Assisted Dying

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger]

I really do thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. She is absolutely right, and I thank her for allowing me to make it abundantly clear what I hope I made clear earlier: I recognise the enormous power of the campaign, and that the overwhelming majority of people want it for the best of intentions. All of the people campaigning for this, and the overwhelming majority of the people who imagine making use of this law, do so for the absolute best of intentions. Please can we not have a deliberate misunderstanding of the points I make? I represent a lot of people who think this way, and I am making the point in all sincerity.

I challenge Members, many of whom must visit their hospices and know what is acknowledged as the fact of elder abuse. Tragically, we have a rising epidemic of elder abuse in this country. Half of elderly people who are victims of financial crime are victimised by their own adult children. It is not just the elderly we need to be concerned about. It is no surprise that no disabled organisation supports the proposal. It is the most vulnerable people, who by definition rely on the support of other people—their families and professionals—who are most at risk of assisted dying laws being misapplied, which is what I fear would happen. Suddenly, every controlling and coercive relative, every avaricious carer or neighbour, every overstretched or under-resourced doctor or hospital manager would have the means to cut their cost, and I do not believe it is possible to design out the risks.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case. We have heard a lot about quality of life, but who are we to judge what a quality life really is? Is someone who is profoundly disabled without quality? Is someone with profound learning difficulties without quality? Why do we assume that the only lives worth living are those that are perfect or of high quality in the eyes of others?

[Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)]

Order. I fear that we shall never hear the answer to my right hon. Friend. We have to stick to the five-minute limit, and you get injury time only on the first occasion that you give way, I am afraid. That is a message for all Members.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 2
Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

When the Home Secretary said that she wanted criminals to “feel terror” at the thought of committing offences, she reflected the heartfelt sentiments of those who live on the frontline of crime, starkly contrasting the small clique of bourgeois liberals who use wealth to segregate and insulate themselves from the reality of disorder and have sought to amplify time and again, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) did tonight, the rights of thugs and villains and the civil liberties of the violent mob.

This week, Members of Parliament have rightly resolved to redouble our efforts to prevent violence against women. It is strange then that just months ago 70 Labour parliamentarians sought to block the deportation of 50 violent criminals, including those convicted of murder and rape, and that they will vote against a Bill tonight that cracks down on crime. It does seem that the Labour party is more motivated by the political posturing associated with what the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), whom I greatly admire by the way, typically described as headline grabbing, than it is with protecting the safety of the innocent.

As figures show, our police forces are continually challenged by increasing demands. Hard-working officers are frequently derailed by the malign advocates of the rights of criminals and distracted by the politically correct delusions of the ideologically motivated elite. Imagine the demoralising disappointment they must feel when, after working tirelessly to solve a crime, an unelected judge insists on awarding a derisory sentence, inhibiting the incentive to prosecute, weakening deterrence and undermining public trust.

Typically, custodial sentences are drastically reduced, and even the most ruthless criminals are released early. Many killers are released after a dozen or so years, while naive utopians in gated communities plead for even greater leniency. How the liberal left misunderstands the criminal mind, for deviant individuals who have chosen crime as a career weigh up the balance between risk and reward, cost and benefit. It is a measure of their trade.

The misassumption that crime is an illness to be treated has become so pervasive that it is barely questioned in the broadcast media, yet to see those who choose to profit from the misfortune of others in the same way that we regard the sick and infirm is to demean the latter and elevate the former to a status they do not deserve. This assumption that wickedness is a misfortune of less significance than the suffering it causes means relegating such acts and the victims of them. In this way, justice is neither seen to be done, nor done at all.

This Bill goes some way to regaining public faith by strengthening law and order and regaining that mantle for the Secretary of State and our party. All Members of this House who care about the innocent should vote for it, for our task is to be fierce in defence of the gentle.

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [Lords]

John Hayes Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Put simply, Labour supports this Bill. It is in line with Labour party policy. It sends the right message, we believe, many years later than it should have arrived in this place.

We support reforming some of the archaic and outdated hoops that people have to jump through if they want their marriage to end. People who may never have sought or needed a divorce may not know that there is currently no such thing as a no-fault divorce and that one of the parties must be “to blame” for a relationship ending. They may not know that if there is no blame to be laid, people must spend two years separated before they can file for divorce. They may not know that if one of the parties objects to divorce, the other must remain married to them for five years. That is why we hope that Ministers will reject amendment 1. I will turn specifically to that soon.

Marriage is supposed to be a happy and special occasion where two people come together in front of their loved ones and commit themselves to each other, and then set up their lives together. But we would be naive to think that all marriages will last forever. People change and life changes. Something that may have once seemed perfect will not necessarily be that way forever. There is no reason why, in situations where there is no fault, two people should be forced into a hostile situation where they have to find blame, keeping them married for long periods and preventing them from moving on with their lives.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Of course what the hon. Gentleman says is entirely reasonable—that where there is no fault it is right that that should be acknowledged. Where there is fault, should that be acknowledged, or ignored or concealed, or what?

[Alex Cunningham]

I think that is a matter for the individuals involved. Adults who are embarking on divorce are supposedly mature people and they should be able to sort these things out for themselves. If they want to blame somebody for some reason, that is very much a matter for them.

It is right that this Parliament is taking action to bring divorce law into the 21st century and recognise that in many cases there is no blame—there is just no desire to be together any more. We should be facilitating peaceful endings of marriages where that is possible. I am pleased that this Bill makes excellent moves towards achieving that.

Yet the Opposition have identified several related matters that we felt needed to be heard and considered. From the list of amendments, I see that some Conservative Members also felt that some changes were needed. I plan to address these in turn. Amendment 1 would extend the minimum legal period for a divorce from the six months in the Bill to a year. Wo did not see what value or benefit this would provide; it would simply force two people together for longer than they need to be.

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[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dame Rosie, and to follow the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham).

I listened with great care to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I have great respect for the sincerity with which she expresses her views. I have to say that I profoundly disagree with the fundamental basis of her analysis, but I do not mean that with any disrespect to her or others who take a different view. This is not a Bill on which we should be judgmental, any more than we should be judgmental in relation to divorce itself. The Bill is, to my mind, a sensible one. It reflects reality, which is often painful—painful not least for the parties and for their families. As I said on Second Reading, I start from the proposition—it also informs my approach to these amendments—that nobody gets married setting out to get divorced. Divorce arises only as a result of a great deal of hardship, heartache and heart searching.

In my experience, as a constituency MP and lawyer—I did not predominantly practise family law as a lawyer, although I did a bit at one time, and I have many friends who continue to do it at every level—divorce is not undertaken lightly, any more than any relationship breakdown is undertaken lightly. When it happens, however, it is better that it should be done with the minimum of conflict and the minimum of confrontation. Over the years, we have made reforms to the law of divorce to try to make it closer to the reality of the society in which we live, because, ultimately, that is what law has to serve. In this regard, I support the Bill for attempting, and succeeding in large measure, to do that. So although I understand that the amendments are well intentioned, I cannot support them.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend will, of course, understand from the personal experience of his constituents and from other experience that he has enjoyed that the acrimony he described is often about the dispersal of assets and the custody of children. It is not about the process of divorce; it is about the business of divorce. The custody of children and the agreement about assets will continue regardless of the process. Acrimony is a feature of the human condition, not a legal process.

[Sir Robert Neill]

The only part that I agree with my right hon. Friend about is the fact that acrimony can be a feature of the human condition. I am afraid that I have to profoundly disagree with the rest of his analysis. I regret to have to say that a divorce process that entrenches confrontation absolutely has the reverse effect to that which he suggests. The reality is that the acrimony, sadly, has arisen in the course of the breakdown, which, all too often, may have been a long time coming and may have happened for a number of reasons, which cannot be laid necessarily always at the door of one party or the other. But the law, as it stands, does not fit that reality fairly and sensibly. Whatever its intention, it actually makes matters worse, so I do have to part company with my right hon. Friend on that.

There is much to be said— I will take it out of turn but I think it relates to the principle of this—for the various amendments that relate to improving the attempts to support marriage and conciliation. I understand that and hope the Minister will have more to say about what more we can do in that regard. The truth is that, by the time we get to the issuing of the proceedings for divorce, the horse has bolted. We should do more to prevent that from happening and help couples when they run into difficulties at the beginning, but that is not what this Bill is changing.

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[Andrew Selous]

When we had the Second Reading debate on the Bill not so long ago, the Lord Chancellor made the very good observation that if we were serious about strengthening marriages and relationships in this country, we needed to do so through what was termed

“the right end of the telescope”.—[Official Report, 8 June 2020; Vol. 99, c. 677.]

I think he meant that we needed to have a greater focus on three areas: marriage preparation; marriage enrichment; and marriage counselling when marriages get into difficulty and relationship support for all couples. I like the phrase used in the Family Law Act 1996, which talks about marriage and relationship support, and as I said on Second Reading, although I am an enormous fan of marriage and always will be, I will always stand up for people who have never been married and those who are divorced as well as those who are married. I think that that would go for all my hon. and right hon. Friends on the Conservative Benches and no doubt across the House.

Returning to the Family Law Act 1996, a previous Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay, was absolutely clear at that time that marriage and relationship support services were an entirely necessary part of divorce reform. That was a good, sensible point, and I do not want this Government, of whom I am an enormous supporter, to depart from that principle. What worries me a little is that the Government’s position appears to have moved slightly away from wanting to try to support saveable marriages. I say that because the previous Lord Chancellor, talking of these reforms, said:

“Sometimes, a marriage will still be reparable at the point at which one spouse seeks the divorce”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 March 2020; Vol. 802, c. 1431.]

The current law offers little opportunity for repair, but it was a clear commitment by the previous Lord Chancellor, not so long ago, that we should look at being able to save marriages even when a divorce is potentially imminent.

However, what the previous Lord Chancellor says contrasts with the view of the current Lord Chancellor, of whom I am also a great fan. I believe him when he says that he supports marriage and family life, but he did say that

“by the time a decision to issue a divorce petition has been made, matters have gone beyond that, to a great extent—not in every case, but in my view, in the vast majority of cases.”—[Official Report, 8 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 95.]

I am a huge fan of the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) , and I know that he is personally a great supporter of strengthening marriages and couple relationships, but perhaps he could explain why the Government’s position seems to have hardened a little in this area of marriage and relationship support over the past six months.

Looking at the figures, I note that in 2018 in England and Wales, there were 91,299 divorces. My parents also divorced, so I know the pain and grief that that causes. In some ways, I think it is a greater pain even than a bereavement. We know from academic studies that around 10% of people who engage in marriage counselling services, even when a divorce is starting to be undertaken, decide not to divorce. That would be around 9,000 divorces a year that potentially would not take place, were we to offer services that the previous Lord Chancellor seemed to say were sensible; Lord Mackay of Clashfern said they were an absolutely essential part of divorce law reform.

[Sir John Hayes]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling argument on an amendment that seeks to make what most sensible people would regard as a modest change to the Bill, which is simply to say that where we can support reconciliation, we will do so. The Government have been offered that compromise, and I am astounded, frankly, that they have not accepted it.

[Andrew Selous]

I agree with what my right hon. Friend says.

Eagle-eyed observers of the amendment paper will have noted that new clause 1, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), and amendment 7 are identical. In fact, I have a confession to make to the House: neither my hon. Friend nor I wrote it. In case we are accused of plagiarism, I think it came from Lord Michael Farmer in the other place. It was a good amendment; it was raised in the other place a couple of months ago, and it has stood the test of time. When it was in the other place, I noted that it had the support of Conservatives, a Member of the Democratic Unionist party, the Liberal Democrat Front Bench and the Bishop of Salisbury.

From what the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), said today, I think he supports the spirit of the amendment—not perhaps the actual words, but the objectives, as far as I understood him. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee, also said he supported the spirit of the amendment, so I think we have a great deal of cross-party consensus on this issue, which I really hope we can take forward.

New clause 1 and amendment 7 need not actually cost the Government anything. Although “may” changes to “must”, the measure just says “make grants” in respect, effectively, of marriage preparation, marriage enrichment and marriage support, and the same for civil partnerships and more widely for relationship support. However, it does not specify an amount. We are not imposing a financial requirement on a Government who, my goodness me, are already struggling with enormous financial demands on them at the moment, but we are specifying where this work should take place, and on a very good evidential basis.

It was noted in another place, when the Bill was debated there, that support for marriage and relationship support has seemed to depend a bit over the years on the whim of whoever was Prime Minister and whichever set of Ministers were in place. That is a pity because, until recently, there has been cross-party support on this issue. Labour and Conservative Governments, ever since the Denning report of 1947, have seen it as core business, and there is a greatly increased need for it, not least because of lockdown, which has been referred to.

We know that family relationships are under enormous pressure in the pressure-cooker environment of lockdown at the moment. We also know that families coming through lockdown perhaps slightly better than others are often those where there are strong family relationships, and they have helped children and others to cope well. I know that Marriage Care, which contacted me after Second Reading, is having many people come to it asking for support that it and other members of the Relationships Alliance, which my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) quite properly mentioned, are unable to provide, because the financial means is not there, as Government support in the reducing parental conflict programme is quite narrowly focused on working couples where there is parental conflict—a laudable objective, but not actually wide enough.

Understandably, the Government are always nervous about new requests for spending, but the fact is that when these relationships go wrong, the Government pick up the tab big time. There is no debate about the benefits, the extra housing costs, the mental health support and other health support that will be paid out. We pay that out in our billions without question, so, as my hon. Friend said—and, indeed, as the Lord Chancellor said on Second Reading—let us put a bit more emphasis on the other end of the telescope to try to strengthen these relationships in the first place.

As we—hopefully—emerge from the pandemic, we need to rebuild not just a strong economy, but a strong society. All my hon. Friends were elected only last December on a manifesto that said absolutely clearly that a strong society is built on strong families. As one or two of my colleagues have said, we need evidence of that. That is a grand statement, with which we all agree. What are the actual building blocks to put that in place? I do hope that my hon. Friend the Minister, of whom I am a great fan—I was absolutely thrilled to see him be promoted—will give us some comfort on that, because very many of us really want to see it.

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[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I rise to speak to new clause 3, which stands in my name. It would replicate Scottish law, which replaces the two and five-year separation with a no-fault divorce after one year. It is a moderate compromise and I have no doubt that the Government will accept it.

I believe the Government are making a huge mistake. That is not just my opinion; the research is clear that liberalisation and expansion of no-fault divorce, wherever it has been introduced, has led to the most vulnerable in society being worse off. Look at the evidence from Sweden, Canada, and various US states—it all points in the same direction: we will have more divorces, and the worst-off will be hurt the most.

The Brining study in the US showed that 75% of low-income divorced women had not been poor when they were married. The Parkman studies show that, overall, women living in American states with no-fault divorce work, on average, 4.5 more hours a week than their counterparts in states with fault-based divorce. In this country in 2009, the then Department for Children, Schools and Families produced an evidence review that showed that a child not growing up in a two-parent household was more likely to be living in poor housing, to experience more behavioural problems, to perform less well in school, to need more medical treatment, to leave school and home when young, to become sexually active, pregnant or a parent at an earlier age, to report more depressive symptoms, and so on.

We now understand the intent behind the Bill: it is to make divorce easier and to propel more families, and particularly more women, into poverty. We know that, in reality, the Government’s intention is to speed up the divorce process, which they say will make it more efficient, but look at the side-effects I just described. Surely the cure is much worse than the disease? I realise that I am out of alignment with Government policy—a rare event for me—so I want to outline the purpose and rationale of the new clause. I admit it would constitute a rewrite of the Bill, but I think it is quite a moderate rewrite, and it accords with the central purpose of the Bill, which is to encourage no-fault divorce and, like it or not, to speed up the process.

Hon. Members will recall that the current law sets down the five facts that must be established before a divorce is granted. The separation ground does not require proof of fault, so we already have no-fault divorce, but the Government say the period is too lengthy. The problem campaigners have with the current no-fault divorce law is that it takes too long, and I agree. As Baroness Deech in the other place has said,

“the essence of the demand for reform is speed.”

I think the Government should be honest about wanting to speed up the whole process. Ministers do not like to be reminded that they are making divorce easier, but we must be honest: if a process is made easier, human nature being as it is, more people will do it. Of course, for many divorce is an agonising decision, but when married couples are having problems, the quicker and easier it is to get a divorce, the more likely they are to choose divorce, instead of choosing the hard work of talking out their problems.

My parents met at Bletchley Park during the war, and it was a great pleasure to attend their 50th wedding anniversary celebration in 1994, shortly before my father’s death. It was a shock for my sister and me to find some extraordinary and poignant letters written in the 1940s that showed our parents were clearly having enormous problems, but it was just as obvious that they were determined to make a go of it. People might say, “It was a previous generation,” but there were many couples like my parents in their generation. I owe them so much for keeping together and looking after us, and always being ready to help my brother, my sister and me. I am proud of what they did and the sacrifices their generation made, and I worry about what my own Government are doing in sending the wrong signal—sending the signal that marriage is not one of the most precious things in the world.

It has already been said that people can sign up to a mobile phone contract and be stuck with it for two years, in which they have to fulfil the obligations of the contract, but they can have a church or civil ceremony, profess lifelong fidelity before the law, before God, before friends and neighbours, and after just six months walk away. Basically, they just say, “I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you,” and that is that. What sort of message is our own Conservative Government sending to society? I believe we should be Conservative with a big “C” and conservative with a small “c”—socially conservative. I know that not a lot of people in Parliament agree with that message, but I have no difficulty with it. People out there understand what is at stake. In one poll, 72% of people said that no-fault divorce may make people more blasé about divorce. We do not need to look at a poll; it is obvious that it will make people more blasé about divorce.

Clause 1 abolishes all five fact grounds and replaces them with a system where one spouse can simply resign from a marriage and get a divorce in six months. My new clause would make a much less dramatic rewrite of the law. We can maintain the fault grounds for those who wish to use them, while substantially speeding up no-fault divorces, but still giving people time to reconsider. Far from giving couples in difficulty more options, this Bill takes them away. Is it a Conservative option to take away options, rather than keep them to provide people with different ways of getting a divorce if that is what they really want to do, and give them more time to reconsider?

We should think of the wife who is faithful to her husband for 30 years only for him to run off. She will have no way of getting a divorce that recognises who was in the right and who was in the wrong—that is taken away. Abolishing fault deprives spouses who wish to obtain a divorce on fault grounds any opportunity of doing so. We should think of the man or woman who is mentally or physically abused by his or her spouse. He or she will be unable to get any recognition of that through the divorce process. This new system will be blind to all suffering and to all injustice. The spouse being divorced against his or her wishes will have zero opportunity of contesting the divorce to try to save the marriage or to slow things down and plan for the future.

[Sir John Hayes]

But it is even worse than that because, as the Law Society points out, the respondent might not even know that they were being divorced. It will usually be a lady who is divorced by a man who has gone, as my right hon. Friend has described, and they might not know and then they would be divorced by January. That is the harsh reality we are facing and it is appalling that a Conservative Government should impose that on us.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Some of our amendments make it clear that there must be proper service and a reasonable length of time, and the respondent must know that the service is being made. Those are quite reasonable amendments, and I suspect that they will all be resisted by the Government.

My new clause simply mirrors the approach taken in Scotland—quite a sensible jurisdiction, you might think. It would leave open the option of seeking a fault-based divorce, while reducing the separation periods to one year with consent and two years without consent. Just 5% of divorces in Scotland now take place on fault-based grounds, so it is there for the minority who need it, while the majority can choose a no-fault option. This is Scotland. It works and it is not unreasonable. I see no reason why we should not replicate Scottish law, and that is what my new clause does. I cannot understand why the Government have not chosen a more sensible route such as that, as it would be far less controversial. Members will recall that the public consultation on these proposals met with considerable resistance—80% did not agree with the proposals, but they were ignored.

One argument made in support of the Bill has been that the waiting periods for separation encourage or force couples who want a divorce quickly to use fault facts rather than separation facts. If we really are worried about people using the fault grounds to speed up their divorces and allegations of fault increasing acrimony, what is wrong with the Scottish approach, where people can get a no-fault divorce on consent grounds in just one year and where only 5% of divorces now allege fault? Why not make no-fault divorce an option for those who want it, rather than forcing everyone to do it the Government’s way?

Again, we should think of the most vulnerable in society. Let us consider what happens in Sweden, a place that many Opposition Members praise. Even the extremely generous Swedish welfare state has proved totally ineffective at breaking the link between family breakdown and poverty. The incidence of poverty among children in single-parent families is more than three times that in families with two parents. The number of Swedish households in poverty headed by a single parent is more than four times the number of households in poverty headed by couples. It must be emphasised that Parliament does not exist in a vacuum. The laws that we make here will have repercussions in every community in the country. Do we want more children to be disadvantaged? Do we want to see women poorer and working longer hours? Do we want to deprive innocent spouses of having their blame business being recognised in the divorce process? I hope that the answer is no.

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[Sir John Hayes]

We are already in that place. There was a time when what my hon. Friend says is right—that fault had to be established to get divorced at all. But for a very long time now, we have had a legal circumstance where people could get divorced without fault by being separated, and the significant majority go down that road.

[David Simmonds]

My right hon. Friend makes a very powerful point, but we also need to recognise that the context of our society today is very much of the view that five years is a long time to wait and that the process that is required where fault is established in order to undertake the divorce more quickly is one that inevitably leads to this degree of conflict. Let me move on to the key point—

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I was deeply saddened a few weeks ago to hear one of my colleagues on this side of the House declare that to support this Bill is thoroughly un-Conservative. Forgive me, but that is not my understanding of Conservativism. The Conservativism that runs through me, and on which I was fortunate enough to be elected to this place, means giving people the freedom to live their lives, the freedom to love, the freedom to marry—I am so proud to represent the party that introduced gay marriage and equal marriage—and also the freedom to separate where that difficult decision has been made. To leave people trapped in unhappy or abusive marriages and deny them their freedom is not the Conservatism that I know.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

C S Lewis said:

“We are all fallen creatures and all very hard to live with.”

Since the fall from the state of grace, the prevailing condition of humankind has been imperfection. Because we are imperfect creatures the relationships we form are imperfect too. They are full of the joys, triumphs, disappointments and disasters that perpetuate through the human condition and that everyone in this place will have known during the course of their lives. So it is preposterous to suggest that a change in the process of divorce will iron out enmity or acrimony. The end of a love is by its nature acrimonious. It is full of disappointment and sorrow, and it will ever more be so. Let us not pretend that we are in a fairy tale, whereby if we change the business of divorce, we will change the content of that doubt and disappointment, for we will not.

As I said in an earlier intervention, the principal cause of that enmity is issues over children, and they will remain. The second cause is the sharing out of assets, and that will remain. Arguably the period of time that currently prevails gives a chance to sort that out, and certainly it gives a chance to take advice, to consider carefully, to contemplate and to reflect. One in 10 divorces that are begun do not end for that very reason—people do think again and when they think again, they often try again.

We are condemning many women, in particular, to a very sorry future, because for the most part it will be women who are left by men—not always, of course, but for the most part—and many will not even know they are being divorced, as the Law Society points out in its analysis of the Bill; divorce will be initiated, and women will learn that they will be divorced in a few months, but they will be given no cause, no reason, no justification and no explanation. That is what this Bill does. Thus I regard it as extraordinary that the imperfections that, as I say, have always been so are not recognised by this House as being bound to prevail regardless of this Bill.

Governments are imperfect, too. I spent 19 years on my party’s Front Bench, many of them as a Minister, so I know how imperfect Governments are. Governments bring legislation to the House that is ironed out during its scrutiny. I do not blame for a moment the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham, because he is a new Minister, a good man and a fine fellow, and he would not be calling the shots on this, but I find it extraordinary that the Government have not compromised.

All the time I was in government—people on both sides of the House will remember this—I used to listen to arguments from both sides to allow legislation to develop and mature through scrutiny and argument. Many times, I would go to my civil servants and say, “Well, the point that the shadow Minister is making is right, isn’t it? We ought to take that on board.” Yet this Government have remained entirely resistant to the measured overtures of the Bill’s critics. We conceded on the point about fault, but all we asked was that the Government think again about the time. The duration could be 12 months, as recommended.

[Jim Shannon]

The right hon. Member will be aware that the Government have said that they are going to reduce it to six months, but is he aware that the pilot scheme was able to do divorce proceedings in three months? In other words, a quick divorce could become a really, really quick divorce if we follow the process proposed by the Government.

[Sir John Hayes]

Yes, if the Government carry on down this road, we will have Las Vegas-style drive-through divorces. The hon. Gentleman is right. The Law Society suggested 9 months, and it was 12 months the last time reform of the law was suggested some years ago, so I am astounded, frankly, that we have come up with six months. It is an imperfect world, but a still more imperfect Government and, most of all, a wholly imperfect proposal, on which the Government have been resistant to amendment or change in any way.

The second thing I want to talk about is learning, because we learn from listening. The Government issued a consultation, and completely ignored the fact that most of the respondents did not want what the Bill now proposes. Most people felt that, even where they believed that the law should be changed, it should not be changed in this way. This is the most radical reform of divorce, with no public appetite for it, which completely contradicts the Government’s own consultation. That is how bad this is. I have seen many pieces of legislation come before this House as I have endured and enjoyed many Governments of many colours, but I can rarely remember a Bill that I would be less likely to vote for than this one.

[Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir John Hayes]

I will happily give way briefly, but I do not want to truncate the Minister’s time.

[Carla Lockhart]

The Government did consult, and does he agree that, with three quarters of respondents disagreeing with the Government plans, this Government are making people disenchanted about consultations on such issues?

[Sir John Hayes]

With a mix of assiduity and diligence, for which she is becoming well known in this House, the hon. Lady has fleshed out my argument with the facts that I did not have at my disposal, so I am grateful. She is right. I mentioned that the consultation was not listened to, but she has shown just how much the Government ignored what they were advised by the people they consulted.

The third thing I want to talk about is time. It is absolutely right that we should take time over this sort of legislation, which is challenging by its very nature. The Bill is being rushed through the House at a time when we are enduring one of the worst health crises of all time—certainly, the worst in our memory—and families are under intense pressure and relationships are strained, inevitably. Yet the Government regard this as the right time to bring this Bill before us for consideration? I find that quite extraordinary—quite astounding.

In respect of time, let me say this. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who spoke at the beginning of the debate, is absolutely right that time is necessary so that people can engage with those services designed to encourage the very reflection I recommended. Counselling does matter. Time to think about how you are going to sort your life out, even if you cannot rebuild your relationship, matters. To limit that to a few months—what amounts, in practice, to a few weeks, because of the way the process is now going to work—seems to fly in the face of all experience, given what we hear from those engaged in that process of mediation and counselling.

[Dehenna Davison]

Does my right hon. Friend not agree, though, that a lot of that consideration is done before the point at which people will initially file for divorce? That six-month period is not really a six-month period, but is more prolonged.

[Sir John Hayes]

Yes, that is certainly true. Relationships do decline over time. Of course, my hon. Friend is right that in some cases the process of beginning a divorce will not be the start, but a fingerpost to a destination that had been established long before. In some other cases, however, a divorce will come as a complete surprise, because the Bill moves the emphasis towards the person who initiates the divorce and away from the respondent to such a degree that the respondent—usually, in my judgment, a woman—will be profoundly disadvantaged by this legislation.

Mr Evans, what a delight to have you in the Chair and to speak under your benevolent guidance. Finally, let me deal with the matter of family breakdown and children. A lot has been made of that in this debate. We know from all the evidence—I saw my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) in his place a few moments ago—and in particular the evidence from the Centre for Social Justice, that typically children do considerably worse in broken families. In broken families, children tend to do worse educationally and in all kinds of other ways. It is our job as a society to build strong and stable communities which comprise strong and stable families, and the Bill just will not support that objective. We want a better society. That is why we are all here across the House. Marriage is a key component in building that more wholesome and better society which will allow us to bring up children in a responsible and dutiful way to be the citizens of tomorrow.

The Bill undermines marriage, weakens families and risks weakening social solidarity. It is being rushed through the House by Ministers who refuse to listen to measured and moderate argument. If hon. Members do not agree with any of that, they can vote for it. On the other hand, if hon Members think that any of what I have said is meaningful, they should certainly vote against it. In doing so, they will be sending a signal from this House to the people that we care about marriage and, because we care about marriage, we want fewer people to be divorced.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

It has been a genuine privilege to hear the speeches today. They have been powerful, poignant and humorous, but above all, on every single occasion, principled. From whichever point of view people have approached this argument, it has been from a position of principle. As I say, it has been an enormous privilege to have heard it.



Before I respond to the amendments and new clauses, let me make some brief introductory remarks. First, there is a suggestion that the Government are somehow diffident about marriage; that is not so. We recognise—and we are not diffident about saying it—that marriages and civil partnerships are vital to society. Why? It is because they are a way in which couples can not only formally express their commitment to each other but, yes, contribute, through stable relationships, to stable communities. I support marriage and the Government support marriage.

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[Alex Chalk]

If that is right—I do not suggest that the hon. Gentleman is wrong about the statistics, although I have not seen the study—surely if we are in favour of reconciliation, we should be in favour of a process that does not so irretrievably toxify relations, so that there may be the chance of reconciliation. Instead, we are accessories to a system that encourages people to sling mud—mud that ultimately they cannot substantiate, which means that people can end up branded as unreasonable without the court having made a finding to that effect. That, in and of itself, reduces the chances of reconciliation.

[Sir John Hayes]

I say this in the spirit of generosity that characterises my view of the Minister, but we conceded that point about fault. The amendment suggests that the Government support reconciliation, irrespective of the fact that the Bill gets rid of fault. The amendments are incredibly measured and moderate—the Minister must know that.

[Alex Chalk]

I do not suggest that any of the amendments are improper or immoderate, but not all of them would have the impact that my right hon. Friend calls for.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

We conduct this debate at a time when we are fighting a virus—an invisible enemy—and we are told perpetually that the virus might mutate, as viruses are inclined to do. Of course, terrorism mutates, too: terrorism is not a static thing; it metamorphosises, both in character and in method. That is precisely what has occurred as we have gone about fighting the prevailing terrorist threat in this country. It makes the challenge of counter-terrorism acute, because countering something is usually about anticipating and predicting what might happen next.

As terrorism metamorphosises and becomes less predictable, it becomes increasingly hard to counter. That is precisely what has occurred in this country and in other countries that have suffered the effects of terrorism in recent years. Terrorists have become more adaptable and more flexible. Their methodology has changed, and a key part of that has been the use of modern communications in the recruitment, indoctrination and radicalisation of terrorists, particularly using the internet.

I wish to talk about the character of that radicalisation. It is much like the kind of grooming with which we are tragically familiar in respect of children who are drawn towards paedophiles. People are groomed on the internet, and the method is disarmingly and shockingly similar. A lonely individual will be identified and told that at last they have a friend. That person will not reveal—indeed, will conceal—any connection to an extremist cause. Gradually, over time, that individual will be turned into the kind of person who will do almost anything for a cause and for their friends. That is made much easier in the modern age: the character of the way we communicate has altered, so this will happen in people’s homes, in their bedrooms, perhaps unknown to their family, certainly unknown to others and, of course, by definition therefore unknown to the security services and those who might do something about it.

Because of all that, our response has constantly to be reviewed, which is precisely what the Government are in the business of doing, and that is why over the years, including the time that I was the Minister responsible, the Government have looked again at whether they have the mechanisms in place and the resources and powers necessary to deal with the changed threat. The Bill goes about that in a number of ways, and I wish to draw out some particular aspects of it for closer consideration, if I may.

On the issue of TPIMs, they are always a contentious matter, and indeed it was a contentious matter in the days of control orders, which some of us will remember, under a previous Government of a different colour. It is vital that we use the powers that we have to restrict the activities of those who might do harm. The question becomes where we fix the bar. The Bill lowers the bar and, in my judgment, rightly so.

Perhaps I ought to admit that I was not a particularly vehement critic—in fact, I was not a critic at all, so I am understating it a bit—of control orders and the methods used by a previous Government. I do not know if it is quite polite to say that, but I am sure it will please one or two Members on the other side of the Chamber—although I am not sure it will please too many on the Front Bench. I saw the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) in her place and my remarks were half directed towards her. The right hon. Lady made the point that in changing the bar—in altering the criteria—it is right that we do so with care and that there is appropriate scrutiny.

I heard and read the remarks of the independent reviewer, but I simply add another point, which in a way mitigates the counterargument—if I can put it in those terms—and that is on the use of polygraphs, which have been used in other countries, particularly the United States. I am not making any great claim for them, and certainly no greater claim than the Government are, but it seems to me that testing the process of deradicalisation, assessing how far it has gone, and gauging whether someone has changed or simply seems to have changed, is vital as we gauge what should happen if they are not incarcerated—what should happen once they are out of prison and they are not in a secure location. The Government are right to explore that in the Bill. I suppose that one would say in truth that it is a work in progress. We, as a Parliament, as well as the Government, will have to consider how that goes. I know the Select Committee will do that in due course, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) mentioned. But mindful of that determination, illustrated by the provision in this legislation to look carefully at the character of the effectiveness of de-radicalisation, it is perfectly reasonable to introduce the changed measures on TPIMs.

[Mr Lammy]

rose—

[Sir John Hayes]

I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman and, in doing so, apologise for not being here for his opening remarks.

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. On the issue of polygraphs, does he note that the independent reviewer also says that there is an absence in the Bill as to how they will be used? Are they to be used against high-risk offenders, or very high-risk offenders, or are they to be used against low-risk offenders to assess their tendency to re-offend or offend?

[Sir John Hayes]

I should reveal to the House, for those who were not here yesterday, that I had a charming exchange with the right hon. Gentleman, where I described him as a “dear friend” and he described me as a “kind of friend”. I was rather slighted actually, but he made up for it later by saying that it was offered in good humour, and I took it in the same spirit, I have to say.

The right hon. Gentleman is right. One of the things that is important about debates on terrorism in this House is that they do not follow narrow party lines. We try to build consensus, as we face common threats and shared challenges. He is right. Rather like Prevent, we do need to be scrupulous about analysing effectiveness. It is right that the Government should do that and, again, without putting words into the mouth of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, still less provoking action on his behalf, the Select Committee will look at that, together, I imagine, with the Home Affairs Committee and others. There are all kinds of bodies in this august establishment that will play a role in ensuring that the application of what is a new development is effective. So I do not think that that is an unreasonable point, and I am more than happy, in the spirit that I have just described, to amplify it. However, I think that the Government are on the right track and I praise the Lord Chancellor for this in recognising that the bar did need to be lowered for TPIMs.

The other point that I want to make is in relation to Prevent and Channel. This is a complex area because, as I described, the character of terrorism is complex, as is our response to it. I am a pretty robust supporter of Prevent. It has critics; it has always had critics. It is certainly right that we have good oversight of Prevent—I tried to bring that about while I was the Minister and I do not think that that was always the case in the past—and that we measure its effect, too. I am not sure that that was always done as well as it could have been, and I am speaking about Governments of all colours here.

Having met Prevent co-ordinators and seen their work at first hand in various parts of the country, I know how much difference they make. It is not just about Islamist terrorism, although I suppose that is what most people will think that we are focused on today. It is much more broad than that. It is identifying problems of all kinds. I was proud, as the Minister, to introduce the Prevent duty, as some here will know, which engaged the various public bodies that are at the frontline of radicalisation—I am thinking of health professionals, schools and others—and also engaged communities and provided them not only with a responsibility, but, I hope, extra support in identifying those people, particularly young people, as it is often young people who are corrupted in this way, and in trying to act before they did something horrible, dreadful or shocking. I do support Prevent and, while I think that it should be reviewed, I also support the provision in the Bill to extend the review process. I make no comment on who should do it—that is for others to comment on—but I note that the Bill extends it and I think that is the right thing to do.

I come to the part of my speech that will perhaps be more challenging for some here—I hope not too challenging. None the less, I would rather be straight- forward, as I always try to be. It is about the issue of sentencing. Public order and faith in the rule of law depend on popular confidence in the justice system. The justice system is in part retributive. We have fallen into the trap of believing that the only purpose of criminal justice is to rehabilitate. Of course, that is a purpose—in the case of terrorism, as I have made clear, de-radicalisation is crucial—but public sympathy for all we do, and all our security and intelligence services and the police do, depends on people believing that justice is being done, and is being seen to be done. That is hard to reconcile with early release at all.

If we spoke to our constituents about early release, I suspect a very substantial number would find it pretty hard to cope with in the case of serious crime at all—or what they perceive as serious crime—and all the more so with terrorism. I think our constituents, whether they are in South Holland and The Deepings or Tottenham, or any other part of this kingdom, and regardless from which community they come, would be surprised if they knew we were releasing so many people who have committed those kinds of offences.

I am going to draw my remarks to a conclusion shortly—I can see you, with typical charm, combined with authority, moving to the edge of your chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I particularly welcome the Government’s approach to early release. It seems to me that the various provisions in the Bill that increase minimum sentences and provide the courts with the ability to look again at the tariff, and in some cases, increase maximum sentences, are entirely in tune with popular sentiment and the threat we face.

Let me end by saying this: the Bill, in my judgment, is apposite and appropriate. We are speaking of those whose purpose is to murder and maim—let us be under no illusion and have no doubt about that—and in the struggle for civilised life, in the cause of virtue, on our side there can be no fear, no guilt and no doubt.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before we move on, we will now have to have a time limit. It will initially be 10 minutes, but I warn hon. Members that that is likely to reduce significantly in the near future.

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[Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) and to hear his remarks, and it is a pleasure to participate in this debate.

At the outset, I place on record my appreciation for the considerable and considered engagement from the Minister. I have appreciated the discussions that we have had and that he has taken on board the concerns that we have expressed. I appreciate that engagement. I have also appreciated the engagement I have had with the Minister for Justice in Northern Ireland, Naomi Long. In listing and highlighting the successes and good engagement, it would be wrong of me not to place on record my congratulations to the hon. Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn) on assuming a shadow Justice role. He and I come from opposite ends of Ulster and from different perspectives within Ulster, but it is great to see him assume the role and we look forward to his contribution later on.

There has been a lot of focus in this debate on terrorism in England and terrorism coming from Islamic and far-right extremism. There have been a number of references to Northern Ireland, but it is always good to commence a contribution such as this by reminding Members that I have been in this place for a short five years, and within that five-year period I have seen three constituents of mine murdered by terrorists. Often in this Chamber, it is easy to believe that the issues that plagued our society in Northern Ireland have gone away, but they have not. The threat to our society in Northern Ireland remains substantial. It is severe.

In those three years, Kevin McGuigan was shot dead in 2015 by mainstream republicans. Adrian Ismay, a serving prison officer, was killed by an under-car booby trap bomb in 2016 by a dissident republican, Christopher Robinson. Last year, Ian Ogle was stabbed to death by loyalist terrorists at the end of his street in my constituency.

During the course of those five years, many more have been targeted. I have had serving police officers who have survived. Many others within our communities feel under the cosh of paramilitaries who have not moved on and who continue to seek control. It is on that basis and that basis alone that our party would always support the Bill. Our party will support its Second Reading, but I will raise some issues.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He will know, as he said, that the Bill grows the capacity of the system to deliver extended sentences and cuts early release, but will he invite the Minister to consider the greater use of whole-life sentences, where a judge makes it clear at the time of sentencing that the person should never be released, because I certainly would?

[Gavin Robinson]

I am grateful for the contribution. I will touch on sentencing in a moment. I am not sure if the clock gets adjusted for that intervention; I was happy to receive it, but I would be even happier to receive the additional time.

I say to the Minister for reference—he will know why I raise this—that I was pleased to see, in paragraph 9 of the explanatory notes, the reference to counter-terrorism legislation being a reserved matter. He will understand the importance of why I raise that and go no further.

On TPIMs, it is important to say that the Law Society has raised concerns about control orders, how they were brought to an end, how there was a difficulty in engagement with human rights legislation and how the imposition of a control order may not have been proportionate, given the risk of the individual, which is why they were changed. It has raised concerns that the changes to TPIMs will take us back to that control order phase. It is for the Minister, in summing up, to assuage those concerns and to outline how the changes can proceed properly.

On sentencing, I am delighted that Northern Ireland is now included in the provisions. When we considered the Sentencing Act 2020 in February, I was not only concerned that Northern Ireland was left out, but somewhat perplexed by the reason given that article 7 and compliance issues with human rights legislation did not apply in England and Wales, but somehow did in Northern Ireland. We do not need to pursue that, because the Government have changed their position. I still have not got a satisfactory explanation, but we do not need one; I am grateful for the conclusion. It will engage some operative issues in Northern Ireland, some of which I know the hon. Member for North Down (Stephen Farry) wants to focus on as well. I think it can be appropriately defended and it is appropriate in the circumstances that we are included.

On a wider point that the Minister will not like, I am pleased that the Government are now engaging with the notion of mandatory minimums. I know that the Minister will indicate that that is not a change in policy generally and that mandatory minimums will not become the norm, but it is an important step forward. I have always railed against the view that there cannot be a mandatory minimum for any crime because it interferes with judicial independence. It is not our role to determine what a judge will ultimately decide, but it is our role as legislators to outline what we think any given offence should attract by way of a sentence, so I am pleased to see that.

On age, concerns have been raised about the application of the legislation, particularly to minors. I will not engage in the debate about the age of criminal responsibility, which is not for today and is not going to change. There are concerns, however, that young children—I say children and teenagers; minors—who are encouraged, abused or coerced into carrying out activity on behalf of older individuals who know better and who will not get caught themselves, will be considered under terrorism legislation. I ask the Minister whether in proposed new article 13A(6) of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008, inserted by clause 7, the requirement for the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland to designate for anyone under the age of 21 at least injects a bit of flexibility where our local devolved Department will have the opportunity to decide whether it will apply.

I am grateful for the way in which the polygraph section is constructed in the legislation, in that it is permissible but not forced on us in Northern Ireland. I see no practical benefit in it and I would not encourage our justice system in Northern Ireland to engage in polygraph testing. I am concerned about how it is creeping in continually, first for sex offenders on licence, then in the Domestic Abuse Bill for those on licence at the start of this year, and now in counter-terrorism legislation. It is easy to pick those three, because very few people will say, “I want to stand up for or defend sex offenders, domestic abusers or terrorists on licence”, but I still believe in the rule of law and I still have fundamental objections about the rigidity and the validity of polygraph tests. I do not think they are safe or secure.

When I consider offenders of those three offences, they tend to be the least likely to live in the real world and understand the difference between right and wrong or truth and untruth. They are probably the least likely to be susceptible to polygraph testing. We do not need Jeremy Kyle-style show trials in this country. If there are to be real-world consequences for breach of licence, we need to at least assess them robustly and in a way in which we can defend.

My time has elapsed. I look forward to engaging further with the Minister on these considered issues. In giving support on Second Reading, I look for further progress.

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[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott). I will not take up much of the House’s time.

I am sure that all of us in this place wish that this Bill was not necessary and that we could be sure that our towns and cities will never again have to fear attacks like the horrors of Fishmongers’ Hall last year, Streatham earlier this year, the Manchester Arena bombing, and the attack on Parliament, which was referred to earlier. All of us want to better protect the public and to somehow find the time and the means to rehabilitate those who want to visit that violence on our society, and to persuade them of a better way. Although I wholeheartedly agree with and support that motive and aim, I cannot agree that parts of this Bill will be effective in doing that.

As the hon. Lady said, keeping people in prison for longer will not de-radicalise them. It may, in fact, radicalise them further or give them the opportunity to radicalise others in prison. Keeping them off the streets for longer will certainly succeed in keeping them off the streets, but will that actually be effective if, in fact, they become more radicalised or radicalise others so that they are even more dangerous when they come out?

There are other flaws in that approach. If we are to prevent people from reoffending after they leave prison and encourage them back on to a lawful path away from terrorism, they need to feel the security of a home and a job. However, the release on licence, which is vital to that, will be shortened by this Bill. Similarly, probation is currently under-resourced, and it would be undermined by the Bill in its ability to de-radicalise.

[Sir John Hayes]

I do not know the answer to this, but I am extremely doubtful whether there is any reliable correlation in respect of the known terrorists that have committed such awful crimes in this country over recent years and unemployment or their family situation in terms of homes; in fact, I rather suspect the opposite. We need to be careful about making such correlations unless there is really strong evidence to suggest that they are meaningful.

[Christine Jardine]

I take the right hon. Gentleman’s point, but I was going to come on to a different correlation. Surely, we want to stop terrorism happening in the first place. Longer sentences only happen after the fact. Surely, what we want to do in this country is root out of the causes of terrorism—to make people feel secure, to give young people an alternative, to keep them away from radicalisation and, if they are in prison for another reason, to ensure that they are not radicalised by someone who is in there on a long sentence and has the ability to radicalise them.

I believe that the key is reaching young people to prevent them from going down the wrong route in the first place. That is why I believe that we have to strengthen the licensing system, strengthen probation and look at ways of ensuring that our young people, whether they get into trouble or not, have the security of a job and a way of seeing their future positively. That way, we can identify those who might go on to threaten our way of life. We should work with the education system and agencies. We should tackle inequalities. Longer sentencing will do none of that.

There is also a dangerous assumption that one size fits all. As in other areas, that cannot be the case. It is vital that we recognise in the way we proceed that there is a different dynamic in Northern Ireland. In clause 30, there may be an implication that people already serving sentences will have their terms changed retrospectively and will have grounds for challenge at the European Court of Human Rights. We have to be very careful how we proceed.

Although we all desire a way of limiting the threat of terrorism and de-radicalising our young people, simply acting with more force—longer sentences—after the fact will not be enough. We have to get to the root cause first.

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [Lords]

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 8th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who served for a considerable period in the Department I now have the honour of leading. He is right to talk about the financial consequences of breakdown. It is important to note the commitment made by my noble and learned Friend Lord Keen in the other place by way of a letter dated 16 March to Baroness Deech, which has now been placed in the Library of each House, that we will consider how a review of the law governing financial remedies provision on divorce may take place. I give him that undertaking.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for giving way. The Law Commission also recommended that rather than reducing the time that people can get divorced within from two years to six months, it should be reduced to nine months. Given his willingness to concede on the previous point, will he at least look at that again?

[Robert Buckland]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. I know that he, like me, is a doughty champion not only for the family, but the need to reduce conflict. I know that he makes his point passionately, but I would argue that the way in which this Bill is constructed makes the so-called quickie divorce a thing of the past. The minimum terms that we are talking about provide an equality of approach that will no longer discriminate in favour of those couples who perhaps have the means and the wherewithal to either separate and live separately or to employ the sort of lawyers who can, shall we say, get things done in a more expeditious way.

I stress to the right hon. Gentleman that the six-month term that has been naturally focused upon is a minimum. There will be divorces that take longer than that for reasons of complexity relating to each relationship. The point is that there will not be divorces that can take place in as quick a time as eight weeks, as is currently the case.

Reform of divorce law is supported not only by the lawyers, judges and mediators, but by the Marriage Foundation and, importantly, by evidence from academic research. It is evident that the law does not do what many people think it does. It cannot save a marriage that has broken down, nor can it determine who was responsible for that breakdown. Allegations made in a divorce petition by one spouse about the other’s conduct give no advantage in any linked proceedings about arrangements for children or financial provision for a spouse, yet the current law can perversely incentivise conflict. It requires an applicant for divorce or for the dissolution of a civil partnership to provide details to the court of the respondent’s unreasonable behaviour if their circumstances mean that they need to divorce before a two-year separation period. The incentive at the very start of the legal divorce process to attribute blame can only serve to antagonise parties at the most difficult time in their lives. Moreover, the court in practice has limited means by which to inquire into such alleged behaviour and must often accept what is said by one spouse at face value. This can be a source of real resentment for the other spouse.

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[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend will recall his Court of Appeal appearances, where the tribunal might have said, “Mr Neill, that’s your best point. You needn’t go any further.” He makes an important point on the issue of blame; it does not help anybody when it comes to these issues.

The clear purpose of the Bill is to reduce conflict, because conflict does not help when it comes to the legal end of a marriage. That can only be to the advantage of divorcing couples and their children, because children’s best interests are most clearly served by the reduction of conflict and the co-operation of divorcing parents who work together to ensure that they co-parent effectively. The Bill will help couples to focus on a more constructive way of collaborating in making future arrangements that are best for their family—in essence, looking forward rather than backward.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for giving way a second time. The acid test is: as a result of this legislation, will there be more divorces or fewer? It is my contention that if we make something easier, people are more likely to do it.

[Robert Buckland]

I understand entirely my right hon. Friend’s concerns. The number of divorces has declined in recent years, but that perhaps goes back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester about the beginning of it, because the number of marriages has declined in proportion since 1972, just under 50 years ago. Taking the long view, one should focus upon the beginning of the process—the nature of the commitment, the solemnity of that commitment and the importance of that relationship and that commitment—rather than the detail of the end process.

This Government’s proposals will apply equally to married couples and civil partners. While I conveniently refer to the concept of marriage and divorce, the principles and effects apply equally to civil partnerships and their dissolution. Husbands, wives and civil partners will no longer need to produce or face a real or perceived catalogue of failings in respect of their most intimate relationship. There is a strong common view underlying the proposals in the Bill, built upon the foundation of a significant evidence base.

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[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his speech introducing this important piece of legislation. Labour welcomes this Bill, which offers a common-sense approach that continues to respect the institution of marriage and civil partnerships, but avoids unnecessary antagonism and costs for people dealing with an often incredibly difficult time in their lives.

Sir James Munby, the former eminent president of the family division, has described the current divorce laws and procedures as “hypocritical” and based on “intellectual dishonesty”. As Sir James pointed out in his damning judgment in the infamous case of Owens v. Owens, the requirement of many couples to evidence unreasonable behaviour can lead to farce.

It was 30 years ago now that I studied Evelyn Waugh’s “A Handful of Dust” for A-level English, and as the Secretary of State might recall, in the case in Waugh’s novel, the character Tony is forced to spend a platonic weekend in Brighton with a sex worker to fake evidence to allow his divorce. That, of course, was set in the early period of the 20th century. It is surprising that it has taken that long to update these laws.

Divorce is an unhappy event in the lives of many. It has a profound effect on families, and on children in particular. It is important that the law does not force couples into an adversarial contest when a breakdown in a relationship occurs, but allows and encourages them to resolve matters in a constructive way. The Bill modernises the law, which has been fundamentally unchanged for more than half a century, so that it better reflects the realities of a breakdown in a relationship, better protecting the most vulnerable who attempt to come out of an abusive relationship and simplifying the process of ending a marriage or civil partnership without undermining its social and cultural importance.

The divorce process today is archaic and confusing to most people as they enter into an emotionally fraught process. The law forces parties who are going through a divorce to choose between evidencing one of the three fault-based facts about their partner: unreasonable behaviour, adultery or, less commonly, desertion. If neither party is willing to make such an application, the parties must separate but remain married for a period of two years, or five years if one party disputes the divorce. The option for couples today is entering into a lengthy and costly adversarial legal proceeding, or delay and legal limbo.

Both routes lead to difficulties for all and a real risk of harm to others. Couples who enter the process amicably can be quickly pulled apart by the law. There is an incentive for each party to make accusations about the other’s conduct, and that cannot be right. Some couples can easily live apart and bide their time, but for others, moving into separate accommodation without a finalised divorce and any financial settlement is impossible. That is why so many charities and campaign organisations that work with victims of domestic abuse have called for reform in this area for many years.

The new law will allow and promote conciliation and compromise. That will be of real help for families and children of broken relationships. Importantly, it will reduce legal costs that can quickly reach eye-watering sums, quite unnecessarily.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am so pleased to see the right hon. Gentleman back on the Opposition Front Bench. He is a dear old friend, but he is quite wrong about this. These provisions declare at the outset that the marriage is irreconcilable. If that happened at the end of the process rather than the beginning, he would be right; an opportunity for reconciliation, and perhaps rethinking, as a result of counselling might be possible. That is not the case with the proposals we have before us tonight.

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Ever since I first came into this House, it is true: we have had a sort of friendship across the aisle. I say that with a degree of humour, to which I know he is disposed himself. He raises an important issue, but I think the point is that the Bill allows for a period in which couples can reflect, and for mutuality between partners. We in this country are taking an important step, whereby two adults contemplating the breakdown of their relationship can reflect and pause, or come to a mutual agreement and step away from some of the antagonism that the system used to create.

First, the new law does not force couples into an adversarial dispute, but allows for an account of the breakdown in the relationship to reflect nuanced reasoning. That is provided by a simple statement. Importantly, for the first time couples will be able to make this statement jointly. In many circumstances, this will help couples to work together constructively to put a legal end to a relationship that is already broken. Indeed, the new law means that couples will now have the option of a joint application for divorce—a welcome and sensible new provision that must be good for children in particular.

This approach strikes the right balance between respecting the profound role marriage and civil partnerships play in our society, while also allowing for amicable resolution to relationships ending. This is not the introduction of shotgun divorces. The process will still take time, providing for reflection and perhaps a reunion. The new law has been welcomed by many relationship and family charities, such as Relate, which has long called for reform in this area. The minimum time for the application to a final divorce will be 26 weeks, which Relate has welcomed as providing the time to reflect, to give things another go if appropriate, and to access counselling and mediation. In reality, of course, couples have often contemplated and discussed separation for a long time before legal proceedings begin.

Secondly, the Bill ends a reliance for amicable couples unwilling or unable to make allegations about one another to separate and remain married for a further two or sometimes five years. This leaves couples in limbo, married but unable to make other arrangements. The current law is often counterproductive to any hope of reconciliation, as it can put off couples from moving back in with one another for fear of having to start the separation process once more. This can also be incredibly dangerous. Women’s Aid has highlighted the barrier for many women leaving abusive relationships, which is compounded by current divorce law. With over half of survivors of abuse shown to be unable to afford to leave the family home and with the decline of refuge accommodation, women are forced to rely on fault-based facts in any divorce proceedings, making accusations in litigation that can often increase their risk of harm. Indeed, figures show that 77% of women killed by their partners are killed in the year following separation. The current law also drags out the process of separation, which can affect the vulnerable in society. Many women have reported that lengthy divorce proceedings, and the adversarial nature of them, have given an opportunity to abusers to continue to torment them. It may be claims of a lost marriage certificate, not attending court or issuing spurious cross-allegations, but a perpetrator can prolong proceedings, causing more harm. Some people’s circumstances require a faster conclusion to the legal relationship. The Bill will go some way to helping them.

More broadly, the law as it stands discriminates against those on low incomes. For some who can afford to live separately, a no-fault divorce is perfectly viable, but others must make accusations of the other’s behaviour if they cannot afford such an arrangement. The Law Commission recognised that all the way back in 1990, stating:

“It is unjust and discriminatory of the law to provide for civilised ‘no-fault’ ground for divorce, which, in practice, is denied to a large section of the population.”

This Bill rights that wrong and it is long overdue.

Thirdly, the Bill removes the opportunity to contest a divorce. However, in reality, even now a party cannot simply argue that they want to remain in the marriage, but must identify a legal reason why the divorce must be refused. The law as it stands does not prevent disputes or help to bring about reconciliation, but instead only serves to aggravate a conflict that can be manipulated by perpetrators of domestic violence to further torment a partner. The Bill safeguards important procedural challenges—jurisdiction, fraud, coercion—but it will prevent the unnecessary dragging out of traumatic proceedings.

Finally, the Bill modernises the language of divorce. While a modest reform, many family practitioners in this area speak of their clients’ bewilderment at terms such as decree nisi and decree absolute. More accessible phrasing is important. It is a reminder that the law must serve all people, not just those who are legally trained.

Therefore, Labour welcomes this Bill, but these reforms must be put into context. The cuts to legal aid over the past decade mean that parties do not receive any support—none at all—in divorce proceedings, whatever their financial circumstances. In the year immediately preceding the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, 58% of parties were recorded as having legal representation in family cases that had at least one hearing, but that has reduced to just 36%, which means more people are acting as litigants in person during the divorce process. If a separation is acrimonious, the lack of legal advice can make an already stressful situation even worse. In courts across the country the effects of that are being felt: hearings take longer; more are emotionally heated without a focus on the law, because there are no lawyers representing the parties; and the process is more burdensome and stressful for all concerned—the judiciary, who have to hand-hold the parties through the process, and the parties who have to represent themselves.

The lack of legal advice can also lead to delay. Despite the Government introducing online divorce applications, the average time from the first stage to completing the divorce was 58 weeks last year, an increase of three weeks. The delays have effects on the couples, who often want to get on with their lives but are held back by a lack of early legal advice. Without such professional advice, the process for the parties, their families and, in particular, children, is inevitably emotionally strenuous. As Baroness Hale said, upon leaving the bench:

“It’s unreasonable to expect a husband and wife or mother and father who are in crisis in their personal relationship to make their own arrangements without help”.

She has also highlighted something else that is not fair, which is the potential for an imbalance in resources because of the lack of access if, for example, there is a wealthy applicant and a respondent without access to funds. Some studies suggest that legal fees for divorces can cost £8,000, on average. That is simply unaffordable for large groups in the population, but there is no legal aid provision at all. Ironically, the legal aid system introduced by the Attlee Government with the aim of guaranteeing access to justice was initially focused on divorces, where numbers rose exponentially after the war; after a decade of a Conservative Government, it is not provided for at all in these circumstances. The Bill will certainly help couples going through this process, but further investment in legal aid is necessary to ensure that justice is being done fairly for all. I hope that the Secretary of State might say something about the position on legal aid during the course of this Bill, but Labour supports this Bill and will support the Government in the Lobby.

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[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

When my party won an 80-seat majority in the election, I knew that it was about much more than getting Brexit done; it was also about responding to the working-class community’s desire for an alternative to the liberal agenda which has dominated politics for so long. So it is with deep regret that I see this Bill brought to the House tonight. We need a Government prepared to back communities, build families and cement social solidarity, and this Bill is injurious to all those objectives.

The biggest shake-up of divorce law in half a century is based on a misunderstanding of what marriage is and the human ideals from which marriage derives its meaning. This Bill reduces marriage to the legal status of a tenancy contract—one that can be dissolved at minimal notice by either party, without any expectation of permanence or any explanation.

Hegel said that marriage is a “substantial tie” that “begins in contract” to “transcend” contract, by abolishing the separation between the parties. Hegel’s point can be put more simply: essentially, a marriage is not a contract but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said, a vow. That is why it has such great significance to us and why it is traditionally surrounded by so much ceremony. Roger Scruton put it this way:

“That we can make vows is one part of the great miracle of human freedom; and when we cease to make them, we impoverish our lives by stripping them of lasting commitment.”

It is through our ability to limit and constrain ourselves that we express our true freedom.

Life is not a dreary succession of consumer choices, but a journey marked by moments of transcendental significance, and marriage is one such commitment.

Our existing law is founded on the ancient understanding of what marriage is: a vow. Progressive activists for the Bill, such as the Lord Chancellor’s old ally, David Gauke, say that alleging fault increases acrimony in a divorce, but that notion is based on a misunderstanding of marriage. Changing the law may cheapen marriage, but it cannot change the idealism in which the commitment of one human being to another is founded. Acrimony is almost bound to follow the breaking of such a vow. Regardless of what the law may say, enmity is not a product of the process, but a characteristic of human relations when they break down, and to pretend otherwise is to attempt to deceive this House and the people who vote for us. The current law reflects these facts of life and reflects the significance of the vow that has been made. Fault necessitates expectation.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

It is said by the supporters of this Bill that the divorce process can damage children, but that is only if parents seek to involve children. One thing that is absolutely certain is that divorce itself damages children, and if we make something easier, it will happen more often.

[Sir John Hayes]

I agree, and the Bill essentially turns divorce into an administrative formality, removing the breathing space that allows around 10% of divorces that are initiated to be averted. About one in 10 divorces that are started are never actually completed, and that is because of the time available for counselling, for reconciliation, for reconsideration and for trying again. The Bill removes that opportunity. It removes protections for individuals whose spouses seek to terminate their marriage in times of hardship or illness. For many, the changes could mean that faithful, committed husbands lose access to their children, while women cruelly abandoned by errant husbands will have no way of marking that betrayal and no reason offered for why their marriage has ended.

What is most disappointing is that the Government ignored their own consultation. Some 83% of public respondents opposed change. The Bill provides a 20-week period at the start of proceedings, which Ministers say will allow time for reflection, but 20 weeks is not long enough to settle the matters of property or to secure the welfare of children. In any event, the Law Society points out that most of the 20-week period could pass without one respondent to the divorce even knowing about it. Unbelievably, the Bill does not require the applicant to serve a notice on the respondent at the start of the 20 weeks. When that matter was raised in the House of Lords, Lord Keen gave a lukewarm response. He is never the most persuasive Minister. I say it is a basic injustice that must be remedied, not by the Family Procedure Rule Committee, as he suggested, but on the face of this Bill.

We are in perhaps the most challenging time that anyone can remember, yet we bring forward a Bill with such insensitivity that we challenge not only the stability of families, but the very nature of marriage itself. Divorce marks the end of a partnership—the death of a love. As a family ends, all of society is a little weaker. The Lord Chancellor will come to regret this Bill because it is fundamentally un-Conservative. As it makes divorce easier, it makes marriage less significant and will make it less valued, and that is a price that no one here can afford to pay.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

I am grateful to all Members who have contributed to this debate with such powerful speeches. A wealth of insight and poignant personal experience has been brought to bear, and this debate on such an important issue has been enriched by it. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) and for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) and the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) for sharing their experiences with the House.

Before responding to the points raised, let me make some brief introductory remarks. Marriages and civil partnerships are vital to society as a way in which couples can formally express their commitment to each other. I support marriage. The Government support marriage. This Bill is not anti-marriage; rather, it is anti-bitterness. In those sad cases where a marriage has irretrievably broken down, the Bill removes unnecessary and artificial flashpoints to reduce the scope for pain, recrimination and, crucially, harmful impact on children. We must accept the reality that some marriages do end. The Bill replaces a broken system which for decades has not operated as its framers intended. I note that it is supported by Resolution, which represents over 6,000 family justice professionals in England and Wales who have to grapple with the current framework every day.

One of the principal problems of the current statute is that it incentivises conflict. It does so in relation to those who wish to divorce before a two-year separation period because of the specific need to particularise the respondent’s unreasonable behaviour and to do so in a way that fits a 50-year-old statute’s prescriptive categories. The trouble is that words have consequences; they can do damage, so that where once there was grief, anger comes; where once there was sadness, bitter resentment follows. The academic study, “Finding Fault?” found that 43% of those identified by their spouse as being at fault disagreed with the reasons cited in the petition. That resentment is not just damaging for the parties themselves; others, particularly children, can be harmed by it too, because it toxifies the atmosphere in which a couple then approach negotiations over arrangements for children and finances. No wonder the president of the Law Society has said:

“For separating parents, it can be much more difficult to focus on the needs of their children when they have to prove a fault-based fact against their former partner… Introducing a ‘no-fault’ divorce…will change the way couples obtain a divorce—for the better.”

[Sir John Hayes]

Leaving aside the issue of fault, will my hon. Friend commit to looking, during the passage of this legislation, at increasing the six-month period, at dealing with the issue of both parties being notified at the outset of the divorce, and at ensuring that there is properly funded counselling and support for reconciliation? If he looks at those things, I think he will satisfy some of the critics of this Bill.

[Alex Chalk]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and I pay tribute to the characteristic clarity and eloquence with which he made his representations. Although I cannot give any commitment to specific points, he has made powerful points. On behalf of the Government, I commit to continuing the conversation in Committee.

Part of the problem is that the court has limited means to investigate the circumstances. Having marched the parties up to the top of the hill by requiring petitioners to make allegations, the system rarely inquires into whether those allegations are true. It simply does not have the means to do so. In fact, just 2% of cases are contested, and only a handful progress to a contested court hearing. For more than 40 years, English and Welsh courts have not routinely held divorce trials to prove the allegations set out. That is because most people nowadays recognise that marriage is a voluntary union. When consent disappears, so, too, does its legitimacy.

That lack of inquiry is a problem because allegations may bear little resemblance to reality, but they are presented as established facts. The scope for injustice is obvious. To satisfy the statutory provisions, minor incidents may have to be dredged up and artificially repackaged as a pattern of behaviour. A respondent who, in truth, is a perfectly reasonable individual will have their behaviour branded unreasonable. Conversely, a respondent may have behaved despicably—a point made by the Lord Chancellor —but because of the fear of repercussions, a petitioner may seek to rely on two years’ separation instead. At the end of it all, in the eyes of the law, the culpable respondent will never have been publicly rebuked, and will exit the relationship apparently blameless.

All too often, the law does not do what people think it does. That is not just the Government’s view. Sir Paul Coleridge, a former family judge and chair of the Marriage Foundation, no less, said that the current system

“is, and always has been, a sham”.

I think I may be the fifth person to quote him this evening, but Sir James Munby, former president of the family division, criticised the current law for being

“based on hypocrisy and lack of intellectual honesty”—

a point powerfully made by the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). The same is true of academia. Professor Liz Trinder, who has conducted extensive research on the divorce process, has branded the current arrangements “a meaningless charade”.

I want to address the points that have been made with great force by my hon. Friends the Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Devizes (Danny Kruger), and my right hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) and for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). To paraphrase—I will not do justice to the way in which they expressed it—the concern that they have raised is that the Bill will undermine the institution of marriage by making divorce more attractive. That is an important argument, and it has to be addressed.

The point is that it is a very sad circumstance indeed when a marriage breaks down, but some marriages do end. The legal process of divorce is not the driver for a marriage breaking down; it is the consequence. That is the point that my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor was making about the telescope. Petitioners do not issue speculative applications for divorce. In the overwhelming majority of cases, they take that step only after reaching a settled conclusion. In those circumstances, we must do all we can to mitigate the pain experienced by the couple and their family, especially the children. We cannot have a system where the legal process works to exacerbate acrimony and suffering where divorce is simply the process of bringing a legal end to a personal relationship that has ceased to function for both parties.

The point that is so often made by practitioners is that very often, individuals are surprised by the convoluted and artificial process that they are presented with. International evidence shows that long-term divorce rates are not increased by removing fault from the process of obtaining a divorce. In short, divorce and dissolution are a sad reality, but one that is sometimes unavoidable. This Bill prevents hardship and misery, and it will help people at a vulnerable time. I commend this Bill to the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Member will know that in January we announced a £90 million package of measures to counter extremism. Within that, there is a £3 million package for specialist intervention—counter-terrorism programmes and intervention centres—to build an evidence base for what works. We are also training our prison officers to assess when there are incidents, report them and challenge terrorist behaviour.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

When the Lord Chancellor introduced the Bill to curtail the early release of prisoners with his usual mix of alacrity and wisdom, I suggested on Second Reading, based on information from the House of Commons Library, that about 160 people might have been released early. Since then, having received further advice from our excellent Library experts, it has become clear that the Home Office quarterly report does not distinguish between early release and all release. Will the Minister take the opportunity to set the record straight by telling the House exactly how many prisoners have been released before serving their full custodial term of sentence in each year since 2013?

Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 12th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend is right to remind the House that there is no power to strike down the primary legislation. I am afraid that I will not indulge him in a direct answer as to the nature of advice that may or may not have been tendered, and he knows the reasons why. However, I reassure him that all the proper mechanisms have been employed and engaged in the preparation of the Bill, and that on the basis of all the information received, I was able—with high certainty—to make the declaration on the frontispiece.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend will remember that we worked together on these matters when I was in the Government. He is right to speak about the metamorphosis of terrorism. Will he confirm—indeed, these provisions underpin this—that we must never let the persistent and perverse advocacy of the rights of murderous individuals compromise either the work of our security services or public faith in the rule of law?

[Robert Buckland]

My right hon. Friend speaks with considerable experience, as we worked together on the Bill that became the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which rightly struck the balance between the need to protect the public and the need to make sure that the rule of law was respected.

That gives me a chance to warm to a theme that I make no apology—

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[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Where I can agree to a degree is that I certainly accept that there are people with mental health problems in prison who, frankly, should not be. The right hon. Gentleman refers, I think, to secure psychiatric units, where there is also a shortage of places. That is another issue that the Government need to accept on the basis of the past 10 years.

I heard what the Justice Secretary said about specialist officers, particularly those in de-radicalisation programmes, but we are tolerating a rise in physical attacks on our prison staff. That cannot be fair to them and it will not produce a constructive environment in our prisons. From September 2018-19, there were 33,222 assaults, including 23,592 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults and 10,059 assaults on staff. Levels of self-harm were also the highest ever recorded.

The Bill, I am sure the Justice Secretary will argue, will deal with the immediate crisis of the next few weeks, but he must plan ahead. The crisis in our criminal justice system does not end with our prisons. We also need the best possible probation services and the best possible supervision. In 2014, the Government part-privatised the probation service. I do not think it is unfair to say that it was an absolute disaster. The Government had more than 150,000 people supervised by private community rehabilitation companies and just left the high-risk offenders to be managed by the National Probation Service. The chief inspector of probation, Dame Glenys Stacey, said last year:

“The system which sees private firms monitor criminals serving community sentences is ‘irredeemably flawed’”.

She is right. No wonder the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s predecessor had to announce last year that the supervision of all offenders on probation in England and Wales was being put back into the public sector.

[Sir John Hayes]

The hon. Gentleman is making a point about capacity, and that seems to be reasonable. Early release—scores of convicted terrorists have been released early since 2013—adds to demand on capacity and he is making a case that we should address that. On that basis, I am sure he would want to support the Secretary of State in taking that pressure away, building morale and, as he described, allowing the police to exercise capacity more effectively.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

Well, yes. I have made absolutely clear my support for the measures before us today. My point is simply this: today we will deal with an immediate crisis. What the Bill will not do is deal with the broader and deeper problems we have that will need to be dealt with in the months and years ahead. The National Audit Office announced that the botched part-privatisation of probation cost the taxpayer nearly £500 million. Frankly, it is time for good sense and consistency in policy making at the Ministry of Justice.

The independent review of the Prevent programme, which I secured in the previous Parliament—I think I debated it with the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes)—has been announced, but there is no reviewer. We are now a year from the point at which the Bill that he and I debated received Royal Assent. Lord Carlile was appointed but resigned before Christmas, because he had already expressed views on the programme, and the Government have hardly shown urgency in appointing a replacement. It is high time that they did. I appreciate that that is not the responsibility of the Justice Secretary, but I am sure he will pass on the message to his Cabinet colleagues that the reviewer must be appointed and the review must begin, take place and make recommendations. Today really must be a day when that focus on rehabilitation comes and we turn the page away from a decade of problems in our criminal justice system.

One of the recommendations made by Mr Acheson was for an independent adviser on counter-terrorism in prisons. I would go further and press the Justice Secretary to provide external scrutiny and assessment of the deradicalisation programmes across our prison estate. In that way, this House can regularly assess the position, and we will not again be in a situation where we are taken by surprise or are responding on the hoof. We cannot tolerate our prisons becoming breeding grounds for extremism, and we need to ask searching questions.

I hope that this emergency legislation will pass without a Division. Alongside it, I hope that the Government will now invest in the very best expertise available in counter-extremism and tackle the crisis in our prisons. It is only by doing that that the Government can truly say they are doing all they can to keep our streets safe, and in that we will be holding them to account.

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[Sir Robert Neill]

I certainly agree that we need a more detailed analysis of the best approach to a threat that continues to change and develop. My hon. Friend is right about that, and it is right that this is a discrete, emergency measure to deal with a specific and urgent problem. We certainly need to look at the way in which we deal with sentencing, the treatment of such individuals and the protection of the public in that context—that is absolutely right. I happen to believe, lest it be hinted otherwise, that that is perfectly capable of being achieved within our continuing adherence to the European convention on human rights and that a series of British court decisions would tend to support that, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right on the broader thrust that there is more work to do in this field. I got the sense that the Government and the Lord Chancellor recognise that, too.

It is right that we should consider the necessity of the Bill. I would have thought that that had been well laid out now. That is one of the principles of the rule of law. Lord Bingham famously set out a number of principles. One should not act in haste unless there is a compelling reason, but the reality of blood being shed on the streets of this country seems a compelling reason to me. The fact that people have been released and then have swiftly, and frequently, seized articles and used them to catastrophic effect seems to make this legislation both necessary and proportionate, so I hope that the House will have no hesitation in supporting it.

One issue that seems to have raised some concern, particularly in legal circles, is whether there is any risk of retrospectivity. I do not seek to see retrospective legislation, and for the reasons that the Lord Chancellor set out I do not believe that that is the case. When I was in practice at the Bar, it was very clear that the prospect of whether early release might occur was not a consideration that any judge should take into account in passing sentence. The principle was, and always has been, that the sentence passed should be commensurate with the gravity and seriousness of the offence and any other legitimate mitigating or aggravating circumstances that the Crown or the defence can put forward. Whether there may or may not be early release thereafter was never regarded as a consideration affecting the penalty.

That is important for the argument that the Bill retrospectively increases the penalty, which I think is a misguided argument in these circumstances. It was often said that the prospect of early release in effect ameliorates the penalty that was passed, rather than anything else. There is a string of authority in both the UK and Strasbourg courts to the effect that the total duration of the penalty is that which is laid down by the court at the time. That is the bit that cannot be changed retrospectively and the legislation does not seek to do that.

[Sir John Hayes]

From his long experience of these things, my hon. Friend is making a cogent argument about the character of penalties. He might want to go further. The problem with the assumption about automatic early release is that it is injurious to the very principle that he set out. Early release has always been part of judicial considerations but on the basis of an assessment of risk, merit and worthiness. Automatic early release runs against those principles.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I understand that point and we can debate it in broader terms when the larger piece of sentencing legislation is introduced, as I understand it will be later in the Session. The purpose of this legislation is effectively to deal with that—as well as moving the release point from half-way to two thirds, the Bill automatically states that there must be consideration by the Parole Board. It is very important that the Parole Board has the resource and expertise to carry out the additional and heavy burden that it must take on. There have been good reforms of the Parole Board since the Worboys case, for example, and in the last Parliament the Justice Committee looked at this and urged changes to the way in which parole operated, which have been acted on. There is movement in the right direction but we must be ever vigilant in making sure that the Parole Board has the resource, which may include more specialist resource.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash]

My hon. Friend touches on a point that I raised several years ago, shortly after the infamous, terrible murder of Lee Rigby. On the question of persons returning to this country from ISIS, I told the House that, as far as I was concerned, the issue of their return should be evaluated in accordance with article 8 of the convention on the reduction of statelessness, which makes it clear that a person can be made stateless if they give allegiance to another country—the caliphate could be regarded as such in this context. I accept this is controversial, but the United States, for example, already applies article 8 in that way. If the person in question gives allegiance to another country, by definition they have moved into the zone of treason and have deliberately and voluntarily abdicated their allegiance to this country. I put that on the record because we have to take these matters extremely seriously, and I attempted to make such an amendment to the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. This is about not just external activities, but internal ones, within our domestic law, so we need to take this incredibly seriously. That is why I am appealing for this longer term assessment of all these questions, including the one my hon. Friend has raised, because it is so important and cannot just be put into a category of “rather extravagant thinking”. This is really serious.

As I said earlier, human life and public safety are much more important than the question of whether the courts may or may not interpret a particular provision in a more “fashionable” judicial interpretation than we ought to expect of our courts. I go further and say that human life is more important than any legal interpretation of human rights, which is why I have tabled my amendments. I imagine that the Committee stage will be pretty truncated, so I am not going to go into this in Committee in the detail that I will now. As this is a Second Reading issue and a matter of principle, let me say that we should include in the Bill, in clause 1, the exclusion of the Human Rights Act 1998. I have something of a history in that respect, but so do the Foreign Secretary and many others, such as the distinguished Martin Howe, QC. We were regarded as highly unfashionable some years ago, but issues of the kind that gravitate around the Bill have drawn attention to the fact that we have to take these matters really seriously. I understand that the Bingham Centre has made a number of representations on the matter, and there are clear indications that there are lawyers of some notoriety, if not distinction, who will seek to overturn the provisions of this Bill by going to the courts. I deplore the fact that they would seek to do so.

I am looking forward to the discussion in the House of Lords on this matter, because there are distinguished lawyers on all sides of the debate in that House, who, with the greatest respect to all of us here in the House of Commons, have been practising at the Bar, have been in the Supreme Court and so on. They will be able to bring to bear the right degree of analysis of the case law, which needs to be looked at carefully in this context.

[Sir John Hayes]

As ever, my hon. Friend is making a compelling case. I suggest to him that this requires a more fundamental review of the characteristic and extent of rights, and how they relate to citizenship, duty, responsibility and the public good. I wonder what he thinks of that.

[Sir William Cash]

That is an extremely important point. As my right hon. Friend knows, I have the greatest respect for his analysis when it moves from not just the law into the broader societal and philosophical questions, which ought to inform opinions made in this House; we should not just treat issues of this kind as if they are somehow matters of semantics. We are dealing with the kind of society that we want, and the impact of the terrorism, and murderous and dangerous behaviour, of the perpetrators of these crimes our own constituents. A most recent case involved somebody who travelled from Stafford down to London, and therefore was a matter of immediate concern to my constituents, because he had been living there for some time. The manner in which he was allowed to leave to come down to London and commit murder in Fishmongers’ Hall and in the vicinity is a lesson for us all.

I now want to deal with the retrospectivity elements of this Bill, which relate to my general concern to tie down this issue in the longer term. The Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), and I had an exchange about a number of cases. I am well aware that this is not the place for us to attempt to make an assumption that we are able to treat this Chamber as though it is a court of law, although we are, of course, the High Court of Parliament, but that is to miss the point; the fact is that proper analysis of the case law has to be conducted. Some of that has already been done in blogging and in some pamphlets, and I am expecting the House of Lords to home in on it effectively when the Bill gets to that House, although it will not have much time.

We know that Ministers have been warned about the likelihood of a legal battle; despite the assertions of the Government that the Bill is compatible with article 7 of the European convention on human rights—for reasons that I will explain, I am sympathetic to their view—there are those who will argue that it is not. I can see this coming, so my amendment would remove any chance that there could be that kind of legal battle on the applicability of the Human Rights Act to this Bill. My amendment would insert the words

“notwithstanding the Human Rights Act 1998”.

That is a belt-and-braces approach, and it is what I am seeking. I am not going to move this amendment in Committee with any intention of dividing the Committee of the whole House on it; I think the matter needs further consideration outside this House, and I look to the House of Lords for some indication of views.

My argument goes like this: this Bill is compatible with article 7. No one has read it out so far, so I will do so. It states:

“No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offence”—

for conduct —

“which did not constitute a criminal offence…at the time when it was committed.”

This Bill does not purport to create a new criminal offence. Rather, it seeks to prevent terrorists convicted by UK courts on the basis of offences that existed prior to the Bill from having automatic early release. I have already made my point about the length of time indicated. Furthermore, the explanatory notes state:

“The Bill does not retrospectively alter a serving offender’s sentence as imposed by the court, or alter the maximum penalties for offences.”

They state that the Bill is concerned with the “administration of a sentence”. I still believe, despite the exchanges I had with the Chairman of the Justice Committee, that the del Río Prada case could well still come into play there. I fear that it might be used effectively against the Bill. So my conclusion on the question of a textual interpretation of article 7 of the ECHR indicates that is not incompatible with this Bill. However, Parliament does have the power to legislate retrospectively—

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[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

Except for love infused by hope, fear is the most vivid of emotions. Love is perhaps more readily remembered, but fear is more easily envisaged, because fear in itself is the imagining of horror that might happen. That is why provoking fear has been the instrument of bullies, thugs, despots and torturers through the ages—to terrorise, hurt, harm, maim and murder is designed to intimidate each and all of us, and to undermine the certainty of order that underpins social solidarity.

Today the provisions we debate are designed to revisit the means of re-establishing order, and to reassure the virtuous that the wicked will not succeed. The Secretary of State described in his opening remarks the metamorphosis of terrorism—the fact that it is constantly changing, and so becoming harder to counter. There are obvious changes: the adaptability—the flexibility—of terrorists, and the instruments used to terrorise are altering. The spontaneity of terrorism is altering, too. The business of the security services and the police, and the legislation that underpins their business, must be just as flexible—must adapt to meet the changing character of terrorism.

The security services and the police, as I learned when I was the Security Minister, constantly refine what they do to anticipate and counter fanaticism, but early release is bound to undermine their morale, as well as to stretch their capacity. The number of subjects of interest, leaving aside those that have been released from prison early, already presents an extraordinary challenge to our security services and police, as we know from various debates that we have had and various reports on this matter, about which time prevents me from going into detail. Simultaneously, public faith in the rule of law is critical, and I suspect that most of our constituents would be amazed that we have released so many terrorist convicts early. I think they would regard that with disbelief. That we have allowed formulaic leniency to characterise the treatment of convicted terrorists is extraordinary, and in my judgment unacceptable.

It is not as if there had not been warnings, as the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) said. In 2018, signals were sent that this would have the kind of consequences that we have now met with horror. The Government are acting decisively in response, to reinforce the legislative powers necessary to allow the police and the security services to protect the public. Public safety, as has been said repeatedly, is the heart of this business.

I suspect that, as the Chair of the Justice Committee said, the enhanced role for parole boards will require greater expertise. The measurement of risk will also change, as the character of terrorism and our response to it changes. We need to be able to assess risk, as we always have, in respect of early release, for parole is about measurement of risk—it always has been—but it is also rooted in the idea that someone who is going to be released early deserves to be released, and will not create further harm and danger. I believe that the rehabilitative aspect of criminal justice is accepted across the Chamber, but the retributive aspect of justice should be accepted too. This is also about punishment—about punishing guilty people who have, through due process, been found to have done the most awful, horrendous, things, and we should not be ashamed to say that.

As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I was pleased and proud, as Security Minister, to guide the Investigatory Powers Bill—the 2016 Act—through the House. That Bill struck a balance between the protection of the public and the necessary safeguards that should always be applied when we are limiting people’s freedoms—maintaining the tenets of a free society and defending those freedoms from the anarchy of fear and disorder.

Since that time, many people have been released early. I shall be brief because I am anxious to allow others to contribute, but before I conclude I shall look at the numbers. I consulted the Library, as good Members of this House do, and was surprised and disappointed to find that since 2013 something like 163 convicted terrorists had been released early. By the way, I excluded from my considerations anyone who had been serving a sentence of less than a year, so those are just the people serving a sentence of somewhere between 12 months and more than four years. Therefore, leaving aside short sentences, the more serious terrorist prisoners had been released in significant numbers. Just imagine the effect on our Security Service and police of having to deal with the consequences of those releases.

Some of those released will have been rehabilitated and deradicalised, but we know that that does not always happen. I strongly support the legislation, which strikes the right balance. Ordered societies are built on the protection and promotion of shared public interest and the defence of the common good. To face down terrorism and the fear that it spawns, and to face up to our responsibility to protect the people we serve, we should support this legislation as it progresses through the House. I anticipate that it will be necessary to challenge those who seek to undermine it on the grounds of advocating the rights of certain people. We in the House of Commons must stand together to defend the common good and promote the national interest.

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[Mr Mahmood]

The right hon. Member speaks from experience of these issues. He is quite right to say that. It is very difficult for those who do not understand religion to put people into places of religious control and support. That is my clear point. We should have proper registration of people who go into these institutions. Anybody who goes into them should be required to have the proper qualifications and certifications, yet we let most people walk in, and we say that they can do this job. We have heard stories of radicalisation being perpetuated in certain prisons by some of the people who have gone into them. It is important that we look at how we move forward.

[Sir John Hayes]

I intervene partly to pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the good work that he has done in this field over a considerable time. He points out the difference between Islamism and Islam—a difference too rarely identified by our media, as he says. Perhaps a review of all the Prison Service’s work on the appointment of imams and their work in prisons should be part of the Government’s ongoing plans to address the issue.

[Mr Mahmood]

Again, I concur with the right hon. Member. As for the Government moving forward on this, for the past 10 years we have not paid enough attention to what has gone on. We need to look at this seriously. The two incidents we are considering, as well as others, and the potential release of other prisoners have brought the issue to our attention.

A big functional issue in prison is how we position inmates. The Acheson report looks at segregating these prisoners. How to deradicalise is a really big issue. If we put these prisoners all together, they become a group. If we put them with other prisoners, they radicalise them. We cannot keep prisoners on their own, because human rights law does not allow that. There is no magic wand of deradicalisation. We have to take the issue very seriously. We have to get the right people, with the right understanding. Good work has been done in Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on ways of deradicalising. We have to learn lessons from how those countries are proceeding, in order to address these issues. We have to go further in looking at those methods, whether they are relevant, and how they relate to what the community wants to do.

We have to look not just at prisons, but at external departments that deal with the issue. We have to consider education, under what licences we allow madrassahs to operate—if they have a licence at all. The only consideration for a local authority in granting permission for a madrassah is whether it would cause traffic congestion. If an applicant clears that hurdle, they can have one. No heed is given to the qualifications of the imam, there is no proper scrutiny of their past, and there are no security checks. Those are very important issues for us to look at in deciding how we move forward.

As for the people we know of, they are the tip of the iceberg. There is still significant radicalisation taking place, and we need to address that in the community. Radicalisation is progressing in prisons because there is a captive audience there. We need to move forward. We need to look at the availability of resources in prisons, because the resources that are required to deal with this problem are quite significant







While we are looking at Islamic extremism, we also need to look at far-right extremism. If this Bill is to apply to terrorists, it must also apply to far-right extremists —it is important that that is said. The contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) made a lot of sense. I pay tribute to her for the great work that she has done on these issues, including as Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. She deserves commendation for the great balance with which she has worked on these matters. It is important for that work to move forward.

It is also important to look at how we police these issues. As my right hon. Friend said, we need to look again at control orders for when people come out of prison. In the past 10 years, we have forgotten about control orders. We need to get back to that issue, look at what is valid and appropriate, and see how we can move forward. That is hugely important.

I support the Bill because it is necessary for us to move forward with the resources currently available to us, but we need to have a much deeper look at how to resolve this issue for all our communities in the long term.

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[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

I, too, put on record my thanks to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who has kept me updated in recent days.

In the wake of the two recent terrorist attacks, it is absolutely right that the Government look at the legal framework to decide whether it is adequate. Like the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes), I was caught up in the 7/7 bombing. I was on one of the tube trains behind the one that was blown up at Russell Square, and I remember the unbearable heat that came from the blast. I was also in this place during the Westminster lockdown. The hon. Gentleman is right that many of us have been affected by acts of terrorism, but with respect, many of us nevertheless come to this debate with slightly different views.

This Bill does three things. First, it brings about an end to automatic release and applies that retrospectively. That is overdue, but very welcome. Liberal Democrats have said before, and we say again, that this part of the law is currently wrong, and it is right that this House seeks to change it. The Government are rushing this Bill through to get to Royal Assent before the end of the month and before the scheduled release of other terrorists. However, this part of the Bill alone, on ending automatic release and applying that retrospectively, would achieve the Government’s goal—and, indeed, the priority of all of us to keep the public safe. This part of the Bill alone would stop the release of terrorists without Parole Board agreement. It would be possible to adopt just that part of the Bill for it to be a change in the administration of a sentence in a way that is compatible with the rule of law.

However, the Bill tries to do two other things that, I think it is fair to say, are problematic. The second thing it tries to do is move the point of release from the halfway point to the two-thirds point for future offences. Of course, it is the natural instinct of all of us to have bad people locked up for longer, but who would want somebody locked up for longer if there was evidence that that could in fact make them more radicalised and more dangerous at the point that they are released?

[Sir John Hayes]

That is not an argument about the length of the sentence; that is an argument about how people are dealt with when they are incarcerated.

[Daisy Cooper]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that point. Much of the evidence suggests that what helps the deradicalisation process is not only how people are treated when they are incarcerated, but the amount of time they have on licence in order to find a home, rebuild family connections and do all the activity outside prison. There is evidence to suggest that the time on licence can make more of a difference to reducing reoffending rates and deradicalising people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Daisy Cooper]

The hon. Gentleman will recall that, in my opening remarks, I made the point that this was a very overdue change. In fact, we have had many years where we have seen the effects of increased radicalisation in prison simply because of a lack of resources both for our prisons and for our parole service, so he is right to point to that element.

That leads me very nicely to my next point: because of the speed of the passage of the Bill, there is not sufficient opportunity for pre-legislative scrutiny. I would argue that, in the absence of adequate pre-legislative scrutiny, hon. Members should all sign up to a system of post-legislative scrutiny. Others in this debate have called for a review mechanism. The Government say there is other legislation coming down the line, but we know that legislation can slip, so I will finish by asking the Government to think again about this particular point to make sure that we have sufficient post-legislative scrutiny and that this law—

[Sir John Hayes]

I waited to intervene until a point at which I agreed with the hon. Lady, because I thought that was in the spirit of this debate. She is right about the need to review these provisions, but as she said a moment ago, any number of Committees will be able to do that in the course of time. We can move ahead with rapidity to defend the public, and then look at these matters in the round through the processes she has set out.

[Daisy Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that this legislation will of course be scrutinised in due course, but it is vital and right, because we are moving on with it so quickly, that we write into law a statutory review in one year’s time.

I conclude by saying that there is a danger that Bill will become a law of unintended consequences. In summary, we welcome the end to automatic release and doing so retrospectively—that is a good move—but we have concerns about changing the release point, particularly if that ends up allowing people to be released who are more dangerous than before. There are also questions to answer about the impact on the rule of law in applying retrospectivity to the release point.

Streatham Incident

John Hayes Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Gentleman can shake his head as much as he likes, but I am totally clear that we need to act quickly. That is why we are going to introduce emergency legislation, and I am sure he will support us in the Lobby.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

During my time at the Home Office, I introduced the Prevent duty so I am well aware of the importance of managing these matters before people are convicted, during incarceration and on release. However, sentencing matters. The Lord Chancellor has mentioned ending early release and increasing mandatory sentences. Will he also urgently consider imposing tougher minimum sentences?

[Robert Buckland]

My right hon. Friend, as a former Security Minister, is indeed very familiar with these issues, and he and I worked together on them during the passage of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. I reassure him that a mandatory minimum sentence of 14 years for serious terrorist offences will be part of our proposals in the counter-terrorism Bill, and I am sure that he will vigorously support that legislation when it comes to be debated in the House.

Domestic Abuse Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes]

I welcome the comments that the hon. Gentleman makes and those that my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), a former Culture Secretary, made when she said that she was trying to do what he suggests. Of course the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government must also be involved. We have heard much about health, relationships and sexual education in schools, so the Department for Education also of course has a role to play.

I urge the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend Member for Louth and Horncastle to do what she can to make sure that we are doing more for migrant women, bearing in mind that the destitute domestic violence concession is currently available only to those who come here on a family visa. We must consider those who are here as partners of refugees, those who are here en route to settlement but who have not yet got their protected status, and those who are here on tier 4 visas. We have heard much about older victims, but younger people, those who might be here as students, can also suffer from domestic abuse.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a valid point about the breadth of this issue and the need for Departments to co-operate. One of the most disturbing cases ever brought to my surgery—we all know how disturbing surgery cases can be—was that of a disabled man whom I had known in a different context as a cheerful, light-hearted person but who had been abused for years by his wife, who was of course much stronger and more powerful than him. Disabled people and other vulnerable people need to be taken into account here, which is one reason why we need to work across Government.

[Caroline Nokes]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right; we must work across Government and we must consider all vulnerabilities.

We have heard this afternoon about the varied forms that domestic abuse takes. It might be physical, financial, emotional. We have heard about coercive control. However, there is also the controlling behaviour that relates to immigration status. A victim is a victim first, and the law and agencies must recognise that.

The role of the Minister is not simply to speak—it is to listen; it is to understand. Earlier, I mentioned the cross-Government meeting held back in May. As I said, it was not cross-Government enough, but I certainly listened very carefully that afternoon to the voices of Southall Black Sisters, the End Violence Against Women coalition, and Imkaan, and their message was that we had to extend the domestic violence concession and must not allow immigration status to be weaponised—as we know that, by perpetrators, it very much is weaponised. That can be physical, in the sense of a passport being withdrawn, but it can also take the form of the simple threat that a victim is in this country only because of the status of the perpetrator, and that if they were to approach an agency they would do so at their peril, and might then be excluded from this country.

The hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who is no longer in her place—I venture into this space with some trepidation—spoke of the EU settled status scheme and EU citizens. I urge hon. Members to make contact with Home Office officials and talk to them about the amazing amount of work that has gone into the resolution centre in Liverpool. When I was a Minister, I visited the centre and spoke to a wide range of brilliant caseworkers there. I hesitate to name her, but the awesome Gabi, who was passionate about helping those in the most vulnerable situations, spoke about recognising that there will be people who apply to that scheme who no longer have their passport, and who have no paperwork evidencing their stay in the United Kingdom, because their controlling partner has seized that from them and prevented them from having access to it.

We heard this afternoon about Government data sharing. Again I hesitate to go there, but there are occasions when data sharing can actually be a force for good. I would highlight the EU settled status scheme, which can combine evidence from the Department for Work and Pensions and HMRC in order to draw a picture of someone’s life in the UK that enables those who are vulnerable, who have been victims, to pull together sufficient information. There is a call centre. I sat in on some of the calls, which were handled in the most compassionate and understanding way so that victims were not put through a gruelling process but were helped to obtain their status. When I left office, there were in the region of 1,500 people working on the scheme. I hope to goodness that there remain 1,500 people working on it today, because it is absolutely imperative that we get that right for all EU citizens who are in this country.

I know that the Minister takes this matter very seriously and I am delighted that she has seized the opportunity provided by a day that we were not expecting to be in Parliament to give the Bill a Second Reading and allow us to make progress. I urge her to continue listening to the words of current and former Ministers. I know that the current Chancellor of the Exchequer was very passionate about ensuring that the review on migrant women enabled the Bill to cover more ground and enabled us to consider the domestic violence concession and do more.

I hope that the Minister heeds that, and that when the Bill moves into Committee we can all play an active part to ensure that we make it every bit as good as it can be, embracing as many individuals in this country who have been subjected to domestic abuse as possible, to give them the help that they need.

Children’s Funeral Fund

John Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

As ever, my hon. Friend puts his point simply but eloquently, and he is absolutely right about the prism through which we should be looking at this matter.

The scheme that we are envisaging will not just bring England into line with broadly comparable arrangements in Wales and Scotland. I am keen that we go a bit beyond that where we can. The children’s funeral fund will complement other measures to support grieving parents, including the social fund funeral expenses payment scheme and the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018, which was enacted last September. But I do understand that, alongside the welcome for the fund across both sides of this House, hon. Members and others clearly and rightly want to see the scheme in place as soon as possible, and to be reassured of the continued commitment to and progress towards that.

As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said on 6 February at Prime Minister’s questions, it is important that we get this right. We have therefore been working hard across Government to identify the most effective way to deliver the fund. For all the clear simplicity of what it seeks to do, it is none the less a complex and challenging policy legislatively and in delivery on the ground, bringing together a number of Government Departments, but it is a challenge that the Government and I have willingly accepted.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend knows—as do you, Mr Speaker—that, inspired by the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), I have been a champion of this fund and have indeed highlighted funeral poverty more generally. He speaks about the complexity across Government, and I understand that, but there is an absolute need for clarity where parents are concerned. When people have lost a loved one, particularly a child, they are vulnerable, and they need a very clear indication, as does the funeral industry, of exactly how this will work in practice. Can he give us an assurance that that will be the case?

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I should, in recognising the contributions made by Members across both sides of the House, recognise his contribution to this campaign and this debate, and indeed that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who has taken a very close interest in it. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) has, I believe, just become chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on funerals, so he will continue to be active on this. He is absolutely right. We do need to get the scheme right. We need to make it effective and legal, but as simple as we can. We are working to devise a comprehensive publicity programme to ensure that both the funeral sector and, of course, bereaved families are fully informed and fully understand how the fund will work, and how they can access it, in advance of its launch.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I cannot give a detailed date. The hon. Gentleman, as a savvy Whip, will read into this what he will. I have said that this will require a legislative vehicle, and given my determination to do this for the summer and given that the House would need to be sitting to deliver on that, that might give him an indication of my intention.

[Sir John Hayes]

I want the Minister to know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), myself and, I hope, the hon. Member for Swansea East, will be going to see the Treasury Minister next week. I have just texted him to tell him.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for updating the House on that.