Intelligence and Security Committee: Russia Report

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

Members will have heard what I said in my opening statement about the various steps that have been taken, including on countering illicit finance, dealing with the potential abuse of visas and investing through our national cyber-security strategy to counter cyber being exploited against us in so many different ways. That work continues. We also continue to work with those involved in the internet and social media on our online harms legislation, which we remain committed to. That underlines the breadth of our response.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend may be aware that I have done more than most to try to stop the return of Russia to the Council of Europe, so I recognise the enduring threat that it poses. Does he share my belief that the Russia report largely underplays the bigger picture and that there is a distinct risk to the UK through the international institutions to which we jointly belong?

[James Brokenshire]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all his work. Russia seeks to advance the sense of a state that supports the rules-based order, yet through all its other actions, we can see that there is a fundamentally different approach. I would underline his focus on the fact that we need to be clear-eyed about the threats and risks posed through multilateral organisations. I look forward to working with him and others as we continue to call that out and ensure that our interests are best reflected through those organisations in upholding the rules-based order.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 13th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

The details published this morning relate to the new system beyond 1 January. However, to be clear, we will refund those who have paid the charge since 31 March, not just since the time when the Prime Minister made the announcement. We expect to bring in the new health and care visa significantly before 1 January; we are planning to have it in place before 1 October, and people applying for it will not have to pay the surcharge.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

What steps her Department is taking to prevent hate crimes against places of worship.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins) [V]]

We are committed to protecting places of worship from hate crimes through the places of worship protected security scheme. The funding for next year, at £3.2 million, is an uplift of nearly double the amount awarded last year. A public consultation on providing greater protection from hate crime for places of worship closed on 28 June. We are reviewing the responses and will respond in due course.

[John Howell]

There is a balance to be struck between worshipping openly and being provided with adequate security. Will the Minister say what success the Government’s places of worship protective security funding scheme has had in achieving that balance?

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so. I can assure my hon. Friend that the places of worship protective security funding scheme has been designed so that each place of worship can apply for practical security measures that suit their individual needs, ranging from CCTV to alarm systems. This allows each place of worship to remain open and accessible for worshippers, while providing greater security. We want to ensure that this scheme listens to worshippers and their communities when seeking to achieve the balance to which he rightly refers.

Draft Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Commencement No. 14) Order 2019

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 General Committees

[Chris Philp]

I will respond briefly to some of the points raised by the shadow Minister. I thank him for his intention not to divide the Committee and for the constructive and thoughtful tone of his remarks.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the domestic abuse Bill. It is not my policy area, but I believe that it is the intention to introduce it in the House in the extremely near future, so it will be taken forward. We have clearly had a somewhat disrupted 12 months or so, with various things impeding the passage of legislation, but the Bill is important, as he rightly says, and we are moving on with it at pace now that we have a more stable political environment.

The hon. Gentleman asked why the pilots took so long. When we are piloting a new criminal justice intervention, it is right that we do it thoughtfully, rather than in a hurry. There are examples of interventions that were rushed and not properly thought through. It is reasonable that, before we change the law, as we are doing today, we pilot a measure in a considered and thorough way. As I said, five evaluations have been conducted. He asked about the roll-out programme and, again, we do not want to rush it. We want to make sure that it is done properly in each region in turn. Getting it done in the space of 12 months or so is not an unreasonably long time.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the release of the evaluations. The evaluations are independent, and we believe that those done on behalf of MOPAC and on behalf of Humberside, Lincolnshire and North Yorkshire will be published publicly. He will be able to read them in due course.

There have in the past been serious problems with the tagging contracts, which the hon. Gentleman referred to. Of course, any private sector contract, particularly in the area in question, will be monitored carefully for all the reasons he mentioned.

The hon. Gentleman asked about breach. Clearly, if someone who is given an AAMR breaches the requirement by taking the tag off or drinking when they are not supposed to, that will in the first instance be a matter for the probation service. It could escalate the matter to, for example, a magistrate who would be able to take appropriate follow-up action. The magistrate’s range of options would include another community order, a fine or, in extreme cases, imprisonment.

I completely agree, on the question of treatment, that it is critical that if someone has a serious health problem—whether that is drug or alcohol addiction or a mental health problem—we seek to treat it. AAMRs are not about treating people with serious addiction. Alcohol treatment requirements are designed to do that. However, AAMRs have a role to play with people whose drinking is problematic but falls short of addiction meeting the medical threshold requiring treatment, for which separate ATRs are in place.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

The Minister makes a distinction between the AAMR and medical treatment. Is he happy that that is a robust distinction that can be upheld in practice?

[Chris Philp]

Of course, it is always for the magistrate or Crown court to decide on which side of the line a particular patient falls, but, as I have said, we shall be returning to this area in the sentencing White Paper to be published later in the year. A critical part of that will look at ways to deepen and widen treatment for people who have addiction and mental health problems. The question that my hon. Friend raised will be addressed in the White Paper and I strongly encourage him, and others with expertise of the kind he has, to contribute to the thinking about that. It is exactly the sort of question that we shall address.

I hope that I have been able to respond, briefly, to some of the questions that were raised. I once again commend the instrument to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Howell Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Sir David Evennett (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Con)]

15. What steps she is taking to divert young people away from violent crime.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

19. What steps she is taking to divert young people away from violent crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

The Government are committed to delivering on the people’s priorities by tackling violent crime. We have already invested £220 million in early intervention. Through our serious violence fund, we have committed to funding violence reduction units until 2021. We are also introducing the serious violence Bill, which will put a duty on police, councils and other agencies to prevent and reduce serious violence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Victoria Atkins]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who of course brings to the House his experience of representing his constituency on this important issue. We are determined to ensure that the police have the powers they need to tackle this terrible scourge. That is why, in the new serious violence Bill, a new court order will be brought forward that will make it easier for the police to stop and search known and convicted knife carriers.

[John Howell]

What is the Minister doing to protect young and vulnerable people from drugs gangs, particularly in rural areas such as mine, where they are extremely prevalent?

[Victoria Atkins]

Drug gangs, or county lines, often involve a horrific form of child criminal exploitation, and we are determined to put an end to it. One of the many ways we are seeking to do that is through further investment in the National County Lines Co-ordination Centre, which has co-ordinated enforcement action across the country, resulting in more than 2,500 arrests and the safeguarding of more than 3,000 vulnerable people.

Release Under Investigation

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the use of release under investigation.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I am grateful to all Members who have come along to this debate about a dangerous situation that has arisen in our justice system—a situation that poses a threat to both victims of crime and those who stand accused of committing them. I speak, of course, about the use of release under investigation.

It is ironic that a lot of attention has been paid recently to the dangers of early release; release under investigation poses at least as many questions, if not more, but it has received far less attention from the Government and the media. Unintended consequences and austerity have combined to create a dire situation. Rather than helping serve justice, RUI hinders justice and puts victims of crime in danger. It is creating a situation in which justice delayed is becoming justice denied. However, there are some straightforward solutions, and I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response and reaction to them. I will start by explaining the current use of release under investigation and outlining the problems surrounding it for victims and suspects. I will then outline suggestions by the Law Society and the Bar Council for improvements in the system.

The first important point to make is that being released under investigation is different from being released on police bail. When a person is released on bail, they are subject to certain conditions. For instance, they may be required to live at a particular address, not to contact certain people, to give in their passport so they cannot leave the UK, or to report to a police station at an agreed time—perhaps once a week. With release under investigation, the situation is dramatically different. The accused is released with no time limit—it could be for weeks, months or years—and is not subject to any conditions at all. That means the accused is free to contact anyone, including their alleged victim, and to go anywhere, including leaving the UK. It also means that those who are falsely accused can be left in a state of limbo for years, not knowing whether they will stand trial.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I am listening intently to the hon. Gentleman. In the Thames valley, the number of people on police bail dropped to 379 in 2018, while the number on RUI increased to more than 11,000. Police bail just is not being followed. Does he share my concerns about that?

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I will come to that point later. The use of police bail has dropped dramatically, and the use of RUI has increased exponentially. That is partly because police bail is out of date, but I will come to that.

As I said, justice delayed becomes justice denied. Before we consider all the implications of those stark facts, let me draw attention to the huge increase in the use of release under investigation. All evidence suggests that the use of RUI has expanded massively since changes to bail introduced by the Policing and Crime Act 2017. In London, for instance, 67,838 people were released on bail in 2016-17. In 2017-18, that number fell to 9,881, yet the number of people released under investigation in the same period was 46,674. That indicates that RUI is being used to replace bail. The checks and balances of the bail system are being swept away by a system that has neither.

The picture is incomplete, because only 20 of the 44 police forces in England and Wales have released data on RUI. However, despite the patchy data, a clear pattern emerges. For instance, in Nottinghamshire, the Thames valley and Cheshire, as in London, the number of people on bail has plummeted, while the number released under investigation has skyrocketed. Worryingly, the Bar Council estimates that the number of offenders suspected of violence against people or of sex offences who are released under investigation has risen from 1,300 in 2016 to 27,000.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David.

The Minister will already have got the feeling from the debate that there is unanimity on both sides of the House on this issue. I will not diverge from that. I understand that the Government are undertaking a review of this area. We want the Minister to take up the issues we are raising today as part of that and to make sure that we are heard.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) said, we need a system that is proportionate. Just from the figures for the Thames Valley, it is clear that the use of RUI is not proportionate. The number of people released on bail between 2016 and 2017 was 13,768. However, in 2017-18 that fell to 379 people, and the number released under investigation was 11,053. What is happening within the police service is completely disproportionate.

In case the Minister has the impression that we are alone in raising this issue, we are not. It has been put forward strongly by the Bar Council and the Law Society, and by the Association of Chief Police Officers in its guidelines on how RUI should be brought into operation. The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) has gone into great detail about it, so I will not do that.

While there is clearly an issue of justice denied, the major issue seems to be the victims being deprived of their rights. As we have heard, there is no ability to impose orders to keep people away from the houses of those they are accused of performing some disadvantage to. The imposition of those orders, alongside general conditions, is a major feature of the bail system that does not exist in RUI. There is no ability to place conditions on a suspect who has been released under investigation; it simply does not occur. That has an enormous impact on the lives of the victims. It is not just the people who have committed the crime who are left languishing for ages, wondering what on earth is going to happen. Victims are left not knowing what is going to happen with the person who has been accused of doing them harm. We need to make sure that proper conditions are imposed. My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst mentioned the need to make RUI proportionate, and that, above all, seems to me to be something that can help.

I finish with a quotation about the use of RUI:

“in reality, it has made the situation far worse”.

It goes on:

“Not only are people released under investigation for longer than they were kept on police bail, but the absence of proper scrutiny means police do not keep suspects updated as to the progress of an investigation.”

Everyone in the criminal justice system is a loser from that—from police officers to victims and the people alleged to have committed the crime. Defence lawyers are also victims of it, and my conclusion is that RUI has been a dismal failure.

[Sir Robert Neill]

There is another problem with the notification procedure. The single letter, which is sent under the current system, makes it difficult to keep tabs on people. Frequently a person has moved, making it difficult for their lawyers to keep in touch. That will then involve an application to the court for an arrest warrant, and there may be subsequent hearings and a bail application, if there is an explanation for why these things have happened. Any cost saving made by not having bail administered in the first instance is, perhaps, wiped out by the cost of extra court time for the issuing of the warrant and any proceedings thereafter. There must be a better way of dealing with that.

[John Howell]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and there is another point to that: since we cannot take away people’s passports, they can go wherever they like and not be traceable. That makes a mockery of the system.

I understand why the police like RUI, since it allows them more time to gather evidence following the expiration of the timetable that they are under for pre-charge bail, but that is not a justification for continuing with a system that is now hopelessly discredited by all of us, the Law Society, the Bar Society and others. I urge the Minister to look thoroughly and carefully at this issue.