Undercover Policing

Jack Straw Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

The hon. Gentleman raises a valid point. Members of Parliament can stand in this House and ask a question, but many other victims cannot and that is why the inquiry is in place. I will do everything I can to ensure that as much information as possible is passed to current and past Members of Parliament, but I cannot give a guarantee—no Minister of any persuasion can. Such questions need to be asked of previous Labour Home Secretaries, and I will do everything I can to ensure that the answers come forward.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Ind)]

Following the observations by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) does the Minister accept that if the allegations are correct, we have an extraordinary situation where I as Home Secretary, and from 1997 to 2000 the police authority for the Metropolitan police, not only knew nothing about what appears to have been going on within the Metropolitan police, but may also have been subject to unlawful surveillance as Home Secretary? That ought to be looked at, as should what appears to be the trigger and is much more serious: my decision—taken against a lot of reluctance from the Metropolitan police—to establish a full judicial inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. It is completely unacceptable that it appears that elements of the Metropolitan police were spying on the bereaved family of Stephen Lawrence.

[Mike Penning]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the tone of his comments. He knows from his experience how difficult it is, and to realise that he was in the dark about authorisations that have taken place—that is exactly what the inquiry has to consider. Lord Justice Pitchford must have full access, and even though the right hon. Gentleman will sadly be leaving the House, I am sure he will give him all the help he can in future to find out why Home Secretaries, Ministers and police managers were not informed about what was going on inside the Met. That is what the inquiry must do.

Prison Communications

Jack Straw Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right. I see no evidence that this practice was part of an attempt to gain and pass on pieces of information. It is a very large and complicated system, with a very large number of people. My first impression is that this practice was the result of a series of errors, but that does not make it acceptable. I will of course ask Nick Hardwick to confirm that it was the result of a series of errors, and to make sure that it does not happen again.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State was generous enough to offer an apology to the House for what happened between 2006 and 2012. That was very generous, not least because he was not in his current office at any time in that period. I was in his office for three of those six years, and I feel that it is appropriate for me to offer an apology for what happened on my watch.

On that matter, I have checked—I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving me prior information—and five or six calls were made to my office while I was Justice Secretary. I think that I had an alibi at all material times: I was not on the end of the call because I was in the House or in the Ministry of Justice. It looks as though all the calls were made to my staff, not to me, and that the prisoner did not identify themselves as a serving prisoner. That underlines the fact that the practice is almost certainly due to inadvertence.

My final point is that the right hon. Gentleman and the House will recall that in 2008, following the disclosure in The Sunday Times that a conversation between my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) and a prisoner had been recorded in a prison, I set up an inquiry under Sir Christopher Rose, a former very senior Court of Appeal judge. He found that inadvertence not conspiracy had led to that happening. May I suggest that Sir Christopher Rose’s report is drawn to Nick Hardwick’s attention for any lessons that could be followed through on?

[Chris Grayling]

The right hon. Gentleman is enormously gracious to offer a personal apology, and I thank him for that.

The right hon. Gentleman is right. In relation to his own situation, he highlighted the fact that the practice concerned a discussion between a prisoner and a member of his staff. I venture to suspect that we will find over the course of the investigation that a large proportion of the calls were with members of staff rather than with Members of Parliament. None the less, it is important that such calls can be made without the sense that someone is listening in.

With regard to the right hon. Gentleman’s comments on the earlier report, I have had a quick read of it since I spoke to him on the phone. I will, indeed, pass it on to Nick Hardwick. It is important that we ensure that any lessons to be learned are learned.

EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

Jack Straw Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is notable interest in this subject, which I am keen to accommodate, but I am also keen to move on to the next business shortly after 1 o’clock. There is therefore a premium on brevity, which I know will now be observed by the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw).

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

It will now, Mr Speaker.

First, will the Secretary of State accept that the wording of article 1 of protocol 30, whereby Britain opted out of the charter, could not be clearer? Nobody was duped; the wording makes it absolutely clear that the charter does not extend the ability of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg or any other court, so far as British rights and duties are concerned. Secondly, as the right hon. Gentleman is now so aerated about this matter, will he explain what action he took once the decision of the European Court of Justice in 2011 first became known to him more than two years ago?

[Chris Grayling]

On the 2011 case, I was not Secretary of State at the time, so I did not take any action at all. That case—this remains the view of my Department—did not restate the legal position. The right hon. Gentleman is right about the protocol, which says that the charter applies to EU law and not to national law. Unfortunately, as we know, the Lisbon treaty is so vaguely worded in many respects that actually it allows the EU institutions to intrude in areas, such as social security, for example, that were expressly not envisioned in the treaty itself.

Electronic Tagging

Jack Straw Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. This was obviously a matter of great concern to us, as we looked at these issues back in May for the first time. I can confirm that the Department has looked closely at the individual cases. The audit carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers so far has gone through cases line by line. We have found no evidence of any issues that would give rise to public safety concerns; this is a financial issue.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

First, I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and also for his courtesy in letting me know that he was going to make it, although I quite understand that, for reasons of commercial sensitivity, he could not inform me of its content. I share the intense anger and shock of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) and, above all, the Secretary of State himself about this issue, not least because it was during my watch in 1999 that the original contract was let, before I was again responsible for the contracts between 2007 and 2010. It is a matter of deep regret to me that these failings happened at a time when I was the Secretary of State responsible for them. I want to know exactly why the failure happened, and I am glad to hear that steps are being taken to ensure that robust systems are put in place.

When the Secretary of State said in his statement that there was “a routine inspection in 2008”, but that “nothing substantive was done at that time to address the issues,” can he say whether the “nothing substantive” included not telling Ministers? I do not have complete recall of the contents of my 365 boxes in 2008, but I do not recall the matter ever being drawn to my attention. It would helpful to know whether it was. Lastly, I commend the review that the Minister for the Cabinet Office is establishing, because the control of long-term contracts with outside contractors is an issue that has bedevilled successive Governments for many decades.

[Chris Grayling]

I have seen no evidence to suggest that the issue reached the right hon. Gentleman’s desk. I can reassure him that there is no suggestion that he was briefed about it. There is no evidence that we have so far seen that the Department was aware of the nature of what was happening up until 2008. There have subsequently been a number of interchanges in relation to this matter. In no case do we believe that the Department had full sight of the scale of what was happening, but it is clear to me that things were known at a junior level about what was going on and it should have been addressed. One of the things we are investigating is why it was not, and that might include disciplinary action, as I set out earlier.

[Chris Grayling]

I can confirm that the contracts were originally negotiated in November 2004 and implemented in 2005. The original contracts date back, as the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said, to 2009.

[Mr Straw]

To 1999.

[Chris Grayling]

To 1999—I beg the right hon. Gentleman’s pardon.

As for how the issue has been addressed more recently, let me be clear that none of the team leading the effort in the Ministry of Justice today was in position when the matter first came to the Department’s attention in 2008. The team who are leading the renegotiation have done a first-rate job of putting together a much tighter contract management framework, which highlighted this issue. It is to their credit that they found it, and I am very grateful to them that they did.

Leveson Inquiry

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I will give way to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and then to my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), but then I will have to make progress.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) asked whether the Secretary of State would back legislation if the cross-party discussions do not produce an effective result, not whether she would take action. Will she please answer the question? Will she back legislation or not?

[Maria Miller]

I can be crystal clear, as indeed was the Prime Minister last week: yes, we will take action along the lines set out in the Leveson report if action is not taken to put together a self-regulatory approach, and that, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, would include legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

When Sir David Calcutt produced his second report in 1992, he was damning in his criticism of the lack of serious progress made by the Press Complaints Commission in the previous two years. We in Parliament as well as the press are now reaping the whirlwind of that collective failure. In the intervening years, the Conservatives and then Labour failed to grasp the nettle of press standards. As Lord Justice Leveson makes clear, standards have fallen, not risen, in many, although by no means all, sections of the press. What the McCanns, the Dowler parents, J. K. Rowling and thousands of others have been subjected to should never happen in a society that prides itself on its freedoms, for all these victims have been deprived of the most basic rights of family life and justice to which we are all entitled.

I say to the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) and the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) that it is not the case that the problems we are dealing with are simply breaches of the criminal law which have not been investigated. Sir Brian Leveson states in his report:

“There have been too many times when, chasing the story, parts of the press have acted as if its own code, which it wrote, simply did not exist.”

The Prime Minister established the Leveson inquiry at the behest of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition because he knew there had to be major changes to end the intrusion and abuse the PCC and the many previous attempts at self-regulation had failed to end. If the Prime Minister deserves credit for setting up Leveson—and indeed he does—he has, I am afraid, undermined that by his extraordinary and impetuous decision to rubbish, within 24 hours of receipt of the report, Leveson’s key recommendation that there must be some statutory underpinning of a much-enhanced system of independent self-regulation.

I am sure that the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon, has looked in detail at the fourth volume of the Leveson report, so he will have seen that what is proposed there by way of statutory underpinning includes providing incentives, such as in respect of costs, for the members of the press board—membership of which would be entirely voluntary.

Instead of a serious study of the Leveson report, the British press have produced some of the most extravagant comment I have witnessed from them. That includes Mr Trevor Kavanagh of The Sun, who claimed that Members of Parliament would risk

“looking like Putin or Beijing”

if we had a new press law.

We are all against any semblance of state control of the press. Sir Brian Leveson could not have been more emphatic about that. He says, in terms, that his proposed press board

“should not have the power to prevent publication of any material”

by the press. Instead he proposes a light-touch regulation system.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

Mr Kavanagh might have had in mind the proposal on page 1780 of the report, which Sir Brian Leveson considers laudable and admirable:

“Interference with the activities of the media shall be lawful only insofar as it is for a legitimate purpose and is necessary in a democratic society, having full regard to the importance of media freedom in a democracy”.

One could imagine that being said in the Congress of China or Russia.

[Mr Straw]

I hope the hon. Lady makes better points than that if she is called to make a speech in this debate.

Turning to the objections that have been expressed about a light-touch regulatory system, I endorse the remarks of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). First, there is the objection the Prime Minister uttered, which is that

“for the first time, we would have crossed the Rubicon of writing elements of press regulation into the law of the land.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 449.]

As I pointed out to the House last Thursday, and as my right hon. and learned Friend pointed out again today, the Prime Minister’s claim is simply incorrect. The Press Complaints Commission came to me when I was Home Secretary to ask for protection to be written into the Human Rights Act 1998, particularly in respect of the apparent ease with which it felt complainants could otherwise get interlocutory injunctions to stop publication of material, for example, where it was likely to intrude into the privacy of individuals. I listened to the PCC and there were negotiations, the result of which is to be found in section 12 of the 1998 Act, subsection (4) of which says that when the courts are deciding whether or not to grant an ex parte injunction, they take into account, among other things, “any relevant privacy code”—the PCC code. In other words, it was the press themselves who wanted statutory force—legal force—to be behind their code, because they wanted protection. That was the crossing of the Rubicon, not anything in Leveson.

The second issue concerns the Irish Defamation Act 2009, to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham made such important reference. The Prime Minister said that we should look at that Act, because it

“runs to many, many pages, setting out many, many powers of the Irish Press Council.”

He added:

“It is worth Members of the House studying the Irish situation”—[Official Report, 29 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 456.]

I have taken the Prime Minister’s advice, but it is a great pity that he failed to study that Act rather more closely. As my right hon. and learned Friend pointed out, although it runs to 35 pages, the provisions relating to the Press Council consist of one section—section 44—one schedule, which is two and a half pages long, and linking provisions such as those linking back to section 27, which provides a public interest defence for media firms that have signed up to the Press Council and have adhered to its code. I hope that the Secretary of State, or whichever Minister responds to the debate, will answer the question that has been put time and again from the Labour Benches and, to a degree, from her own: if the Irish Defamation Act is good enough for the Irish press, and has worked for them and for the British media with titles in Ireland, why would such a short set of provisions not be good enough for this House and the British press?

[Mr Whittingdale]

Will the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that Lord Hunt asked for a similar provision to that in the Irish Defamation Act, and that that is not a problem? None of us objects to that; it is the statutory underpinning, which is a completely different prospect, that people find objectionable.

[Mr Straw]

The hon. Gentleman and I must be reading two different Acts, because section 44 of that Act contains statutory underpinning. It gives the Dail, the Irish Parliament, more direct power over the Press Council of Ireland than ever is proposed by Lord Justice Leveson for the press board in the United Kingdom.

[Ian Paisley]

In 2007, I was confronted by a journalist whose newspaper is subject to those regulations. I was handed my text messages and told that they were going to be printed. I threatened that Council on that journalist, and those texts never appeared—that Council does have teeth.

[Mr Straw]

It does indeed have teeth. I am afraid that the Secretary of State scored an own goal when she implied that because there had been no references made to the overseeing body it had somehow failed. If she read the Leveson report, she would have seen, on page 1715, that there have been

“between 340-350 complaints per year”

to the Irish press ombudsman, which was set up by this underpinning legislation. However, as people are satisfied with how this independent self-regulation, overseen by statute, works in Ireland, there have been no complaints to the higher body, and neither would there be here.

Extravagant complaints and comments have been made by journalists such as Mr Trevor Kavanagh, who is arguing with a report that does not exist, but quite a number of senior journalists have been altogether more thoughtful. Mr Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail told a seminar preceding the inquiry that

“there’s one area where Parliament can help the press. Some way must be found to compel all newspaper owners to fund and participate in self-regulation.”

Compulsion is the newspapers’ word, not mine, and their system of compulsion is the rolling contract proposal, but Sir Brian Leveson sets out in forensic detail why such a proposal cannot work.

The editors of The Guardian and The Times have both written thoughtful pieces. The editor of The Guardian spoke of the need for an arbitral arm that incentivised the regulated to pursue high standards and penalised anyone who walked away. Mr James Harding, editor of The Times, went further in a lengthy and very considered signed article. He said that the industry must have an “independent, muscular regulator”, and crucially he added that

“the Lord Chief Justice should appoint someone, probably an experienced lawyer, and a panel of two others to oversee this regulator…to prevent backsliding”

and to

“be a guarantor of the regulator’s independence and effectiveness.”

I agree with all of that. The issue for Mr Harding, Mr Rusbridger, Mr Dacre and most other thoughtful editors is how to achieve that end without the underpinning legislation that has been accepted in Ireland. The truth is that they cannot. In legal theory, if the Lord Chief Justice was willing, he could be asked to appoint a couple of retired lord justices of appeal to act as an arbitral body overseeing the regulator, but what would be their terms of reference or the criteria for their appointment? How would they operate? Any sensible Lord Chief Justice would say, “Thank you very much, but I am not getting into that unless I have statutory authority.” That is the fundamental flaw: the idea we can do all that while backing away from doing what was done in Ireland.

I want to make a final point about the internet. The editor of Mail Online, Martin Clarke, was quoted in last Saturday’s Financial Times saying in a rather triumphant tone that the internet had

“destroyed the ability of governments, companies and individuals to control the flow of information to the public”.

This chap, Mr Clarke, is tilting at windmills. It is never our objective or that of anyone else for the state in a free society to control the flow of information to the public. The issue is ensuring that members of the public are not defamed and that their privacy is not unfairly intruded on. It cannot follow that because we cannot do everything we should do nothing.

Seventy years, seven reports. This is where 70 and seven equals nine: the press have had their nine lives. It is time for the Government to recognise that and to agree to implement this magisterial report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

If everything that the hon. Gentleman says is correct, why then has he not heard the same complaint by British newspaper owners about the system of statutory underpinning that operates for their newspapers in the Republic of Ireland?

[Richard Drax]

We have a very long and proud history in the United Kingdom and we should not follow other people, because their ways of doing things are not always the best. Our system has worked and served us over hundreds of years.

Legislation would be needed and it would be passed in this place by us, but I am sorry to say that I do not trust us on this issue. That would be nail 1 in a coffin marked “Free Press.” Nail 2 would be the appointment of Ofcom to oversee an independent regulator. Ofcom’s members are appointed by Government. Nail 3 would be the unintended consequences of legislation. In the short time I have been in this House, I have seen such unintended consequences. It would be a lawyers’ charter. They would challenge every move and every word of the free press in this country. It would lead to chaos.

Is this a path that we really want to take? I do not think it is. I must say that I am astonished at the number of Government and Opposition Members who seem to want to muzzle—I would use that expression—our media and genuinely hope that there is no element of revenge in their motive. Do not get me wrong: I feel for the victims, like we all do, but anger is not a valid excuse for legislation.

Oscar Wilde was right when he said:

“In the old days men had the rack. Now they have the press.”

That rack, however, must hold us all to account. No one is above the law, but let us not forget that some in this House and the other place thought they were. The expenses scandal, cash for questions, cash for peerages, the sexed-up dossier—the list goes on and on.

The pain caused to innocent victims by what Lord Leveson calls a

“recklessness in prioritising sensational stories”

is completely indefensible, but we must not forget, as we have heard so many times today, that there are already laws in place to deal with these non-ethical issues. Phone hacking is a criminal offence, and so too is libel. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset has highlighted other areas in which laws currently exist. Even now, cases are progressing through the courts because redress is in place, and let us not forget, either, that a national newspaper has closed.

In my view, politicians have no right or licence to interfere with the press. That would make us judge and jury. What worries me most is that what some might deem as light-touch regulation could become something far more insidious in the hands of politicians in the future.

Winston Churchill described the press as

“the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize”.

I like that. Do we want to lose our legitimacy as a democracy? The US has reacted in horror at what is being proposed. The freedom of its press is enshrined in the constitution as the first amendment, which must give pause for thought, and our most able Foreign Secretary has said that a controlled press here would undermine our attempts to preach free speech to oppressive regimes wherever they may be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Drax]

I want to finish—I almost have—and have already allowed the right hon. Gentleman to interject.

Non-statutory self-regulation is the only answer and I urge all those in the newspaper industry to step up to the plate for our democracy’s sake and for what should be, and is in most cases, an honourable profession.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

I listened to my hon. Friend’s speech carefully and I thought he made it clear that he had misgivings—that is the point I was making. If he does not have misgivings, I apologise to him.

Obviously, further cross-party discussion will be needed on this and some of the other recommendations, particularly on the proposed changes to the Data Protection Act. I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House agreed that the Leveson proposals were pretty inadequate on data protection and its effect on investigative journalism, and I assume that that lies behind the nuanced change in the Opposition’s position. It is important that we look at these proposals carefully, particularly in the context of the negotiations on the broader European Union framework to which the Data Protection Act gives effect.

Lord Leveson himself said that these changes need to be considered with great care and he also admitted that this was something that had not been aired extensively during the inquiry or received much scrutiny generally. I believe that the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) made that point very well. We agree that this matter needs careful analysis. We must not make haste to amend the Data Protection Act only to find that responsible investigative journalism, holding the rich and powerful to account, is unduly hampered because of some wide-reaching amendments, even ones made with good intentions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins) talked about how the press had helped him in his council work on child protection. Several hon. Members spoke eloquently and passionately about the effects on their local community of press malpractice. They included the hon. Members for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain). My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will return to the House on all these issues following the cross-party discussions.

Some specific questions were raised in the debate. The right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) asked about the timetable for decisions, and we look forward to the press coming forward with their new proposals after tomorrow’s meeting. People have said that we should not delay; the meeting with editors is actually happening tomorrow. Lord Hunt has suggested a timetable that starts this week with that meeting and proposals that will come in the early months of next year.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) asked about the LASPO Act changes and defamation. We believe that good cases can still be brought after the LASPO reforms come in, but we clearly want to ensure access to justice for those such as the Dowlers who may feel that they have been denied it in the past. That is why we have referred the matter to the Civil Justice Council. That is the appropriate body to consider the details of the proposals, which are both important and complex.

I agree with the shadow Police Minister that although most of the debate has been about press regulation, the issues around the police and their handling of the investigations into phone hacking as well as their relationship with the media and police integrity more widely are equally central to the debate—

[Mr Straw]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Green]

I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman —[Hon. Members: “Oh!”] Let me talk about the police first, and then I will certainly deal with his point.

I welcome the fact that Lord Justice Leveson has noted that he has not seen any evidence that corruption by the press in relation to the police is a widespread problem. I appreciate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) about particular instances, but it is also important to note what Lord Leveson said about this matter. In particular, I want to emphasise two additional points.

First, the Government believe that Lord Leveson’s analysis of the issues and problems with the police is correct, but as he notes, it is very important for the scale of the problem to be kept in proportion. The vast majority of police officers in this country maintain standards of the highest integrity and they also often need to maintain a relationship with both local and national media in order to do their jobs properly. There is no place in our police forces, however, for those who do not meet those high standards or who abuse their relationship with the media. We will ensure that there is no longer any place for them in the police.

Secondly—

[Mr Straw]

rose—

[Damian Green]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman if he stops standing up—[Interruption.] I want to deal with the police first.

Secondly, there is a much-changed policing landscape since the issues highlighted by Lord Justice Leveson came to light. He recognises not only that, but the continuing improvements that are being made. We have created the college of policing to drive up police standards across the board and it will have a particular focus on working to ensure police integrity—[Interruption.] I feel sorry for those Labour Members who do not regard police integrity as important. They are completely out of touch with what the public want.

Police and crime commissioners are now in place to hold chief constables and their forces to account on behalf of local people and to ensure that they meet the high standards that people demand—[Interruption.] Apparently, Labour Members are also not interested in democracy, unlike the various Labour police and crime commissioners I met earlier today.

On the failings identified in the operational decisions made by the police in their investigations into phone hacking, there is now a new senior leadership team in place in the Metropolitan police to play its part in taking forward the report’s recommendations.

[Mr Straw]

rose—

[Damian Green]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Straw]

I am very grateful to the Minister. The Irish Defamation Act underpins the Irish Press Council and it works. Why will that not work here?

[Damian Green]

The Irish system has not been in place for very long and it is impossible to claim all the virtues for it that the Opposition wish to claim. It is sensible for discussions to continue on the points on which there has been widespread consensus in the House this evening, and jumping immediately into another system would be the wrong way to go about this.

Voting Eligibility (Prisoners)

Jack Straw Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Let me say in answer to the right hon. Gentleman’s question about the different options that it will be for the Committee to decide whether there are other elements that it wishes to see in a Bill. We have tried to put together a simple framework within which consultation and discussion can take place. That will undoubtedly involve considering whether there are other options, in terms of either the scope of the Bill or some of the operational issues that underpin it.

As for the right hon. Gentleman’s point about other countries, I must make clear that I do not equate a legitimate democratic debate about these matters in this democratic House of Parliament with some of the extraordinary abuses of human rights that we have seen elsewhere in the past, and all too often today. These are very different issues.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Does the Justice Secretary accept that on matters of fundamental human rights, the United Kingdom, under successive Governments, has been impeccable in observing the judgments of the Strasbourg Court, even—for example, in respect of terrorist suspects—when it has disagreed profoundly with those decisions? Long may that continue.

Given that we are talking about the rule of law, does the Justice Secretary also accept that—in breach of ideas of the rule of law that are based on consent—the Strasbourg Court has extended its jurisdiction from fundamental human rights to social and civic rights, for which we have not signed up? As Lord Hoffmann, the former Law Lord, has said, the Court “lacks constitutional legitimacy” in respect of such matters, and

“has no mandate to unify the laws of Europe”

on subjects of this kind.

[Chris Grayling]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. I think it is worth recalling that when the convention was written, back in the 1950s, Stalin was in power in Russia and people were being sent to the gulags without trial. That is what the convention was all about, but over the past 50 or 60 years the Court has moved it away from those fundamentals, and into a territory that many of us find deeply unsettling and wrong. I think there is a compelling case for reform, but while the current situation continues, we must none the less respect the laws of which we are part, and put to Parliament the questions that I am putting to it today.

Detainee Inquiry

Jack Straw Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. The point that lies behind the debate I have been having with NGOs and detainee representatives about the terms of reference is that our aim would be that the judge-led inquiry might conclude within a year. We do not want an inquiry that takes years and years and becomes too legalistic. We are still open to discussions about that, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman obviously shares my view that it would be much better if we were able to get things under way and hold this inquiry. I am grateful for his support for the inevitability of holding fire and getting Sir Peter to produce what he has done so far.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Sir Peter Gibson is a retired senior judge of the highest integrity and skill and I am personally quite certain that had he had the opportunity to continue this inquiry, he and his colleagues on the panel would have been able to do a most thorough job and would have gained the confidence of the NGOs and others in the course of that inquiry in exactly the same way as Sir William Macpherson, who was faced with a high degree of scepticism when he first began the Lawrence inquiry, was able to assuage the concerns of many of those involved in the course of the proceedings. May I also say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I believe that he is absolutely right to do what he has and that in practice he has had no alternative?

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful for that view and for the right hon. Gentleman’s support because I keep trying to assure people that there is no conspiracy here. The Government actually want these things to be properly investigated and want the full facts to be shared with the general public so far as they sensibly can be, consistent with the interests of national security.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Jack Straw Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

I will not—[Hon. Members: “Go on!”] I am afraid that I do not have time to give way.

It is these high legal costs which led to Sir Rupert Jackson’s review. Specifically in relation to defamation and privacy, it is these high legal costs which led to the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), when he was Justice Secretary, seeking to introduce similar changes to those we are now proposing to reduce excessive legal costs, but he mistakenly limited them only to defamation and privacy cases. In effect, that is the exact opposite of what the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) proposes in his amendment. The sands seem to have been shifting dramatically in the Labour camp on this issue.

New clause 39, tabled by the right hon. Member for Blackburn, would reduce the amount of fixed recoverable fees on the pre-action protocol for low-value road traffic accidents in the light of the impact of the ban on referral fees. The Department is now reviewing the situation, but to achieve this outcome does not require primary legislation. Instead, a reduction can be implemented through changes to the Civil Procedure Rules. I can give the commitment that we are looking at this. Indeed, my officials plan to consult on appropriate changes to the level of recoverable costs, and any changes will be placed before the Committee for approval. I can also tell him that I do not intend to go to all the trouble of stopping referral fees being paid to claims management companies, only to see those same fees staying with the lawyers rather than going back to consumers in lower insurance premiums or prices in the shops.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for those undertakings.

[Mr Djanogly]

I shall take each amendment in turn. Amendment 21 would remove clause 41, the effect of which is to amend the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 so that success fees under a conditional fee agreement will no longer be recoverable from a losing party in any civil proceedings. Amendment 22 would remove clause 43. I should make it clear that we have listened carefully to specific concerns about the abolition of recoverability of after-the-event insurance premiums in clinical negligence claims and the impact it would have on funding expert reports. Such reports, which can be expensive, are often necessary in establishing whether there is a case for commencing proceedings, which raises particular issues if recoverability of ATE insurance is abolished. In responding to these concerns, clause 43 provides, by way of exception, for the recoverability of premiums in respect of ATE insurance taken out to cover the cost of expert reports in clinical negligence cases.

Amendment 72 would remove clause 44, which abolishes the recoverability of the costs incurred by membership organisations, such as trade unions, of insuring themselves against the risk of paying costs to another party in the event of losing a claim. I strongly believe that the abolition of recoverability should apply equally to the arrangements for membership organisations in order to maintain a level playing field. Amendments 150 and 151 seek to allow the recoverability of success fees and ATE insurance premiums from a losing party in certain claims for damages against a person who carries on business in more than one country or who owns one or more businesses carried on in more than one country or in different countries.

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Jack Straw Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

My new clauses make no changes to discretionary life. Both I and those who advise me anticipate that once IPP sentences are no longer available, much more use will again be made of discretionary life sentences. The worst people will go back to having life sentences, which we know works perfectly effectively and well. They will be under licence for life if they are ever released, before which there will be a Parole Board process.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain the practical difference between an offender who is given an IPP for, say, a minimum tariff of five years, who will then be released by the Parole Board on proof of meeting certain conditions, and someone who is given a discretionary life sentence with a tariff of five years who is released by the Parole Board on exactly the same conditions? What is the difference?

[Mr Clarke]

Well, there are differences in the regime, the sentence planning and so on, but not very many. I will go back to the point about the regime that we want to introduce for people with extended determinate sentences, but the right hon. Gentleman makes my point. What is wrong with saying that the courts should use the ordinary life sentence? They will use a life sentence when they judge that a case is so serious, and when future risk is so high, that it is the only proper sentence.

For other offenders, we are introducing a new extended determinate sentence. The offender will receive a custodial sentence plus a further long extended period of licence set by the court. Those will be quite long determinate sentences, and the offenders who receive them will serve at least two thirds of them. In serious cases, offenders must apply to the Parole Board for release, and the board may keep them inside until the end of the determinate sentence.

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[Mr Clarke]

I shall come to the Parole Board before I conclude my remarks, but we are not taking away its power: nobody who previously had an IPP will be released, even at the two-thirds point, unless they have first satisfied the board.

The most obvious difference between life sentences, which will now be used more widely, and IPP sentences is that, in the case of life imprisonment, licences are for life and subject always to recall, whereas IPP sentences are not. However, as I said, criminals who complete an extended determinate sentence must then serve extended licence periods, during which time they will be closely monitored and returned to prison if necessary. The courts have the power to give up to an extra five years of licence for violent offenders and eight years for sexual offenders on top of their prison licence.

There are further protections. Some people believe—the Labour Front Bench team certainly affect to believe—that we are exposing people to risk by making this much overdue change. We are also introducing—not in the legislation, but I undertake to introduce them—compulsory intervention plans for dangerous offenders while they are in prison, so that they are supported to change their ways and not commit more crimes when they are eventually released. By the end of sentence, offenders should therefore have undergone interventions—made in a more certain and organised way than at present—to address their offending behaviour.

There is rightly concern that those currently serving IPP sentences should be supported in progressing through their sentences and achieving release on licence. However, we will be using our best efforts to improve the progression of these prisoners through sentence, including with improvements to assessment, sentence planning and delivery, and parole review processes. We continue to monitor outcomes to ensure further improvements in this area.

There are yet further protections available to the court. We do not believe that our proposed changes put the public at risk or weaken our risk-management regime. Most sexual or violent offenders sentenced to 12 months or more in custody will fall under the multi-agency public protection arrangements framework, which means that the relevant authorities will work together to co-ordinate assessments of risk and risk-management plans for the offender once they have been released on licence. Robust risk-management systems are now in place for a range of offenders. Court orders are also available to manage the risk of serious sexual and violent offenders who appear to present a risk at the end of their sentence. Violent offender orders and sex offending prevention orders place restrictions on these offenders, and if they breach those orders, they can be sent back to prison.

In the sentencing Green Paper, we raise the question of whether the Parole Board’s test for release in these cases is the right one, because only a tiny number of people ever emerge from prison at the moment—the rate is less than 5% a year—and we are acquiring people who are still in prison years after they finished the tariff that the judge imposed on them. This is a question that we will explore further. The amendments give the Secretary of State a power to change the release test used by the Parole Board, which is set in statute for IPP prisoners and for prisoners serving the new extended sentence. The power will be subject to the affirmative procedure. We will consult carefully and see what happens to the Parole Board and the courts once we have made the present form of sentence extinct for former prisoners.

The trouble now is that someone who has finished his tariff has to stay in prison unless he can persuade the Parole Board that it is safe to let him out. [Interruption.] That is it; that can be difficult, sitting in a prison cell, although we are going to produce some management plans. On the other hand, if we are keeping someone in beyond their tariff, it is certainly arguable that we should have some positive reason for fearing that there is a risk that he is going to offend when he leaves. We have to reflect—we will consult on this—on whether we have been giving the Parole Board an almost impossible task. It is no good pretending that it can come to a scientifically certain conclusion in each case. None of us would like to say, if we met a range of prisoners, which were now reformed and which would offend again. The Parole Board gets it wrong now: some of those it releases offend again, while some of those in prison are never going to offend again, if we can actually get them out. We will consult on whether the current release tests for IPP sentences and the new extended indeterminate sentence ensure effective public protection while allowing everyone to be satisfied—as far as they can ever be satisfied in this world—that the offenders can now be safely managed in the community.

[Mr Straw]

rose—

[Mr Clarke]

I shall give way one last time, because I am trying to be brief so that we can have a debate.

[Mr Straw]

Some 40% of discretionary and mandatory lifers are post-tariff. They have to prove that it is safe to release them. Can the Secretary of State please explain what the difference is in substance between someone on a life sentence who has to satisfy the Parole Board that it is safe to release them and someone on an IPP?

[Mr Clarke]

Because the judge, in full knowledge of the circumstances of the offence and the offender, has decided that such a serious offender should get life imprisonment, it is—

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[Mr Straw]

I endorse the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) and the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). The hon. Member for Shipley, addressing the Lord Chancellor and his hon. Friends, said that the measure would lead to a number of dangerous offenders coming out of prison before it was correct to let them out. That, of course, is one of the key drivers of this policy. It is not about prison reform. The whole purpose of the measures put before the House last December was to cut the prison population by 6,500. The Lord Chancellor then ran into huge difficulties because he could not get his own side, our side or the judges to accept the 50% tariff for an early guilty plea and many other changes. I do not know the number exactly, but I do know that The Times quoted a Ministry of Justice spokesperson last Friday as saying that the changes would lead to a cut in the prison population of 2,500.

The Secretary of State seemed to want to have it both ways. He damned the concept of the indeterminate sentence for public protection and suggested that it was a stain on the system. He also tried to reassure the House and the public by saying, “Don’t worry, we are going to do exactly the same thing, but it is going to be called a mandatory life sentence.”

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

May I correct the right hon. Gentleman? The impact statement will show the Bill as amended. Other things being equal, with no changes in the crime level—which depends far more on how long a recession we have, the levels of youth unemployment, how successful we are in dealing with drugs and how far we get with prison reform—the Bill will reduce the prison population by 2,300. The measure we are now debating will have no effect on the prison population in the period to 2015. The reduction in the prison population is achieved by measures already discussed and approved in the Public Bill Committee.

[Mr Straw]

It would have been helpful to have the impact statement before the House today rather than tomorrow. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman is saying—picking up the point made by the hon. Member for Shipley—that no prisoner who cannot be released until he has proved that he is not a danger to the public will not be released in the future, what on earth are these convoluted changes for?

The original design of the legislation in 2003 was unsatisfactory because it led in some cases to tariffs that were ludicrously short—in one case, 27 days. That was never the intention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and it was causing a major problem. I, with the approval of the House, sought to change the law. It is worth Government Members remembering, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting pointed out, that we got no assistance whatever from the Conservative Opposition at the time. Their complaint was that we were going soft by introducing this change. It was absolutely extraordinary. I do not remember the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), now the Lord Chancellor, standing up either in the House or outside suggesting that there was an alternative. We made that change and, interestingly and wholly contrary to what was said, it has led to a stabilisation of the numbers on indeterminate public protection sentences. According to the Lord Chancellor’s statistical bulletin, in the most recent year the number of such sentences rose by only 3% over the previous year and the number of those receiving IPP sentences was 958 for the year ending March 2011, compared to one short of 1,000 for the year ending March 2010. The changes that were introduced are working.

Yes, it is right that we should look in more detail at the Northern Ireland experience to see what other changes can be made, but it is entirely wrong for the Secretary of State to try to set up a new system that will lead either to the release of dangerous people who are serious and persistent offenders, thousands of whom are in prison for violent offences and sexual offences—in the main—or make no difference at all.

[Mr Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and West Devon) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Straw]

If the hon. and learned Gentleman will excuse me, I will not.

The Lord Chancellor has been anxious to please the whole prison reform lobby—people who, bluntly, do not speak for the public, and rarely speak for the victims either in my experience, but even they will not be satisfied. Meanwhile, the public and innocent victims will be put at risk.

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[Mr Djanogly]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. It is not one that is covered by the Bill, but it is something that the Government are looking into, and I hope that there will be further developments on that in due course.

[Mr Straw]

I thank the Minister for the generous compliment he paid me, for which I am most grateful. There are plenty of situations relating to financial institutions in the widest sense when conduct might be the subject of a regulatory breach enforced by the regulators, but in more severe cases it could also be a criminal offence. It is a matter of belt and braces. Frankly, I do not understand why he is suggesting that those are alternatives when one complements the other.

[Mr Djanogly]

The reason is that criminalisation would be too blunt an instrument. If we take the example of the straight payment of a fee for a referral, I can see how straight criminalisation would work, but we should appreciate that when that was last banned in 2004 it was a weak provision through which a coach and horses could be driven. What if an insurance company provides insurance to a solicitor in payment for referrals, rather than a straight fee? What if a trade union gives its cheap work to a firm of solicitors in consideration for the solicitors getting its better work? What if a claims management company provides a variety of services to a solicitor in payment for a referral? The point I am making is that the circumstances could be very varied and complex and the straight criminal option would not be appropriate. It would be the principle that counts and it would have to be a regulator that looks to the principle.

We are primarily concerned with removing incentives under the current system with regard to personal injury claims, which is why we are banning referral fees in that area. However, the Lord Chancellor may in future extend by regulation the prohibition on referral fees to other types of claim and legal services and other providers of legal services should the need arise and if the case is made for such an extension.

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[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I shall be brief. I welcome the Government’s action to address referral fees. There is no doubt that consumers have paid a significant price. I hope that we can clamp down heavily on other things, such as unsolicited text messages and spam, which we have all experienced, through other measures such as those on data protection.

I would like the Minister to deal with just one point. The industry has been pressing for these changes, and consumers in particular want to understand what guarantees, if any, they will have that when the changes have taken effect they will see a difference in the prices they pay for services.

[Mr Straw]

As a preliminary, I wish to draw the House’s attention to the fact that against my name on the amendments relating to referral fees there is an R, which indicates that I have a declarable interest. It arises from three engagements that I undertook for fees on matters relating to referral fees and the motor insurance industry generally. They were on 28 September, 12 October, and earlier today. In respect of the first two, I have made a declaration to the Registrar of Members’ Financial Interests, who told me that because I have not yet received payment, the time for these is not yet running. The declaration for my engagement this morning will be made tomorrow.

I tabled amendments to new clauses 18 and 19 and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) indicated, in the absence of a sudden Pauline conversion from the Government Front Bench between now and when the question is put, I shall press amendment (e) to new clause 18 to a vote.

According to the AA, over the year to March 2011, there has been a 40% increase in motor insurance premiums. In many areas of the country, mine included, although it is by no means the worst, the increase has been even higher. As a number of colleagues of all parties have pointed out, that has very severe social consequences.

May I say that I am extremely grateful for the wide support that my Motor Insurance Regulation Bill has had throughout the Chamber? Motor insurance is the only insurance affecting an individual that is compulsory, and in certain areas and for certain categories, particularly younger drivers, premiums are now so high as to place motor insurance out of reach altogether. A driving licence is often a necessary qualification for taking a job. In any case, people in areas that are not blessed with a high level of public transport, which means most places outside inner urban areas, need a motor vehicle to go about their business. The increase in premiums, and the fact that they are much higher in some areas than others, is leading to some people not being able to work or move around.

The increase is also unquestionably leading to an increase in criminality, both through people going around uninsured and, increasingly, through people deciding to borrow a friend’s address with a lower-premium postcode. People also fail to disclose relevant information about themselves, to enable them to become insured. It cannot serve any public purpose that we have ended up with such a dysfunctional system.

I readily concede that that has happened because of a nexus of factors going back a number of years. The operation of the conditional fee system was introduced in the Access to Justice Act 1999 for good a reason: it was thought that it would improve access to justice. To some extent that has certainly been true, but as we all know, it has had the unintended consequence of generally —I am not talking the Trafigura case or one or two others—creating an imbalance in the equality of arms between parties on either side of a legal action. It has gratuitously encouraged the so-called compensation culture.

That, in turn, has been compounded by the costs of the road traffic accident electronic portal being too high. In a recent statement, the Minister said that the figure that was introduced when I was Secretary of State had been agreed in the Civil Justice Council. It was agreed to by both sides, which was why I did not interfere with it. I believe there is now widespread agreement that the current fee, of at least £1,200 for claims under £10,000, is at least twice as high as it should be. It is leading to lawyers advertising as two firms at the end of my street in Blackburn do: they have great banners across their windows saying, “Bring your claim in here, we’ll pay you up to £650 in cash for it.” They can do that and still make a profit out of the £1,200, because the actual costs of running the portal are about £100.

Claims for whiplash, which I have described as an invention of the human imagination, undiagnosable except by dodgy doctors employed by claims management companies, have got completely out of control. The level of whiplash claims is not related to the level of accidents or physical injuries. Accidents are reducing, as is the possibility of being injured in an accident, because cars and road engineering are much safer. It is related principally to the density of claims management companies operating in a particular area. The evidence of that is incontrovertible.

I concede to my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) that the regulators have acted properly on claims management companies in some ways, but the regulatory system established under the Compensation Act 2006, during our Administration, has not had sufficient resources to control the trebling in the number of claims management companies that has taken place in recent years.

Another change that took place was in the 2004 solicitors conduct rules, which allowed solicitors to pay referral fees that were previously banned. I will come back to that point when we deal with the enforcement of a ban on referral fees.

[Sir Alan Beith]

I very much welcome all the effort that the right hon. Gentleman has put into this matter. I hope that in talking about referral fees, he will recognise that although he has devoted a lot of his effort to motor insurance, the same problems affect the cost to consumers in numerous other areas, such as employment law, conveyancing and divorce—all areas in which quite large sums change hands.

[Mr Straw]

I absolutely agree. I began this journey because of constituents’ concerns about motor insurance, and my private Member’s Bill specifically concentrates on that, but I accept entirely what the right hon. Gentleman has been saying for such a long time and what his Justice Committee said in the report that it published two weeks ago—that the ban on referral fees must be extended beyond personal injury cases.

[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

I am anxious for the right hon. Gentleman to reflect on his point about the change in the solicitors rules in 2004. It is important that the House considers the fact that up until that time, referral fees were banned by the Law Society. It was the intervention of the Office of Fair Trading that resulted in the Law Society changing that rule and recommending the creation of a marketplace, which he has rightly described as later becoming a full-scale scam.

[Mr Straw]

I said earlier today outside the House that I believe the reason why the OFT has decided rather late in the day to hold an investigation into market conditions in the motor insurance industry is that it is deeply embarrassed by the position that it took in 2004. In no sense could it be said that referral fees encourage fair trading. They are essentially a fraud on the consumer. Lord Justice Jackson, in his magisterial report, completely demolished the OFT’s case in favour of referral fees.

The other body that should examine its processes is the Legal Services Board. I accept readily the reason why the Secretary of State felt obliged to wait for its consideration of referral fees, but its consumer panel released the most extraordinary report stating that referral fees worked in the public interest. If we examine the basis of its research, we find that a third of the people whom it surveyed had received compensation for things like whiplash.

On any objective consumer evidence, and there is plenty of it, it is perfectly plain that the public collectively do not like what they are learning about how the wider insurance industry operates. They reckon they are being defrauded, and that is absolutely true. In motor insurance, for example, a conservative estimate is that at least £2 billion of the total premium income of £9 billion is additional costs caused by the merry-go-round of referral fees.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

My right hon. Friend is correct that in 2004, referral fees were put on a legal footing. However, many years before that it was quite clear that referral fees were being paid in various guises. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and I raised the scandal that was going on in the miners’ compensation scheme. When we were arguing for that practice to be banned, the Government of the time did not do a great deal about it.

[Mr Straw]

The Government should have done, and as I have sometimes said in respect of that period, my alibi is that I was abroad. I am the last to suggest that the problem has been created by the current Government. I accept that although the Labour Government did many wonderful things, the consequence of a number of things, some of which we introduced and some of which, such as the OFT report, were forced on us, has been the creation of a dysfunctional system.

[Mr Jones]

Will my right hon. Friend give way again on that point?

[Mr Straw]

Very briefly, but others wish to speak.

[Mr Jones]

The fact that this has become an issue for middle England is quite ironic, but I am angry that when my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw and I raised it in respect of poor mining communities, people did not think it was a great priority. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is ironic that if we had tackled the problem at that time, the scandals in the motor industry that he has outlined would have been put to bed years ago?

[Mr Straw]

That might be so—it is good to know that my constituency is representative of middle England.

Similarly unacceptable practices take place in motor repairs. In bottom-line referrals, accident management companies require repairers to give them a discount of up to 25%. The repairers then increase their prices to take account of that bottom-line referral fee. Royal and Sun Alliance outrageously practised a type of subrogation whereby it set up an internal subsidiary, which contracted repairers for, say, £1,000 for a repair, and then added 25%, which was charged to the main company—RSA Ltd—which then charged the at-fault insurer. Product mandating is another unacceptable practice. Deals are struck with, for example, paint manufacturers, and repair companies are required to use specific brands of paint. That has led to a 67% increase in the cost of paint since 2003.

We must act on all those matters, and I hope the Minister will say briefly what will happen on the RTA portal if he gets the chance. I know that he has indicated that he hopes to take action, but is he sympathetic to what I suggest in respect of whiplash and many other matters?

I come now to the issue between the Minister and me. I welcome new clause 18, and I am grateful to the Secretary of State and the Minister for introducing it. However, for my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith) and I, there are two issues. First, in my judgment, the breadth of the ban must go wider than personal injury claims. It could be excluded in one or two discrete areas, but in the generality of cases, as the right hon. Gentleman said—he has a great deal of experience—abuse also happens elsewhere.

Secondly, on the question of whether there should be a criminal offence, I noted what the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham said about what happened before 2004, and in a sense, they have made my point. My understanding is that the prohibition on solicitors charging referral fees was in the solicitors conduct rules and that it was not a criminal offence. Those rules changed; it was not that a criminal offence was abolished. I am glad that the Secretary of State proposes to make greater use of the regulatory authorities, and I would not for a moment suggest that that is unnecessary, because it is very necessary. However—this is where, with respect, I found his argument least convincing—there are many other areas of regulation, including, for example, of financial institutions, when conduct that is in clear breach of regulations leads to both a fine or penalty by civil regulatory authorities and a criminal offence. That is particularly true given the vicarious liability requirements imposed by section 7 and others of the Bribery Act 2011.

I applaud what the Secretary of State is doing as far as it goes, but for the life of me, I simply do not understand why, given that he recognises the inadequacy of the 2004 regulatory system and many other things, he does not back that with the criminal law.

[Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Given the right hon. Gentleman’s wide experience, can he detect any pattern in relation to those matters where an action by a regulated body constitutes something that could lead both to regulatory action by the regulator and to criminal sanction under the statutes? If so, it would be interesting to know which side of the line the new clause and the matters to which it refers lie.

[Mr Straw]

The hon. and learned Gentlemen may have noticed that I need to research that point, but I have in the back of my mind a number of cases where breaches of regulations are dealt with both by the regulator and in criminal proceedings. He is experienced in the law and will know that plenty of criminal offences are also civil wrongs of some kind in common law or by regulations.

[Sir Alan Beith]

The right hon. Gentleman has an arguable case on the merits of a back-up criminal offence, but will he concede that the system proposed by the Government can be made to work, because it combines the regulatory framework with the criminal offence behind it, particularly if there is a custodial sentence? The data protection offence, which lies behind the Government’s proposal, is already a criminal offence.

[Mr Straw]

Christopher Graham, the distinguished Information Commissioner, made the point that one reason why the penalty for breach of section 55 of the Data Protection Act needs to be increased—as it is by sections 77 and 78 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 to a maximum of two years imprisonment or an unlimited fine—is to send a message to people in those industries that they could end up in prison if they go in for an egregious breach. Of course, other breaches of data protection rules could mean that an organisation loses its licence, but in extremis, we need criminal proceedings for a criminal offence.

My view is that the same must apply in respect of breaches of the law banning referral fees. My amendment (e) would produce exactly the same penalty—it is entirely proportionate—as applies under sections 77 and 78 of the 2008 Act, which I hope the Government bring into force quickly given that they are already on the statute book. With that, and because I know that many others wish to speak, I thank Members on both sides of the House for the support that they have given to my campaign, and commend the amendment to the House.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who put his case so comprehensively and convincingly.

I should like to speak briefly in support of the Government’s position and to ask a question of clarification. Clearly, referral fees and how they work have contributed enormously to the insurance costs of people in Blackburn, East Hampshire, middle England—wherever that is—and everywhere else, and change is needed. We had a strange mini-debate in the Public Bill Committee evidence-taking session on whether there was a compensation culture in this country. Some Opposition Members suggested that there was not and cited the noble Lord Young of Graffham in defence of their case, which is rather a tricky one to argue. Anyone who has received those annoying automated phone calls and text messages, or who has even a glancing familiarity with daytime television, can say that it is intuitive and self-evident that there is a compensation culture.

I understand that one of the original reasons for introducing referral fees was to allow an online market to develop—it was said that that would be a good thing because it might increase competition and access to justice. I shall come back to the online market element in a moment, but the claim that referral fees improve access to justice is at best grossly exaggerated. It might well be that approaching a solicitor with such a case was foreboding 20 years ago, but it is not now, following the development of no win, no fee cases and so on.

It is difficult to say exactly how big the claims management company sector is, but it might be of the order of £0.5 billion, which is enormous. There is nothing wrong with making money, but from a public policy perspective, we must draw a distinction between activities that add value to the individual and those that just take a share of the value chain and ultimately push up costs for everybody else. That is combined with the natural distaste that we have for selling people’s cases as some kind of commodity. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) referred to the ability of industry players to shape-shift. I think that the new clause would effectively prohibit subcontracting, but not, of course, mergers and acquisitions, which would simply create a new form.

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[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I, fortunately, have not been the victim of a car crash or accident at work, although, judging from the volume of texts, e-mail messages and voice calls to my mobile and home phone one might believe that I was confined to a hospital bed or wheelchair. This is one of the aspects that have to be combated in legislation. I therefore support what the Government are doing in trying to prevent this type of activity, although I would like clarification from the Minister on three issues.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) alluded to the first matter: the definition of “referral fee” and the potential for people to get around it. That is rather important, particularly given that it has been suggested that we make it a criminal offence. While the definition lacks clarity, it will be difficult to make it a criminal offence.

The second important issue is fairness for the individual. If a victim of an accident—for example, someone who has suffered a spinal injury—goes along to their high street solicitor for advice and help, the firm might decide to give that help and advice and start the case, but somewhere along the line it might determine that it does not have the expertise necessary and refer it to an expert solicitor who deals with nothing but such claims. How will the first solicitor be recompensed for their work, if they cannot claim a referral fee? I would like clarification on that point, because, quite clearly, that would require a great deal of professional work for which the solicitor might not receive any recompense. That needs to be clarified.

[Mr Straw]

Surely, the firm would get paid for the costs it had incurred. Indeed, it would not pass on the file until its costs had been paid. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that a further defect of referral fees is that they might skew the judgment of the first solicitor advising the client on the best firm to go to? The solicitor might make a decision on the basis not of which is the best firm, but of which is likely to pay the biggest referral fee.

[Bob Blackman]

The other problem is that if solicitors did not believe that they would get paid for the work, they might hang on to the case and take it to conclusion, despite not being an expert. That presents a huge risk to the individual, who possibly has a case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Djanogly]

We have had a good, far-ranging debate this afternoon. Given that another important debate needs to be completed by 8 o’clock, I am sorry to say that I shall have to make my way quickly through the points that have been raised. I am pleased to hear at least a grudging agreement in principle with our ban on referral fees from the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter). I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and all the other right hon. and hon. Members for their support for our desire to implement the ban. I am pleased that the debate today has been about how that should be done, not about whether it should be done.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith asked why we had not consulted on banning referral fees, and I can tell him that Lord Justice Jackson made 109 recommendations, and it would not have been practical to consult on them all at once. It also made good sense to await the outcome of the Legal Services Board’s work in this area. Many respondents to our consultation on implementing Lord Justice Jackson’s recommendations included their views on referral fees. Those views, along with the work undertaken by the LSB and the Transport Committee, have been carefully considered. The hon. Gentleman clearly raised some serious issues relating to the regulation of claims management companies, but they were not directly relevant to the Bill. I must point out that, in the past year, the Ministry of Justice has cancelled 349 authorisations of CMCs, whereas in the last year of the Labour Government, it cancelled only 35.

The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) asked a number of important questions. If he does not mind, I will write to him about those issues. I can say, however, that under the Compensation Act 2006, it is an offence to provide regulated claims management services unless authorised or exempt. The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to learn that the exemption applies to trade unions, and that is part of the problem that he rightly highlighted. I was present at the debate that he held on that subject several years ago.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith covered several other matters, but he essentially spoke to tomorrow’s debate, and we will deal with those issues then. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington asked about some important aspects relating to the consumer. The Chairman of the Transport Select Committee, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), rightly mentioned that share premiums had risen by 40% in the last year alone. This is of course a matter of concern, and we have discussed it with the Association of British Insurers. It has said that if the proposals are effected with the other changes to recoverability of success fees in after-the-event insurance, it would hope to see a fall in insurance premiums. I certainly hope that that is a credible position.

As I said at the outset, there is broad support across the House for a ban on referral fees, although there is some disagreement on how best to implement the ban. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) spoke to his amendments with typical passion, but I would like to set out briefly why the Government cannot support them. Amendments (a) to (c) to new clause 18 seek to capture within the prohibition all arrangements to pay or receive referral fees, even when a payment has not yet been made. These amendments might have been tabled in support of his amendment to make the payment and receipt of referral fees a criminal offence. However, I am concerned that capturing an agreement to pay referral fees when payment might not have occurred would be very difficult to enforce. A solicitor’s accounts, for example, might well show that a particular payment had been made that could, on the face of it, be a referral fee. However, it is unlikely that agreements, which in some cases might be no more than verbal agreements, could be so readily identified without time-consuming investigation. In any event, we do not think that it is necessary to provide for this eventuality, first because such agreements would be unenforceable under subsection (6) of new clause 19 and, secondly, because whatever might be agreed, the payment of the referral fee would still be prohibited. So, in practice, it is unlikely that a party would enter into an agreement to pay a referral fee when payment would be a breach of the prohibition and the agreement would not be enforceable.

I have already dealt, in moving the new clause, with the arguments against amendment (e), which seeks to create a new criminal offence. I should just reiterate that the Government are fully committed to ensuring that the ban will work effectively.

[Mr Straw]

When I made my point about the banning of referral fees being backed by the criminal law, the Lord Chancellor did not say that he agreed with me, but he did say, on 13 September:

“We are now considering the way in which to put this into practice, but it is likely to be in the form recommended”—[Official Report, 13 September 2011; Vol. 532, c. 879.]

—that is, a criminal prohibition as well as a regulatory one. He appeared to have an open mind about that, so what has changed since then?

[Mr Djanogly]

I have just confirmed with my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor that, in the next sentence of that quote, he said that he had not committed to creating a criminal offence.

I can assure the right hon. Member for Blackburn that we have thought long and hard about how to achieve this, and I am aware of the concerns raised in the Justice Committee’s recent report on referral fees and the theft of personal data. The Committee’s Chairman made the point again today that the penalties for breaching section 55 of the Data Protection Act were not sufficient. The Government are keeping the question of whether to introduce custodial penalties for section 55 offences under review, and we will respond to the Justice Committee’s report in due course. However, the issue of how to deal with people such as rogue motor garage workers or nurses who are breaking the law by breaching the Data Protection Act is separate from that of how to introduce a new ban on regulated bodies to prevent them from paying referral fees, which they are currently permitted to do. I strongly believe that our ban, which will stop lawyers, claims management companies and insurance companies from paying and receiving referral fees, will remove the incentives for selling personal data from the whole system. That is because there will be no one for the rogue garage, for instance, to sell the data to, as all the people in the system who can make any profit out of handling claims will be prevented from paying referral fees. My hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) well set out the complexity involved in this instance.

Justice and Security Green Paper

Jack Straw Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

On the first point, we canvassed opinion on the prospect of it being extended to inquests. There will be a range of views on that, so this is a genuinely green part of the Green Paper. My view is that in cases where families are desperately anxious to have a proper inquiry and for someone to make some judgments about what caused the death of a family member, it is particularly unsatisfactory if the whole thing cannot be brought to some sort of conclusion because the proceedings are too open to members of the public so the evidence cannot be heard. We will therefore consult carefully on inquests. I am not sure that the legislation proposing that we have a chief coroner would have given him any powers to do much about such inquest cases, but no doubt that issue will be raised if we continue to debate whether we need a chief coroner.

We propose to improve the ISC’s powers to require information to be brought before it. There are of course difficulties and sensitivities relating to operational information, but those will no doubt be raised in response to the Green Paper and are touched on, rather carefully, in the document I have published today.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

On the strengthening of the ISC, I commend what the Secretary of State is proposing. It is 17 years since the ISC was established—a different time and in the shadow of the cold war—and, as he has pointed out, circumstances have changed, so the proposals must be right. On the main part of his statement, I congratulate him on finding what appear to be elegant solutions to the terrible dilemma that successive Home Secretaries and Foreign Secretaries have faced, as I know, where the pursuit of apparent openness has resulted in injustice being done to the intelligence and security agencies and the plaintiffs, and sometimes defendants, in these actions. Will he confirm that the model he is seeking to extend for criminal-related cases will build on the establishment, many years ago, of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission? He says that the matter is urgent, and I entirely agree, so when does he plan to conclude the consultation and introduce legislation?

[Mr Clarke]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He will not be surprised to learn that, although I made the statement today, I have been working very closely with my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary, whose interests are crucially involved, as he well knows, having done both jobs. We propose to complete the consultation by January next year, by which time we expect to be able to come back with legislation for the House to consider. I hope that people will feed in their views, because the whole point is to try to carry as much consensus in the House as possible. Although we have not yet decided, we will perhaps introduce legislation next year.