys, I take very seriously, as we in Government should take seriously, and we in this House should take seriously, how we raise our children, and the level of education and awareness of these issues. We are taking a whole suite of measures, from the local justice scorecards to the victims’ Bill, the violence against women and girls strategy and the rape action review. But it is incumbent on businesses, including football clubs, which are so high profile, to make the right calls, as the football club has done in this case.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
Will the Minister commit to supporting victims of sexual abuse in the victims’ Bill in ways such as by rolling out section 28?
Dominic Raab
I absolutely endorse what my hon. Friend said. She will have seen that section 28, which deals with pre-recorded evidence from victims of rape, is set out in there. We will be articulating more clearly a plan to move from the limited trials we have at the moment to a national roll-out, which will be done in the first half of this year.
Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)
Two excellent support providers in Loughborough, the Exaireo Trust and the Carpenter’s Arms, look after people who have been repeat offenders and/or suffered from addiction for many years. As one resident put it, they were
“lost, broken and with no hope”.
These two organisations completely transform the lives of those residents in their service. What is my right hon. Friend doing to work with local providers and support these organisations financially to help people into work?
Dominic Raab
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I recently met the president of a family division. About 60% of the cases that go there, certainly on the civil side, are safeguarding or domestic abuse cases. They ought to go there, but for the rest we need to be looking at the incentives and disincentives, the use of mediation and the whole structure of the system to prevent these harrowing cases—they are particularly harrowing for children. In any event, many cases do not need to go through the courts and I am working with the judiciary to try to achieve that reform.
Justice Update
Dominic Raab Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)
I am today announcing the publication of Sir Christopher Bellamy’s “Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid” report.
Since his appointment as chair of the review at the end of last year, Sir Christopher has undertaken a “whole-system” review of criminal legal aid fee schemes and the market of providers in England and Wales, considering its role as an enabler of many functions of the criminal justice system. Throughout his review, Sir Christopher has been supported by a dedicated expert advisory panel including legal practitioners, academics and members of the judiciary. Evidence to the review has been wide-ranging, reflecting the experiences of the legal profession, victims, witnesses, and defendants. I would like to thank Sir Christopher for his dedication in undertaking this important review and members of the expert advisory panel and other contributors for their comprehensive work.
I am extremely grateful to members of the Bar, the solicitor profession and chartered legal executives for their continued professionalism, dedication, and adaptability in delivering vital public services, particularly against the challenges of the pandemic, including their commitment to reducing court backlogs.
Sir Christopher has set out his vision for the role of legal aid in an efficient and effective criminal justice system. I recognise the importance of remuneration in delivering long-term sustainability of the market and I will consider his recommendations on this matter very carefully.
Beyond the important issue of funding, I welcome many of the principles underpinning his vision for the role of legal aid in an efficient and effective criminal justice system. I agree that data-sharing and transparency can enable us to make a better assessment of the efficiency, incentives, costs and effectiveness of criminal legal aid. My Department is continuing to explore ways to improve the availability and accessibility of data across the criminal justice system. Alongside the review, the Government have supported greater transparency by launching criminal justice system scorecards, which bring together data on a range of performance measures.
I am committed to ensuring defendants and other users of criminal legal aid services have access to high-quality advice from a diverse range of practitioners. I will carefully review Sir Christopher’s findings and consider where there are opportunities for the Government and the legal professions to work together to improve diversity to achieve a more equal gender and ethnicity balance within the profession and to support young barristers after pupillage.
I also recognise the importance of ensuring suitably experienced advice is available as early in a case as possible, so that cases are resolved at the earliest opportunity, increasing efficiency and improving outcomes in the criminal justice system. Sir Christopher makes specific recommendations on pre-charge engagement, which I will consider carefully.
It is important that the provision of criminal legal aid services meets the needs of its users, which may differ between regions. We will carefully examine the findings in the review around the potential for improving local outcomes, and in particular the potential future role of local criminal justice boards.
Beyond Sir Christopher’s review, the Government continue to support the defence profession and the wider criminal justice system. The Government have committed to invest £2.2 billion between 2022-23 and 2024-25 to meet increased demand on the criminal justice system from the additional 20,000 police officers and to fund the system’s recovery from covid-19. As part of the latest spending review, the Government have also committed over £200 million across the spending review period to complete the £1.3 billion court reform programme by the end of 2023. The court reform programme is an important step towards digitising court and tribunal services and enhancing the experience of their users.
In his review, Sir Christopher notes that listing decisions are for the judiciary. He also notes that how cases are listed is important to efficiency and to the experience of victims, witnesses and practitioners. We will consider Sir Christopher’s analysis to see where we can support further improvements.
My Department will continue to work with legal professionals and the judiciary on the future of remote hearings. As with listing, while the format of hearings is a judicial function, there are issues to consider around consistency.
We will consider Sir Christopher’s findings fully, and consult before taking decisions regarding his specific recommendations. It is right that such a detailed report receives the thorough consideration that it deserves, while giving the legal profession an indicative timeline. Therefore, I intend to publish a full response no later than the end of March 2022 alongside a consultation on all policy proposals.
Sir Christopher’s report can be found on gov.uk and I have placed copies in the Libraries of both Houses.
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