Prison Overcrowding

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

When we set about the current programme of benchmarking, I did precisely that: I listened to our staff and governors and accepted their recommendation, and I am implementing their recommendation thanks to the hard work of staff at all levels across the prison estate. The hon. Gentleman talks nonsense when he suggests I am not listening to the staff.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

This is an old story. Twelve years ago, the then Labour prisons Minister tried to defend a situation in which 20% of prisoners had to double up in a cell meant for one, saying this situation was only very limited. The problem is that there are twice as many people in prison than there were in 1993, costing £2.2 billion a year. Will the Secretary of State make it his aim to have fewer people in prison, particularly on short sentences, especially when we know that other sanctions are better at reducing reoffending and are preferred by victims?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend and I share the same objectives, and that is what our rehabilitation reforms are about. The truth is that approximately 95% of the people who end up in prison have already been through community sentences and probation work. We have to improve what happens at that stage and rehabilitation post-prison, but what we cannot do is simply not send to prison people who have committed serious crimes and are found guilty by the courts.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

I appreciate that this is a matter of judgment in all cases, but the distinction we have made is between those who have been disqualified by a court—in other words, they are subject to a court order—and have none the less gone on to drive, and those who are driving unlicensed, and, as the hon. Lady says, doing so knowingly, but not as a consequence of a court’s decision. That is the distinction we make, but I know she takes a considerable interest in driving offences and their consequences, and I am sure she will wish to engage with the review we will begin.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

The Minister will be aware of the Road Justice campaign by the CTC and others. I and they very much welcome this review. Will he give us an idea of the time scale of the review and when we can expect the conclusions, because many of us would like to feed into them?

[Jeremy Wright]

We hope to conduct the review over the next few months and I hope that will give my hon. Friend and others the opportunity to contribute to it, but let me just finish what I am saying in relation to the specific proposals in new clause 14. I hope the House will agree that there is a need for these proposals. First and foremost the measures should give families of victims a greater sense that justice has been done. More generally, tougher sentences for convicted offenders should improve public confidence in the justice system. Amendment 7 changes the long title of the Bill to include driving. I commend these provisions to the House.

I know that Members might like to see reform of other aspects of the road offence framework. Some have already been mentioned in the course of this debate. Indeed, new clause 22 seeks to make the offence of driving while disqualified an either-way offence and increase its maximum penalty; and we have, as I have indicated, been giving serious consideration to all representations made on this subject, not least from my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham, who has a ten-minute rule Bill on repeat offences of driving while disqualified. He and others rightly hold strong views and we are committed to ensuring that maximum penalties reflect the seriousness and culpability of offending behaviour. That is why, as we have already mentioned today and as the Justice Secretary made clear in his announcement on 6 May, the Government are committed to carrying out a wider review of the road traffic sentencing framework over the next few months. We are in discussion with the Department for Transport and other interested Departments about the details. We will make a further announcement about the scope of the review in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Julie Hilling]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting and important point. However we capture such information, it needs to be made available to magistrates, and that is an excellent suggestion.

I accept that the amendments would not solve all of the problems that I want to address of people driving with more than 12 points on their licences, of consistency of sentencing and of magistrates having the correct information. If the Minister will specifically commit to looking at the issue of 12 points and sentencing, I will not press my amendment to a vote.

[Dr Huppert]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) who spoke so clearly on this issue. I agreed with much of what she said about this huge problem. It is astonishing how many people get off time after time. Some law firms even advertise their incredible success rates in achieving that, which we do not want to see.

There may be extenuating circumstances or special cases occasionally, but once someone has said they know they should be banned, and then makes a desperate plea, they should be more careful afterwards. It is not impossible to drive for quite a long time without breaking any rules or getting any points on your licence—some people have clean driving licences. Certainly if I had nine points, or even 12 points, I would try very hard indeed not to speed or drive dangerously. I hope that the Minister will listen carefully to the review.

I have a couple of pedantic points about the hon. Lady’s amendment, as I do not think it covers everything that it needs to. However, that is not the point for today. I hope that we can get the right changes that most of the House would want to see. I welcome the Government’s announcement of a review, and I hope that it will be a substantial review. I also hope that the Minister is successful in obtaining parliamentary time to ensure that the results of the review become law. A review will not solve the problem on its own.

I pay tribute to the work done by the CTC’s road justice campaign, which produced an excellent report called “Road Justice: the role of the police”—I know that the Minister has had some discussions with that organisation—which looked not only at the legal aspects, but at the role of the police and the prosecution. The law is not the only issue. Too often, especially when pedestrians or cyclists are the victims of collisions, the police do not investigate sufficiently to allow charges to be brought. In several cases, people have come to my surgery having been involved in a collision in which someone else behaved very dangerously and the police simply were not interested in doing the basic groundwork, such as taking photographs of the scene at the time. There is very little point us getting the law right if the police do not investigate and prosecutors do not take action. I know that the Minister is not responsible for the police, but I hope the review will look more broadly at the issue to ensure that its proposals will make a difference.

The campaign has had some 12,000 signatures, so we need some action in response. Some of the cases are astonishing. In one case, a gentleman had been drinking and smoking cannabis and then was speeding, with his girlfriend riding pillion, and crashed and killed a pedestrian. He had 45 previous traffic offences but apparently there was not enough evidence to charge him with causing death by dangerous driving, even though there was a clear cause of death—dangerous driving—and he had a long track record. He did get 18 months in jail, but the fact that prosecutors did not even feel able to bring a charge of death by dangerous driving is a problem.

[Karl Turner]

Prosecutions are made on whether there is enough evidence to bring the charge and, secondly, whether it is in the public interest. I do not mean to criticise the hon. Gentleman, but it may be a little unfair to say that a prosecution for dangerous driving should have been brought in that particular case. Perhaps there was good reason why it was not.

[Dr Huppert]

The hon. Gentleman is right: I have not been through all the court transcripts in that case. But it is not an isolated case. It is a similar story in literally hundreds of cases—we have heard some today and many others have been collected in various places. I am sure he is not trying to suggest that he would agree with the action taken in every one of those cases.

One problem—and having spoken with many people about this, I cannot see an easy resolution to it—is that juries are often not prepared to convict on offences that perhaps they should be. Prosecutors can have a tendency to low-ball the charge to ensure a conviction. I hope that the review will address that issue, because none of us want to see charges being brought that juries feel are simply too serious to convict.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we are also looking for a cultural change here? In the same way that the present generation does not talk about “having a drink for the road” as might have happened 30 or 40 years ago, we seek a cultural change in attitudes to the offences for which people should serve prison terms.

[Dr Huppert]

I think we have seen a cultural change. The sentencing aspect is a very small part of that, as I am sure the hon. Lady would agree. The success of the drink-driving law is not the number of people prosecuted: it is the number of people who do not drink and drive. We need a cultural change that suggests that dangerous behaviour, whether it is driving too fast or cutting people up, is simply not acceptable.

We are seeing other changes that are making driving safer, such as the introduction of 20 mph speed limits. That is happening very successfully in my constituency in Cambridge, where we are seeing some driver behaviour changes, but it is still early days. The changes will start to get across the idea that driving or travelling in any form of transport carries a risk of doing incredibly serious harm to other people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and, of course, to the people of Brigg and Goole who are so ably represented by him in Parliament. He is absolutely right. Most people think that when somebody is sent to prison for whatever length of time the court hands down, they should be there for that period of time. It beggars belief that even when they are released from prison and commit another offence, they do not go back for the original sentence that was handed down.

There is no licence period for offenders serving less than one year in prison, and that covers about 60% of the prison population at any one time. Many of the remaining prisoners will be released on licence halfway through their sentence. Fixed-term recalls were introduced in 2008 to reduce the pressure on prison places. It was not done because it was the right thing to do, but because the previous Government got completely overwhelmed on the matter of prison places. Unfortunately, not much appears to be known by the public, nor—dare I say it?—by many colleagues in this House about how the system of fixed-term recalls works. A fixed-term recall occurs where the offender breaches their licence and is returned to prison for a mere 28 days, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) said—not for the rest of the prison term they were originally given, not even for most of it, but for just 28 days.

When fixed-term recalls were introduced, they excluded certain offenders. However, in his bid to reduce the prison population still further, the former Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe, relaxed the eligibility criteria by way of a change in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. I always had my doubts about the fact that the punishment of offenders was mentioned in the title of that Act, because it seemed to do anything but punish offenders, and I was right to be concerned. As of 3 December 2012, fixed-term recalls were made available to previously denied prisoners. These were offenders serving a sentence for certain violent or sexual offences, those subject to a home detention curfew—that is, serving some of their prison sentence at home—and, most shockingly, those who had previously been given a fixed-term recall for breaching their licence within the same original prison sentence. I suspect that not many people realise that, and they certainly will not like it when they do.

One unbelievable thing that I recently found out is that in the nine months from January to September last year, 785 of the prisoners serving sentences of one year or more who had been released on licence before the end of their sentence were not only recalled to serve just 28 days for breaching their licence once, and then released, but subsequently recalled to serve another 28-day spell and then released again before the end of their original prison sentence. In nine months, 785 of the most serious offenders in our prisons were released from prison having breached their licence, returned to prison for 28 days, released again, and then, for a further breach of their licence, returned to prison for just 28 days and then released again. You couldn’t make it up, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is a complete failure of policy that is completely indefensible and unjustifiable. I am not easily shocked when it comes to any matters relating to justice, but this has to be one of the most unbelievable policy decisions of all time, and I doubt there is much support for it among the general public. I would love to hear the Howard League for Penal Reform, otherwise known as the prisoner’s friend, and other do-gooding organisations justify this kind of approach.

In answer to one of my recent parliamentary questions about the Bill, my hon. Friend the Minister said:

“Fixed term recalls will continue to be used in low-risk cases where a short period back in custody is sufficient to deal with the breach and the offender can then safely be re-released to continue with their rehabilitation under licensed supervision in the community.”—[Official Report, 3 March 2014; Vol. 576, c. 641W.]

My new clause would remove those who have committed serious offences from eligibility for the 28-day recall, as well as those who have already been given a chance on a 28-day recall and gone on to breach their licence conditions again. If what the Minister says is really the case, surely he and the Lord Chancellor, who is, I believe, much more in tune with public opinion and more on the side of the victim than the criminal—certainly compared with his predecessor—will do something to rectify this appalling state of affairs and support my new clause. Unless he can offer some sensible measures to address these points, I intend to press it to a vote.

New clause 31 proposes that time spent on tagged curfew would not count as time on remand. The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 amended the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to allow periods of time spent on tagged curfew, on bail, to count as credit towards any eventual custodial sentence. As I said on Second Reading of this Bill, I want an end to the ridiculous position whereby time spent on tagged curfew is credited as though it were time spent on remand in prison. The new clause would remove that entitlement. Currently, when someone is on bail on an electronically tagged curfew from, say, 11 pm until 8 am, and they then receive a custodial sentence, the amount of time they have to serve in custody is reduced by half a day for each nine hours or more spent on the curfew beforehand. I have never understood the maths of it. If nine hours is spent on a curfew, how does that equate to half a day in prison, even if the two things were comparable, which, in my view, they are not? I appreciate that some people will have had curfews longer than nine hours, but some of those who had nine-hour curfews will still be getting the benefit of this credit. The credit also inevitably means that some people avoid prison altogether. If they have been on a curfew for a certain period of time and then receive a custodial sentence of a certain length, they will never see the inside of a prison cell despite the court having deemed that only a custodial sentence was appropriate for the crime they committed.

I can do no better than repeat what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) said as shadow Minister in 2008 when this proposal was first being made by the previous Labour Government:

“One of the greatest concerns of the public is that the current system leads to dishonesty in sentencing. People do not seem to understand that when a person is sentenced to two years in prison, that actually means that he will be in custody only for one year. It provides yet another example of how the Government, in order to overcome the difficulties of prison overcrowding, are guilty of promoting an untruth.”

He went on to say that a curfew

“cannot be considered the equivalent of having spent time in prison awaiting sentence, but the new clause directs the court to take all that time—described as ‘the credit period’—into account in reducing the custodial sentence. I am afraid that the public will find that rather difficult to understand.”

He went on to say, as I quoted on Second Reading:

“If someone has committed an offence that crosses the custody threshold—an offence that is serious enough to warrant a custodial sentence—it will cause a great deal of scepticism, undermine public confidence in the justice system and make the Government look increasingly ridiculous if the court is then required to say, ‘By the way, all the time that you have spent at home in bed is time that can be taken away from your custodial sentence.’”—[Official Report, 9 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 369.]

As it happens, back in 2008 the Conservative party voted against the then Government introducing this particular measure. Indeed, the Minister voted against it when in opposition. Has he changed his mind about this ridiculous system—if that is the case, he can tell us why—or does he still think it is ridiculous even though he does not accept my new clause? I would be extremely grateful if he could tell us why he intends to defend in this Parliament something that he thought was wrong and voted against in the last Parliament. We can only conclude that he has somehow changed his mind, but I am not entirely sure what caused that to happen.

My other new clauses, 37 to 42, all relate to open prisons and can be taken together. I am sure it will not have escaped anybody’s notice that open prisons have been a hot topic in the past week or two, with the absconding of the “skull cracker” from an open prison. The prison authorities might have thought there was a clue in his name before they decided to release him, but it appears that that was beyond them. This is a multiple armed robber who was serving 13 life sentences and had absconded from prison before—twice, I believe—but who somehow, unbelievably, found himself in an open prison and being released on temporary licence.

I had been looking at this issue for some time before the “skull cracker” case, and the more I learn about it, the more I despair. The actual facts regarding open prisons and the sorts of people being let out on day or night release are shocking. People say that open prisons are an essential part of people’s rehabilitation and that, just before they are released and have gone through all their rehabilitation, it means they can gradually work their way back into the local community. We know that that is clearly not true, because of the police’s reaction when the “skull cracker” escaped from prison. If all of this guff about rehabilitation of people in open prisons were true, when the “skull cracker” escaped from prison the police would have told the public, “Don’t worry about it, because this man was rehabilitated. He was going to be released from prison very soon anyway, so he is of no danger to the public.” Of course, the police did not say that; they said, “This man is immensely dangerous and must not be approached at any price.”

Therefore, we know for a fact that the argument that people in open prisons who are coming to the end of their sentence are being rehabilitated is a load of old nonsense dreamt up by the do-gooders. I can see from the facial expressions of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) that the do-gooders are ably represented, as usual. He, along with the Howard League for Penal Reform, is the criminal and prisoner’s friend.

[Dr Huppert]

I hope the hon. Gentleman puts his new clauses to the vote so we can see how much of the House rejects what he is saying. Does he really not care about the research done by a huge number of organisations which shows that reoffending rates among those released from open prisons are far lower than the rates for those who are released from closed prisons? Rather than give his own personal opinions, surely the hon. Gentleman would like to see less reoffending and, hence, fewer victims of future crimes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice) for his support today and on the panel, and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) for the support and guidance that he has given me throughout this process. This is very much an issue on which the House can come together, and it has been heartening to see that when it comes to the protection of children, people think on more a logical and protection-based basis than a political one.

New clauses 2 and 3 are the result of a cross-party inquiry into child sexual exploitation that I led with Barnardo’s. We discussed the new clauses in Committee, and I appreciate the careful consideration that the Minister gave them then as well as subsequently, and I hope that that translates into a commitment.

New clause 2 would amend the Sexual Offences Act 2003 as recommended by the inquiry so that the police are better able to prevent young people from being groomed. At present, someone is considered to have committed a grooming offence under section 15 of the Act if they contact the child twice and arrange to meet them, or travel to meet them with the intention of committing a sexual offence. My new clause would mean that the perpetrator would have to make contact only once, although the other requirements of the offence would obviously still remain. During the legal and the police oral evidence sessions, advocates and the police reported that the current legislation is too weak, and that making the grooming offence easier to use would make it a good prevention tool. As one legal professional stated,

“there is a lot to prove”

when trying to get successful prosecutions using current legislation.

In many cases, there have been multiple instances of contact between the perpetrator and the victim, but proving that can be difficult for the police. There was unanimous support for this change in the inquiry’s oral evidence sessions, specifically from senior police officers. Indeed, it seems clear that if a child is travelling across the country to meet an adult, or vice versa, and that adult has demonstrated the intent to commit a sexual offence, it is completely unnecessary to require them to make contact with the child at least twice.

Two years after the UK Sexual Offences Act 2003, the Scottish Parliament considered recommendations and adopted legislation on sexual grooming. Prior to making a decision, the Scottish Parliament heard from a number of witnesses. Several respondents questioned the need for adults to have met, or communicated with, a child on at least two earlier occasions. The Association of Directors of Social Work considered that to be prohibitive, as a meeting can be set up with just one communication. The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration recommended revising the requirement to one prior communication to more accurately reflect the reality of some children’s vulnerability and perpetrators’ skills in exploiting it. The Law Society’s written submission questioned why there was a necessity for the accused to have met or communicated with a child on at least two earlier occasions. It recommended that the reference to two earlier occasions should be deleted from the offence provision. In oral evidence, the Law Society witnesses confirmed their belief that there needed to be only one communication.

In oral evidence, the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland suggested that more than one contact may often be made in the grooming of children for sexual abuse, but that

“If contact had been made on a single occasion and the circumstances and other information that was available to us suggested that the contact was illegitimate it would not be helpful if we were required to wait until another contact had been made or the person had travelled with the intention of meeting the child and for more evidence that the meeting was likely to lead to sexual abuse, before we could intervene.”

In his evidence, James Chalmers also questioned the requirement for two previous communications:

“One lengthy internet conversation could last hours or the best part of a day and could be much more significant than two short conversations. That is why I have my doubts about the limitation of requiring two previous meetings or communications. I am not sure that that provision serves any useful purpose.”

Dr Rachel O’Connell, director of research at the cyberspace research unit at the University of Central Lancashire, gave evidence to the Committee that, in her experience, grooming can take place over a period of many months, but that in at least one case in Wigan, a girl went to a meeting with a paedophile after only a few online conversations during one day. In its submission to the Committee, the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit of Scotland stated:

“There is no evidence to suggest that a paedophile will not carry out the grooming process during the first communication and arrange to meet up with a child. This is no doubt the case in many instances. The aim of the new legislation is the protection of children and this loophole may well be one that the paedophile would utilise to avoid prosecution.”

I understand that the requirement for prior communication on two occasions was probably initially put in place to demonstrate clearly the intent to commit a crime. From a police point of view, however, and especially that of the child, this is at best an unnecessary burden and at worse will lead to a child being abused before the police can act. The Scottish committee recognised this concern, but considered that it is the content and the context of communications that are key to proving the offence, rather than the number of communications. There is a clear possibility that a particularly skilled paedophile could, in one communication, arrange a meeting with a vulnerable child. Because of all this evidence, the offence of grooming a child in Scotland is just one communication. I urge the Minister to follow that lead and adopt the same policy.

On new clause 3, there is at present considerable disparity between the maximum ages at which children can be considered to have been abducted, depending on whether they are in the care system or not. This was outlined well by the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire. New clause 3 would amend the Child Abduction Act 1984 to make it consistent for all children. Currently, the Children Act 1989 makes it an offence to remove a looked-after child from care without authority if they are under the age of 18. The Child Abduction Act 1984, however, which applies to children not in the care system, applies only to children under the age of 16. I went over the details of this issue in the Bill Committee and I am mindful of Madam Deputy Speaker’s warning.

In Committee, the Minister raised the case of a parent who objected to their 16-year-old running off to Gretna Green to be married and used the abduction notice to stop them. I understand his argument, but I believe that police would approach this pragmatically and make the right decision. New clause 3 would be extremely helpful in a case brought to me by a constituent. Her 16-year-old daughter keeps going out to meet her much older boyfriend. The mother is extremely concerned that the daughter is being groomed, but the police do not have enough evidence to act. As the daughter lives at home, the police cannot use an abduction warning notice on the boyfriend, which could be an effective deterrent. As she said:

“What am I meant to do? I tried locking her in her bedroom but she just climbed out of the window. Am I meant to chain her to her bed?”

If the Minister accepts new clause 3, all children under 18 will receive the same protection. My constituent’s daughter would not have to be demonstrably groomed or abused before the police could act. I urge the Minister to consider my new clauses.

[Dr Huppert]

It is a huge pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). It has been a pleasure to work with her on amendments in Committee and on Report. I pay tribute to her work and to the style with which she has tried to ensure that change happens. Her approach has been to try to solve the problem, rather than to have a political debate that would create heat but not fix anything. I hope she gets the result she deserves from the Government.

I will not say a huge amount on the detail, as the hon. Lady has covered the issues very adequately. When we discussed new clause 2 in Committee, the Minister said:

“it is sensible for me to go away and reflect on what she has said, and to work out what we can sensibly do next.”––[Official Report, Criminal Justice and Courts Public Bill Committee, 27 March 2014; c. 498.]

I hope he will be able to enlighten us on what he has sensibly done next. I notice it is not yet in the form of an amendment that we brought to this House. I hope an amendment is about to be brought, even if it has to, disappointingly, go to another place. I think the change can be made. I accept totally that the exact wording might not be precisely right—it is always hard to write these things perfectly—but the intent of new clause 2 is clear. The Minister was supportive earlier. I hope he will be again.

On new clause 3, I think the wording is slightly further away from what can be achieved. There are genuine issues—if a 17-year-old can get married, it does seem a little strange. I understand why the hon. Lady was not able to capture every single aspect of this. Having tried bits of legislation, I know how hard it can be. I hope the Minister is able to be supportive, so that we can close some of the gaps without going too far and creating problems that we do not intend to cause. I hope we can have helpful comments. I also pay tribute to Barnardo’s, which has done a huge amount of work on this issue.

I am aware of the constraints on time, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will not go through every single clause, even though I have strong opinions on some of them. The shadow Minister talked about assaults on members of the armed forces. He is absolutely right to say that we should take great care. People who serve in the armed forces do a huge number of things for our country and they deserve protection. They should not be treated in the ways he outlined. Some of the cases are absolutely abhorrent, but I am not persuaded that his exact proposal is the best way to tackle them. I hope he will seek to find a sensible way forward and not play party politics. He has avoided doing so in other areas. We want people to be treated properly and with respect, but I do not think it is right to single out the armed forces from other organisations. There are powers already—I hope the Minister can clarify this—for this to be taken as an aggravating offence. It is already possible to do what he seeks to do, so I do not think his amendment will move us forward.

Turning to the huge bundle of amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), I am happy to take credit from him for campaigning for what actually works. I know he is less bothered about that than some of us are, but I want an approach on prisons that helps people and reduces the number of offences committed. That has to be the aim. This is not just about punishment, but about not creating future problems. There is a huge amount of research on what reduces reoffending. Open prisons result in lower reoffending rates, and that is important. He would like to talk about the victims of the original offences, and I have sympathy with that approach, but I would also like to look at the victims of offences that we want to try to prevent from ever happening. That is incredibly important, and it is why I and others are so keen on evidence-informed policy making—that we should find out what happens and listen to experts rather than deal with a gut reaction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend surprises me. As he knows, the courts had been using the provision for some time, and we thought it important to regularise it by means of the Act.

My hon. Friend also referred to what he described as dishonesty in sentencing. He will be aware that my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary and I have considerable sympathy with the move towards ensuring that automatic release is minimised. He knows that our ambitions extend well beyond what we have managed to achieve so far, but I trust he will be encouraged by the fact that we have already reduced the application of automatic early release. We have removed it from those serving extended determinate sentences, and the Bill will remove it from child rapists and terrorists.

New clauses 37 to 42 deal with the use of open prisons and release on temporary licence. My hon. Friend mentioned the case of Michael Wheatley. It is an extremely concerning case, and, as my hon. Friend and other Members would expect, we are looking very carefully at what occurred. When we have completed our investigations, we will consider what further action needs to be taken.

New clauses 39 and 41 seek to prevent offenders serving sentences for murder or for an indictable-only offence from being moved to a category D or open prison. Open prisons provide an opportunity to assess prisoners in conditions more similar to those that they will face in the community, which is vital in protecting the public. To release life-sentence prisoners directly from closed prisons without the resettlement benefits of the open estate might, in certain cases, lead to higher levels of post-release reoffending, and thereby create more victims. That is something that both my hon. Friend and I would wish to avoid.

A period in open conditions for the purposes of ongoing risk assessment and support for resettlement can be particularly important for lifers—a category that includes all murderers—many of whom will have spent many years in prison, and will therefore often not be prepared for release. While those serving sentences for indictable-only offences include some of the most serious offenders, some of those who have been convicted of common-law indictable-only offences will not be dangerous. An example is those who have been convicted of cheating the Revenue—the sort of people, one might think, whom my hon. Friend might expect to find in open prisons. I suggest to him that what he proposes in new clause 41 is not a useful means of determining in which category of prison an offender should be held. That must be determined on the basis of the risk posed by the individual.

[Dr Huppert]

One of the challenges faced by many ex-offenders is finding employment. We know that employment substantially reduces their risk of reoffending. What evidence has the Minister of the way in which open prisons help people to become used to proper employment when they leave?

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

Members on both sides of the House will have shared my hon. Friend’s experience, which is principally a matter for my colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions. It will certainly be helpful if the right decisions are made more often in the first place, but we must ensure that tribunals, particularly the Social Security Appeals Tribunal, have enough resources to be able to deal with cases as soon as possible after receiving the information that they require. Often the problem is collecting the data that will enable an appeal to be heard. The present situation is not acceptable, and we need to reduce the delay between initial decisions and appeals.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

The Ministry of Justice faces large costs as a result of appeals against decisions made but by not just the DWP but the Home Office. Ensuring that the right decisions were made would save the MOJ a huge amount of money. Will my right hon. Friend consider applying the “polluter pays” principle, so that the Department that has caused an excessive number of appeals pays some of the MOJ’s costs? That would give Departments an incentive to make the right decisions.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Criminal Justice and Courts Bill represents the vital next stage in this Government’s mission to deliver a more credible justice system that keeps the public safe and secure, reduces reoffending and puts victims first. Under the previous Government, we had a plethora of criminal justice Bills as they jumped from one bandwagon to the next, but that was all to distract us from the real truth that Labour is the party of soft justice and unsafe streets. Too often, those who broke the law got away with a slap on the wrist, did not receive the punishment the public would expect, were released from prison even though they were still dangerous and were allowed to continue the cycle of more reoffending and more victims. This Government, on the other hand, have a consistent and clear approach: the justice system must be on the side of those who work hard and play by the rules, keeping our communities safe and secure.

We are already delivering on that promise. We have ensured that those convicted of a second serious sexual or violent offence face an automatic life sentence, and we are committed to having more prison places for adult males by the end of this Parliament than we inherited in 2010. We have toughened up community sentences, so they are no longer a soft option. I am pleased to say that proposals brought before this House through the Crime and Courts Act 2013 are now law. All community sentences now contain an element of punishment. It is extraordinary that that was not the case already, but it is now.

We have changed the law to give greater protection to householders in defending themselves against burglars—we have dealt with that issue once and for all. We have transformed the regime in our prisons so that they are now places of hard work and discipline, where prisoners are expected to engage with their own rehabilitation and work hard to earn their privileges. We are implementing fundamental reforms to transform rehabilitation by bringing together the best of the public, private and voluntary sectors and paying providers in full only if they reduce reoffending. The Offender Rehabilitation Bill, in its final stages before this House, will finally address the unacceptable situation whereby 50,000 short-sentence prisoners are released each year with no support, free to return to their criminal ways.

We have already achieved a lot, but there is more we can and must do. Too often, the system is inconsistent in the way it deals with offenders, especially those offenders who repeatedly flout the law. It cannot be right that muggers and rapists get off with a caution, or that those who abscond on licence can do so safe in the knowledge that, if caught, they will serve no more than the remainder of their sentence. There are too many offenders who commit serious crimes but are released automatically midway through their prison sentence. We will take action in this Bill to address those issues.

Perhaps most striking of all is the situation with youth offenders. Nearly three quarters of young people who leave custody reoffend within a year. The system simply is not working. We need to equip young people with the skills and self-discipline they need to turn their backs on crime, and that change needs to happen now, starting with this Bill.

My reforms do not stop there. I do not believe it is right that at a time when public finances are tight, the taxpayer continues to shoulder such a heavy burden for the cost of the criminal courts. In my view, the burden should be shared with those who are responsible for giving rise to the costs in the first place—the criminals themselves. Provisions in this Bill will make that a reality.

This Bill also contains some important measures as part of our long-term economic plan. Reforms to judicial review in this Bill, alongside those implemented in the first stage of the reforms last year, will tackle lengthy delays in the system, which put an undue burden on the taxpayer, act as a brake on dynamism and hold back economic growth. The reforms, which have been extensively consulted on, will rebalance the financial elements in judicial review cases so that anyone making a claim shares a fair level of financial risk. That will encourage those who bring claims to consider the merits of their case before doing so, and ensure that public resources are focused only on well-founded claims. I shall return to those provisions after I have dealt with the criminal justice provisions in more detail.

Part 1 of the Bill introduces a firm but fair package of sentencing and criminal law reform. I am determined that those who commit crime will be properly punished so that the public can both have more confidence in the justice system and feel safer in their homes and communities. I strongly believe that serious and repeat offenders should face the full force of the law for their crimes. It is not right that such offenders can be let off with a simple caution time and again.

I want to ensure that victims receive the justice they deserve, and that criminals know that they cannot lightly get away with what they do. That is why this Government are clamping down on the use of simple cautions. Offenders will no longer receive a caution for the most serious offences, such as rape and robbery. For other offences, the Bill will prevent the repeated use of cautions for the same or similar offences committed within a two-year period.

One of the aspects of our justice system that causes me most concern is the concept of automatic early release. As I have said before, I cannot abide a situation in which serious sex offenders and terrorists may serve only half their sentence in prison and—regardless of whether they have been rehabilitated and regardless of the risk they may continue to present to the public—are then simply released automatically midway through their sentence.

I do not think that early automatic release should be a right. That is why I am making a start on tackling it in the Bill, which introduces measures to end automatic early release for anyone given an extended determinate sentence, or sentenced to custody for the rape of a child or for serious terrorism offences. No such offenders will be released before the end of their custodial term, unless the Parole Board judges that they no longer pose a risk of serious harm to the public. I would like to do away with automatic early release in one step. In times of tight resource, I cannot do it in one go, but I can make a start, and that is what the Bill does.

Terrorism poses a serious threat to our society. Terrorists who commit or try to commit horrific crimes in this country must face the very toughest punishments. The Bill will close a loophole that desperately needs to be closed. It will increase to life the maximum penalties for a further range of terrorism offences, and it will extend the enhanced dangerous offender regime so that courts can impose the most serious sentences necessary for such crimes. I want to create a situation in which when courts view somebody as a junior member of a terrorist plot—until now, that might not necessarily carry a life sentence—they can decide to impose a life sentence because they view them as a serious threat to the public, and the Bill will enable the courts to do that.

Once prisoners are released, it is vital that they comply with the conditions imposed on them. If an offender is repeatedly or wilfully non-compliant with the terms of their licence, they should not be continually recalled to custody for short periods and re-released. The measures in the Bill will introduce a statutory test for the release of offenders who have been recalled to prison for breaching their licence conditions that takes into account not just public protection, but the likelihood of the offender committing further breaches, including reoffending.

I want to ensure that we increasingly use cutting-edge technology to monitor better the whereabouts of offenders while they are under supervision. Innovative GPS tagging technology will allow location monitoring of offenders, as well as the monitoring of compliance with other conditions, such as curfew and exclusion. I want us to be ready to harness the potential of this new technology, as it becomes available, to assist with public protection, reducing reoffending and crime detection.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State say what the cost of that programme will be and how successful prosecutions have been in the courts against people who have broken tags? I understand that there have been a lot of problems with tags not being reliable.

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the existing radio-based tagging technology has been pretty unreliable. I have seen the new generation of emerging technology in action and it provides some good options. It provides the ability to monitor a curfew or to prevent somebody who has been convicted of child sex offences from going near a school. Some offenders can actually benefit from the use of this technology. On one visit, the police showed me that they had excluded somebody from suspicion in the case of a household burglary because it was possible to demonstrate that they had not been in the area at the time.

As I have said clearly, I want to start using this technology for release on temporary licence. We have seen some very difficult cases over the past few months. The vast majority of people who are released on temporary licence commit no crimes and simply want to be reintegrated into society. However, when dangerous offenders come to the end of their sentences and have to be released on temporary licence, this technology has the potential to ensure that we know where they have been and to provide a degree of restraint as we integrate them back into the community.

The cost of the programme will depend on its scale. The technology that we are introducing to take over from the existing systems will save money. It will cost tens of millions of pounds a year less than what we have spent until now. It will be possible to extend the use of the technology to other groups, such as offenders on temporary licence, at a relatively low cost.

I want us to be ready to harness the potential of the new technology. That is why I am seeking to take powers in the Bill to enable mandatory location monitoring of offenders who are released on licence. As the technology becomes available, we will then have the discretion to be able to use it to the best possible effect to protect the public when people are released on temporary licence and, potentially, when people have committed very serious offences.

I am creating a new offence for offenders who go on the run after being recalled to custody, so that those who try to avoid serving the remainder of their sentence do not go unpunished. There will be a new maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment.

The final provisions in part 1 deliver on a commitment that is important to me and the Prime Minister. The Bill will make it a criminal offence to possess pornography that depicts real or simulated rape. I am sure that both Houses will share my view that such images are wholly unacceptable and that it is right to close this gap in the law.

That brings me to part 2 of the Bill and how we deal with young offenders.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we already make intense efforts across our detention estate—for young people and others alike—to try to get people off drugs and prevent them from coming into those facilities. He will also know that it is a constant battle because there are people out there making a determined effort to get those drugs in. This is not a problem that simply affects this country; it exists in most other major industrialised nations and elsewhere. We will continue to do everything we can to combat it, and in this institution I want to see treatment available for those who have a problem, but also a real effort to ensure a drug-free environment.

Part 3 introduces a suite of provisions to reduce the burden of court costs on taxpayers by making criminals pay towards the cost of their court cases, streamlining the way magistrates deal with low-level offences and modernising the law on the work of juries. As we work to bring down the costs of the justice system and deliver better value for money, I am clear that it is not fair to continue to ask UK taxpayers to fund a criminal court system, or to ask law-abiding members of the public to pay increased fees in the civil courts, without offenders being expected to make a greater contribution. The provisions will allow us to recover from offenders the cost of criminal courts and make a contribution to the day-to-day running of court services. This is not a novel concept: courts can already order offenders to make payments to victims and victim services, and to pay fines and prosecution costs. There is currently no power, however, to make offenders pay directly towards the cost of the court proceedings that convict them.

[Dr Huppert]

The Justice Secretary is absolutely right that there are other powers. The latest figure I could find is that £1.3 billion of debt is owed as a result of these orders. What fraction of the charges does he think will actually be paid?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

I hear what my hon. and learned Friend says, but I am not sure that we could afford to raise the retirement age for judges. I do not mean that in a financial sense. Since I took over this position, I have spent quite a lot of time approving the appointment of retired judges to a number of important roles in society, such as chairing commissions and leading reviews. We would lose that expertise if we allowed them to continue as judges until they were 75, and I am not sure that we could afford to do so.

I shall turn now to the final part of my reforms. Judicial review represents a crucial check on public bodies. It rightly allows individuals, businesses and others to ask the courts to consider whether, for example, a Government Department has gone beyond its powers, whether a local authority has followed a lawful process or whether an arm’s-length body has come to a rational decision. However, I am concerned about time and money being wasted in dealing with unmeritorious cases which are often brought simply to generate publicity or to delay implementation of a decision that has been made properly. Moreover, a significant proportion of these weak applications are funded by the taxpayer, through the expense incurred by the defendant public authority, by the court resource entailed, and in some cases by legal aid or by the public authority bearing the claimant’s legal costs.

The first stage of my judicial review reforms sought to tackle unnecessary delays in the system. Provisions in the Bill will build on those—for example, by making it possible for more cases to leapfrog from the court of first instance to the Supreme Court, speeding up a final decision. We will also seek to change the rules on who has to pay the legal bills for cases, so that all parties have an interest in ensuring that unnecessary costs are not racked up.

Provisions in the Bill will result in stopping taxpayers having to subsidise cases unnecessarily by limiting the use of protective costs orders to exceptional cases with a clear public interest, and only when the court grants them permission to proceed. The provisions will also ensure that details of anyone financially backing a judicial review are disclosed to the court, even if they are not a named party, so that costs can be allocated fairly. They will also make third parties who voluntarily join in a JR case as interveners responsible for paying their own way.

[Dr Huppert]

Perhaps I have misunderstood clause 53, but it seems to suggest that interveners will have to pay not only their own way but the costs of everyone else involved. That seems rather harsh. The courts have said that they welcome interventions that help to clarify the law. Does not the Secretary of State feel that this measure might go a little too far, and make it hard for people to intervene even though it would be constructive for them to do so?

[Chris Grayling]

My real concern is when pressure groups use individuals as financial human shields in cases that the groups wish to bring. They find someone who has no financial means, and use them to challenge the Government, and whether or not they win, the Government—that is, taxpayers—are guaranteed to have to pay the bill. The taxpayer will have to foot the bill because there is no prospect of recovering the costs from the individual who is fronting the case. That is what I am seeking to change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

I am happy to have a ding-dong with the Justice Secretary. That figure applies in prisons such as Oakwood, which are failing—new purpose-built prisons. In a prison such as the one I visited last week in Winchester the average cost is £42,000; in a prison such as Wandsworth, it is £44,000; in Brixton, £46,000; and in Pentonville, £48,000. He is just plucking figures out of thin air and assuming that all 87,000 prisoners have the same £15,000-a-year cost. That is not the case and he has to be honest enough to recognise that there are far too many expensive prison places because of the legacy of his cancelling the new prisons and closing down too many over the last four years.

The concern is that the Justice Secretary talks a good talk, especially when briefing the right-wing media, but he simply does not care about or pay attention to detail, as he is working on the basis that he will be long gone before any of his mess needs to be cleared up. After all, he left a huge mess in the Department for Work and Pensions with his Work programme. He is assuming that somebody else will be left to pick up the pieces of privatising probation, of legal aid and of this prison population crisis.

[Dr Huppert]

While the right hon. Gentleman is in the mood to do mathematics, will he advise us of the extra cost to the public purse of the extra 30,000 people in prison between the beginning of the last Labour Government and the end of the last Labour Government? Will he give us an estimate of how much that cost?

[Sadiq Khan]

If we did a cost-benefit analysis of the number of people who were saved the misery of being the victims of crime as crime went down by 43%, and of the additional cost of having extra police officers, which led to a record decrease in crime, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would accept that there was value for money.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am pleased to have an opportunity to take part in this debate, although several provisions in the Bill worry me intensely. The Bill has more to do with posturing on the part of the Government than with any real policy initiative. The Justice Secretary has presented it at a time when two other crime-related Bills are still awaiting Royal Assent. Indeed, some of its provisions seem to undermine those set out in the Offender Rehabilitation Bill, which is yet to reach the statute book.

Similarly, the Bill’s proposed reforms to judicial review, as set out in part 4, cut across provisions contained in the Immigration Bill—a point ably made by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. Most people would agree that there is a need to introduce a more robust process to weed out the unmeritorious cases, but we must be very careful not in effect to deny individuals who really rely on it. Furthermore, everybody accepts that the review process is a vital component of a healthy democracy: the individual’s right to challenge the over-mighty and to secure justice in properly decided administrative law cases. We limit those rights at our peril.

I will quote from a very interesting article that appeared in last Thursday’s edition of The Times, penned by a Member of the other place, a very experienced Queen’s counsel who has taken judicial review cases on many occasions and defended Governments in such cases as well. He wrote:

“Clause 50 provides that courts and tribunals must refuse to allow a judicial review application to proceed to a full hearing if the defendant shows that it is ‘highly likely’ that the outcome for the applicant ‘would not have been substantially different if the conduct complained of had not occurred’. If the case does not proceed to a full hearing, the court must refuse any remedy to the applicant if that same test is satisfied.

The proposal is objectionable for constitutional reasons. The clause will instruct judges to ignore unlawful conduct and to do so in a context where the government itself is the main defendant.

All governments come to resent the power of the judiciary to identify and remedy unlawful conduct. But until now they have, with greater or lesser enthusiasm, recognised the value of what is central to the rule of law. After all, they will not be in power indefinitely…It tells the Government, and the world, that what has been done is unlawful. Ministers and civil servants know that they must change their conduct for the future, and they do so.”

He concludes the article by stating:

“Over the past 40 years, judicial review has helped to prevent abuse of power by governments of all complexions. It is ironic that judicial review now needs protection from a politician whose reforms would neuter its force by the use of political slogans that have no factual basis and are ignorant of legal and constitutional principle.”

Those are strong words from an expert in the field. I think that we would do well to take them on board and consider their purport.

The timetabling of the Bill is also a little confusing. Although it is having its Second Reading today, we must assume that its introduction has been orchestrated so that it will be carried over at the end of the Session, no doubt to make the Government appear proactive and to mask the fact that so few significant pieces of Government legislation remain.

[Dr Huppert]

The right hon. Gentleman, as ever, is making some interesting points, but is he really saying that the test of a Government is the number of pieces of legislation they pass? I would have thought that he, like me, thinks that Parliament has much more to do than simply pass legislation.

[Mr Llwyd]

No, I am not saying that. In fact, I was a long-time critic of the Blair Administration, who introduced criminal Bills almost every teatime. That is not a test at all. Also, several measures that the Justice Secretary referred to in his opening speech today are rehashes of various things we have seen in the press over the past few months. All I am saying is that when a Government run out of steam, the benchmark is not how many pieces of legislation they pass—otherwise, heaven knows where we would end up.

I am mindful that other Members wish to speak and so will try not to detain the House for long. Part 1 of the Bill creates a number of offences, many of which are considered unnecessary at best and, at worst, vindictive provisions that are likely to increase the prison population considerably. Clause 4 introduces a drastic change to release arrangements for offenders serving extended determinate sentences, who are currently entitled to automatic release after they have served two thirds of their sentence. Instead, they will now be required to appear before the Parole Board so that it can assess whether they are fit to be released on licence.

It is important to note that extended determinate sentences were enacted by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, a very recent piece of legislation. That is not the only example in the Bill of the Government seeking to amend provisions introduced by their own justice Bills. Extended determinate sentences from the outset increased the minimum tariff a person was required to spend in custody from half of their sentence to two thirds. By stipulating that offenders will also have to satisfy the Parole Board before being considered for release, the amount of time that is available for supervision and rehabilitation back into the community is further decreased.

Furthermore, the Government appear to have drastically underestimated the impact those changes will have on the Parole Board’s resources and the size of the prison population. In their impact assessment, the Government predict that the changes introduced in clauses 1 to 5 will result in an increase of 1,000 prison places and an increase of 1,100 Parole Board hearings per year between implementation and 2030. The Prison Reform Trust has written to Members of Parliament urging us to seek clarification from the Government on how they calculate these figures. After all, the Government of the time underestimated the impact that IPP sentences—indeterminate sentences for public protection—would have on the prison population. When those sentences were first debated in Parliament—I recall the debates—the Government were insistent that the new sentence would increase the prison population by 900 places. By June 2013, 5,620 offenders were still in custody serving the now-abolished IPP sentences, 3,549 of whom were being held beyond their tariff date. The impact on the operation of the Parole Board has been nothing short of overwhelming. In August 2013, the backlog of cases still awaiting hearings by the Parole Board was 1,352, with IPP offenders accounting for 61% of indeterminate review cases. Yet the Government think it apposite to increase the workload of the Parole Board yet again by introducing changes to the automatic release of offenders—and this at a time when Parole Board staff numbers have been reduced by nearly one in five.

The release test for recalled prisoners provided for in clauses 7 and 8 will similarly place an extra burden on the beleaguered Parole Board. At present, recalled offenders serving determinate sentences undergo a fixed-term recall whereby they serve 28 days in custody and are then automatically released. Under clauses 7 and 8, however, these offenders will serve the remainder of their sentence in custody if the Secretary of State determines that an offender is likely to breach a condition of their licence. The Parole Board would need to conduct a release test before certifying that the offender can in fact be released. The Prison Reform Trust has drawn attention to the fact that this pays scant regard to the peculiar circumstances of offenders with learning disabilities and mental health problems, many of whom find it difficult to understand the terms of their licence.

Once again, the Government’s estimate of how many offenders will be affected by this change seems worryingly off the mark. The impact assessment calculates that the change will result in 75 offenders per year being affected and an extra 50 prison places being required. However, this blatantly fails to take into account the likely impact of the changes being introduced concurrently by the Government’s Offender Rehabilitation Bill, still being considered by the other place, which will result in mandatory supervision being given to all offenders serving sentences of 12 months or less. The impact assessment for that Bill estimates that 13,000 extra offenders will be recalled or committed to custody each year, with an increase of 1,600 places in the prison population. I would be grateful if the Minister clarified how the Ministry of Justice has calculated that so few offenders will be affected by the combined impact of this Bill and the Offender Rehabilitation Bill.

Clause 8 gives the Secretary of State the power to use the affirmative resolution procedure in order to change the release test for recalled prisoners serving determinate sentences. I am worried that the Government are proposing to use secondary legislation to implement such a significant change, and I hope that they will reconsider this provision ahead of the Bill’s Committee stage.

Clauses 10 and 11 introduce a new statutory offence of being unlawfully at large following a recall to custody. This would be triable either way and could result in a convicted offender being imprisoned for up to two years. Once again, the Government seem to have omitted any safeguard for vulnerable offenders with learning disabilities or mental health problems that would impair their ability to understand the full terms of their release. It would be beneficial if the Government inserted such a safeguard ahead of the Bill’s later stages. For example, it would be useful if the Bill made a distinction between offenders who abscond wilfully and those who do not report as a result of a misunderstanding or a miscommunication. According to research conducted by the Prison Reform Trust in 2007, between 20% and 30% of offenders were estimated to have a learning disability that affected their ability to cope with the complexities of the criminal justice system and the co-operation expected of them. During debates on the Offender Rehabilitation Bill in the other place, the Government pledged to produce special versions of licence conditions for individuals with learning difficulties. I would welcome the Minister’s assurance that they intend to keep true to that pledge, and indeed any other provisions that they will be making for vulnerable offenders so that they can understand what actions are strictly required of them.

My final point on part 1 concerns the new offence introduced in clause 16 that criminalises the possession of pornographic materials depicting rape and non-consensual sexual penetration. I truly applaud the Government’s efforts in this regard to minimise the use and dissemination of extreme pornographic materials, and particularly the work they are doing to minimise the opportunities for children to come into contact with this filth. In my view, however, there can be no benefit to society or to the individuals involved if persons convicted of sex offences are left languishing in prison without treatment or, worse, released into the community without treatment. I welcome what the Government are doing, but ask them to go one step further in ensuring that these perpetrators are dealt with positively, if that is the right word.

Although the internet sex offender treatment programme is available for offenders on supervision in the community, it is, rather perplexingly, not available in prisons. In relation to the availability of the sex offender treatment programmes which, conversely, are available in custody, I understand that as of July 2012, 21 prisons offered these programmes, despite the fact that offenders are serving time in relation to sex offences in over 100 prisons. This means that a person convicted of a sex offence has roughly only a one-in-six chance of being able to access treatment that would address his or her offending behaviour. I urge the Government to improve their provision of treatment programmes for these offenders before incarcerating yet more for similar offences.

In summary, the changes in part 1 will result in greater overcrowding of the prison estate and a greater burden being placed on the Parole Board, despite no mention being made, at least as yet, of any extra resources being allocated to deal with this increase. The proposals appear to be rushed and ill thought out, and I hope they do not end up being shambolic, but I would not be surprised. I urge the Government to reconsider the motivation behind these new offences before the Bill reaches its later stages.

I wish to make a few remarks about the changes to youth custody introduced in part 2. The proposal to introduce new secure colleges for children aged 12 to 17, which would be implemented by the passing of clauses 17 to 19, was first published in a recent consultation entitled “Transforming Youth Custody”. I agree with the views posited by the Howard League for Penal Reform and the Prison Reform Trust that the introduction of secure colleges may result in an increase in custodial sentencing for young offenders and longer sentences being handed out. I am particularly concerned that clause 18 would allow for these secure colleges to be contracted out to private companies, and that under the terms of schedule 4 those companies will be granted the opportunity to use reasonable force and restraint to enforce “good order and discipline”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I am in a slightly unusual position this evening, in that I rise to support the Government on this Bill. It is a particular pleasure to be able to support them on matters relating to criminal justice and courts, because that was not always the case when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice’s predecessor, the Minister without Portfolio, was in place.

I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on reversing the trend that we saw under his predecessor, which seemed to go against every Conservative principle on law and order. He was trying to send as few criminals to prison as possible, culminating —as the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) made clear in his remarks, with which I agreed—in his treatment of indeterminate sentences for public protection. That was the particular low point of this Government in criminal justice matters. I suspect that, as the right hon. Gentleman hinted at in his speech, if the current Secretary of State had been in place all the way through this Government, indeterminate sentences would still be in place. I do not think that he would ever have got rid of them, and some of the measures in this Bill are trying to undo the damage that was done by getting rid of those sentences in the first place. I am delighted that he has had the courage to revisit some of the issues that his predecessor failed on.

I say that I support the Government, and I do; I support this Bill wholeheartedly. However, as we have heard from other speakers, when we have legislation as extensive as this Bill—it is quite a wide-ranging piece of legislation—there will always be areas where one thinks the Government could have gone further, areas where there are missed opportunities and areas where one might have a few reservations. I am no different from other hon. Members in all those respects. I hope not to take too long, but I will go through a few of the areas where I particularly support the Government, where there have been missed opportunities, and where I have reservations, many of which I hope can be dealt with in Committee or on Report, so that in the end we have a much better Bill.

On clauses 1 to 3, anything that toughens up sentencing for criminals, particularly dangerous criminals, will always have my full support, so I am very pleased that the maximum sentence for certain dangerous offences is being increased to life imprisonment. Terrorists are a great threat to our national security, and measures to prevent them from carrying out their terrible crimes certainly have my full support.

With regard to clauses 24 to 28, I see no real problems with single magistrates dealing with very simple matters that do not require a bench of three to deliberate over. Should anyone object to the measure, I note the safeguards that are in place. I am pleased that single magistrates will deal only with straightforward and minor offences, such as television licence evasion. That should not be a criminal offence anyway, because a licence should not be forced on people; paying for a subscription should be a matter of personal choice, but that is a debate for a different day. Single magistrates will also deal with things like road tax evasion cases.

[Dr Huppert]

The hon. Gentleman talks about road tax evasion; he is presumably aware that road tax was scrapped in the 1930s.

[Philip Davies]

I am not entirely sure what the hon. Gentleman is on about, but people do evade their road tax.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huppert]

No, they do not.

[Robert Neill]

Their vehicle excise duty.

[Philip Davies]

Their vehicle excise duty. I am afraid that the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) has reinforced his reputation for concentrating on the things that are not important, and not concentrating on the things that are.

[Dr Huppert]

rose—

[Philip Davies]

I certainly will not give way to the hon. Gentleman again. We have wasted enough time on his nonsense; we will not waste any more on it. I have learned a lesson tonight: not to give way to him. Many people learned that lesson a long time ago, but in my naivety I had yet to learn it. I have learned it now.

I was making a point about single magistrates. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) expressed a reservation about the provision being extended to cover more than just the most basic and simple crimes. I share that concern. A system of single magistrates will never be appropriate for cases such as shoplifting, because magistrates have very different ideas about what should happen to offenders, particularly persistent offenders, in those types of cases. I hope that the power will not be extended. I sometimes worry that when a power is granted, it will be the thin end of the wedge and the power will be rapidly extended to other areas. I hope that will not be the case for this power. It will be introduced for very basic offences, and I hope it will stop there, and not be extended.

On clauses 37 to 39 and 40 to 48, I understand the concerns that have perhaps influenced the introduction of the new offences relating to jurors, especially given changes in technology. We already have the Contempt of Court Act 1981, so I am not entirely sure how necessary some of the measures are, but they may well be necessary.

I note the reasons given for increasing the maximum age of jurors from 70 to 75. I could not agree more with the rationale for that change, but I am tempted to table an amendment—my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) mentioned this—to extend the change to magistrates and judges. I cannot see any difference between a juror of that age being able to determine the guilt or innocence of somebody in a serious criminal trial, and a member of a bench of magistrates or a judge of that age passing sentence. I do not really see why a person is capable of doing one of those things between the ages of 70 and 75, but not the others.

As the Ministry of Justice helpfully explained,

“According to the latest figures published by the Office for National Statistics, the healthy life expectancy of both men and women at age 65 is at least 10 years in England and Wales.

The existing age limit for jury service, which was set in 1988, does not reflect the current health of older people. Official figures show that healthy life expectancy of 65 year olds in England and Wales has risen since 2000.

We believe the selection of jurors should reflect that fact.”

If that is the case for jurors, presumably the case is exactly the same for magistrates and judges. There would be a cost saving if we extended the measure to magistrates, as they can claim for loss of earnings when they sit, and clearly magistrates who are aged 70 to 75 are less likely to be earning, or concerned with covering their loss of earnings, than those who are younger. Magistrates would still be subject to appraisals, so their competence would not be an issue. I have raised the issue of increasing the age limit before in this place. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) once pointed out, it was ironic that the then Lord Chancellor, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), was past the retirement age for the magistrates of whom he was in charge. The amendment that I would like to see would rectify that anomaly.

I very much welcome the changes relating to judicial review. I hope that they mean that we will have less interference with decisions by judges who hear such cases. Parliament should set the law. Very often, as people will know, I do not particularly agree with Parliament’s decisions, but that is the price of democracy: sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. Parliament should set the laws of the land, and judges should implement the law as it stands. I do not like—we have seen this far too often in recent years—judges thinking that they should determine the law. If judges want to decide what the law is, they should give up being judges and put themselves up for election like everybody else. If they are not prepared to do that, they should accept the will of Parliament, whether they—or I—like it or not.

On clauses 29 to 31, I certainly understand the principle in the Bill that criminals should contribute to the costs of running courts. I note that the proposed criminal courts charge means that in future, somebody could be ordered in court to pay the following financial penalties: a fine; a victim surcharge; compensation; prosecution costs; and now this extra courts charge. The victim surcharge, which is basically a tax on offenders, has been a rather unhelpful development, particularly when it applies to people who are being sent to prison for long periods of time. When it was first introduced, for most offences, it was levied in cases where there was no victim. It seems bizarre that the victim surcharge was paid by offenders solely in cases where there was no victim. If the courts charge replaced the victim surcharge, that might make more sense. I certainly agree with the principle of making offenders pay; I just have reservations about how these things tend to work in practice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this important debate. For far too many years we have had a tradition of Governments—Conservative and Labour—trying to talk tough on crime and repeatedly aiming for the tabloid commentary, rather than dealing with the underlying causes of crime. That is why I am pleased that we are taking a different approach now, ensuring that we work on rehabilitation and reducing reoffending and initial offending, and tackling the causes of crime together with other Departments. That is an important process and it is good to have restorative justice and various things such as that in the proposals.

The mark of a good and functioning society is low prison numbers and low crime, not how many people we can fit into prison. In 1980, the prison population was 44,000. The then Home Secretary, Willie Whitelaw, described that as “dangerously high”, yet we saw numbers continue to rise year after year, helped of course by the previous Government’s 3,600 new criminal offences. We saw a huge 54% increase in the prison population under the previous Government, who wanted to increase capacity to 96,000—almost two and a half times the number described by Willie Whitelaw as “dangerously high”. That is deeply alarming.

It is not just me who thinks that the previous Government made a huge mistake. It is good to see the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) back in his place. He has said:

“in office…it was a mistake to not focus more on the issue of reducing reoffending. We became hesitant in talking about rehabilitation and the merits of investment in bringing down re-offending rates. We got into the position whereby a focus on rehabilitation and reducing re-offending was seen as being soft on crime when in fact it is effective in reducing crime.”

He was right then—he clearly had not been previously—and it is good that this Government are acting on that, because it does make a huge difference. What we saw was a Government who jailed more people than anywhere else in Europe just to sound tough. We can take a better approach that will reduce crime, and that makes a big difference.

That applies to young people in particular. It is astonishing to look at the figures for young people. We have managed almost to halve the number of children serving custodial sentences, from 2,136 in May 2010 to 1,168 in December 2013. I am incredibly proud of that. In 2009, 600 children aged between 12 and 14 were locked up, some for summary offences. There may well be rare cases where somebody as young as 12 should be locked up, but they should be incredibly rare and I find it bizarre that hundreds of children suffered in that way. The Howard League for Penal Reform states:

“the refreshing approach of police forces across England and Wales to reduce the number of unnecessary child arrests, has allowed a renewed focus on crime prevention and alternatives to custody. Youth justice reinvestment pilots in Manchester and inner London boroughs have also shown how investment in diversion rather than criminal justice can yield benefits in terms of public safety.”

We can make the public safer and not lock children up.

[Philip Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Huppert]

No. We heard enough from the hon. Gentleman in his rather long speech earlier. I know he disagrees with Churchill. He probably finds Churchill far too liberal for his own tastes, as he probably was when he criticised road tax.

What I do not want to see is children and young people languishing in detention and coming out and reoffending. That is absolutely not the right thing to do. It is not right for anybody—the Offender Rehabilitation Bill aims to help people with short sentences, which will help—but it is particularly the case for young people. I was pleased to hear the Justice Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister say that we will double the time that young offenders spend in education from 15 hours a week to 30 hours a week by 2015. That was a manifesto commitment we made in 2010—the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) very much remembers that—and something that we are delivering. It makes a difference. Education is a really important thing for these people, so that they can leave custody with skills and an education they can build on.

The secure college has to have an educational focus and that is what makes it good and worthwhile. By making it progressive rather than punitive, we will really engage with people, give them skills and help them to have a life later that does not involve going into crime. Many of these young people are vulnerable and damaged. We have to provide them with care and support in a safe and secure environment to help turn them back into citizens who will reintegrate into the community on release.

That is all very good, but I have some concerns that I will explore in Committee. Schedule 4 allows restraint to

“secure good order and discipline”.

That sounds worryingly Victorian. The courts have already said that that is not appropriate. I hope we can have clarity from the Government on what exactly is intended. I hope that that is not the intention of this Government.

Before I leave the subject of the number of people in prison, it is worth highlighting the changes in the female prison population, which has declined substantially. It was more than 4,000 when we came into office; it is now substantially below 4,000. That makes a big difference. Women’s prisons will become resettlement prisons, so that offenders serve their sentences as close to home as possible to maintain crucial family relationships, especially with children. There are times when women need to be punished in this way, but we need to help to ensure that afterwards they are able to engage better into society and do not suffer the problems that they could be left with.

I am concerned about the criminal courts charge. I heard what the Justice Secretary said, but I am still concerned that it will end up being unenforceable and skew the way our system works. Justice has made it clear that it is

“concerned that the imposition of a charge may have an unfair bearing on the exercise of a person’s right to plead not guilty, and therefore the presumption of innocence.”

How will it apply to appeals? Will people not be able to take advantage of their right of appeal because of concern about cost?

I was interested by what the Justice Secretary said about the £1.4 billion that was owed to the Courts and Tribunals Service. He talked a lot about dead people; I did not fully understand what he was saying. However, if another charge is added to the list, given that he said that that this would be the lowest priority, far less of it will be collected than the 80% that goes to the top priority. That seems obvious, because it will decay faster and faster.

The Justice Secretary said that if people did not reoffend, the charge would be written off. I should like to know more about how that would operate, but, again, far less would be collected. I am also very concerned about how the charge could be recovered without disproportionate enforcement costs, particularly in relation to the contractors involved. I am also worried about whether there is sufficient discretion in the process.

I am still concerned about tagging. I believe that there have still been no successful prosecutions for violations of tagging curfews when people have challenged the prosecutions and pleaded not guilty. Professor Ross Anderson of the University of Cambridge and others have been expert witnesses in cases that have been dropped on the basis of their evidence, because the tags have been proved not to be sufficiently reliable. I should have thought that there were better ways of spending money, especially given that the tags are not satisfactory.

I am very pleased that the Justice Secretary has given ground on judicial review. Many of us have been pressing him on that for some time, and I am glad that he has now taken some sensible steps. It is really important for ordinary people to be able to challenge the Government. We need transparency, and the Government are pushing for it; shielding the Government from legal challenge by clamping down on judicial review would run completely contrary to that. However, I am still concerned about the changes in relation to interveners. Third parties add important value and expertise to cases, at great cost to themselves and in the wider public interest. I did not think that the Justice Secretary addressed my concern about cases in which people intervene, as opposed to cases involving the “human shield” that he described. That is not the only kind of case involved.

Courts already have strong powers to control interveners. They accept only interventions that are in the public interest. Baroness Hale, the deputy president of the Supreme Court, has said:

“Once a matter is in court, the more important the subject, the more difficult the issues, the more help we”

—the judges—

“need to try and get the right answer… interventions are enormously helpful… . They usually supply arguments and authorities, rather than factual information, which the parties may not have supplied.”

Interveners play a very important role, but the Bill would require them to bear not just their own costs—which are not recouped, which I understand—but those of other parties whose involvement results from their intervention. The application of that could be incredibly broad. If someone intervened and that person’s intervention generated extra work to be done by someone else, the intervener would be billed for all of it. That would deter experts from giving useful and potentially instrumental evidence. We would shoot ourselves in the foot: court decisions would become worse, as the courts themselves have said.

The courts already have discretion to control who intervenes, how people intervene, and for how long they can intervene, and they can fine interveners whose interventions are unreasonable. That strikes me as a sensible balance. I think that the Bill goes too far in clamping down on interventions, and I hope that the Government will look at it more carefully. I understand that there may be cases in which intervention is inappropriate, but the Government must protect appropriate and important interventions,

There is much else that we shall need to consider in Committee, because the Bill contains a great deal of detailed material, but I think that the focus is right. I welcome much of what the Government are doing, but I think that they should concentrate even less on how many people can be locked up, and more on how much crime can be reduced.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huppert]

We heard earlier that such charges would be the lowest priority of claim. The Justice Secretary was clear on that. Surely, if only 80% of the higher priority claims are collected and some people run out of money when they have paid the highest priority, a lower proportion of the low-priority claims will be collected.

[Mr Vara]

My hon. Friend needs to appreciate that the time lag will be longer. This will be the last element to be claimed. It will be claimed after the others. There will be a priority element, and this will be the last bit. There is no reason to conclude that, if the other four criteria have been met with an 80% collection rate, the fifth one will not.

The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd)—I hope that I have pronounced the constituency name correctly, or close enough—had concerns about prison places. As the Justice Secretary said in his opening remarks, in the next 15 or so months, we expect that there will be some 2,000 more places, and Wrexham prison will have more than 2,000 places by 2017. He raised secure colleges. I emphasise that the aim is to reduce reoffending and have the expertise to provide for educational needs.

Police

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

There are certainly fewer front-line officers, but that is because of the situation. However, one of the very good responses made by the police—in conjunction with the Government policy of reducing the amount of time-wasting form-filling that they had to do under the previous Government—has been to put a higher proportion of their officers on the front line. Indeed, the projections for the police officer work force suggest that front-line roles will increase from 89% in March 2010 to 93% by March 2015. That seems to me to be a very good use of front-line policing.

I gently point out to the shadow police Minister that the shadow Chancellor, in a burst of honesty last June, said:

“The next Labour government will have to plan on the basis of falling departmental spending.”

I hope, this afternoon, we will not hear a series of Labour Members or even Front Benchers claiming that they would shower more money on the police or that more money would be available for more police officers, because the shadow Chancellor has already said that that will not happen.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

On the number of front-line police officers, will the Minister join me in congratulating Cambridgeshire constabulary and particularly its chief constable, who has managed to maintain the number of police constables in the force throughout this period and is now recruiting more? Does that not show what can be done if budgets are used carefully?

[Damian Green]

I happily join my hon. Friend in congratulating not only Cambridgeshire police and the chief constable, but the PCC, Sir Graham Bright. Between them, they have done an excellent job, as is borne out by the fact that crime in Cambridgeshire is down 24% since June 2010, so its streets are safer than ever before.

I have already mentioned the police innovation fund, which will be worth up to £50 million a year from next year. It represents a new step to incentivise innovation, collaboration and digitisation, to drive efficiencies and improve policing for not just one year, but the longer term. We have established a £20 million precursor fund in this financial year and it has received a good response. As I said, there have been 115 bids, totalling £50 million. The bids cover a wide range of activities, including the development of mobile technology and greater collaboration across the emergency services.

A key area in which we are providing innovation funding and encouraging greater collaboration is the use of body-worn video equipment. Investment in camera technology will enhance police protection and support officers in discharging their duties.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Dromey]

Let me answer that straight up front. The Minister referred earlier to “Labour’s legacy”. If we look at what we achieved between 1997 and 2007, we reduced the debt to GDP ratio from 40.9%, which we inherited from the previous Government, to 36.4% and, in addition to all the other achievements that I see in my constituency—the health centres, the schools and the children centres—we put 17,000 police officers on the beat and 16,000 PCSOs with them. Then, after the 2007 crash, we faced up to the difficult circumstances confronting the country, and that is why the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), when he was Police Minister, said that economies were necessary. He embraced the proposal that a 12% cut could be achieved without affecting the frontline. Instead, the Government went too far, too fast, driving through a 20% cut with all the consequences that have flowed for the front line.

It is precisely because of the concern that has been widely expressed about the consequences for the police service generally, and for neighbourhood policing in particular, that we commissioned the Stevens report, which has proposed a progressive agenda and the rebuilding of neighbourhood policing. In the next Parliament, that will be one of our priorities.

[Dr Huppert]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jack Dromey]

In a moment. What we will not do is make a pledge in opposition for 3,000 additional police officers—the manifesto on which the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) fought the election—and then come into government and cut 10,000 officers from the front line.

[Dr Huppert]

I missed the bit where the hon. Gentleman congratulated my force on recruiting constables, as it is currently doing. I also missed the bit where he answered the Minister’s question. Does he have any sort of commitment for the future or does he just have a magical wish list? I wish we had had the money for those 3,000 officers: unfortunately—as I am sure he knows—when we came into office the Government were having to borrow £1 for every £4 that they spent and we could not continue like that. I wish we had had a better inheritance.

[Jack Dromey]

The Liberal Democrats are part of a Government who inherited a growing economy. With the greatest of respect, we will take no lessons from a party that pledges the abolition of tuition fees and 3,000 additional police officers, and then props up a Government who impose unprecedented cuts on our police service.

Looking to the next Parliament, I have been very clear about what we did in the last Parliament and what we would do now. Now, as I will argue later, we would follow the 12% proposed—including by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary—because that can be achieved without harming the front line, and we will go into the next general election as the party of neighbourhood policing. The hon. Gentleman will have to wait for our proposals on how we intend to achieve that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Dromey]

I will come straight to that point. Precisely as a consequence of what has happened, there are worrying signs that crime, and especially violent crime, is starting to rise for the first time in nearly two decades. The latest crime figures show disturbing signs that a generation of progress in some areas is being reversed. For example, there is a worrying increase in muggings. Violence against the person has increased in 16 police force areas and violence without injury has increased in 19 police force areas. According to the British Retail Consortium, shoplifting, which is often associated with assaults on shop staff, is at a nine-year high.

Increasingly, the victims of crime are being let down as criminals get off scot-free—7,000 fewer crimes of violence have been solved under this Government. Despite a sharp increase in sexual crime, there has been a significant fall in the referral of cases to the Crown Prosecution Service for prosecution. Victims of the most heinous crimes are being let down.

On top of that, police forces are stretched to breaking point. They are taking up to 30% longer to respond to 999 calls and there was a reduction in overall crimes solved in 22 forces—nearly 14,000 more crimes were unsolved last year than when the Government came to power. In addition, crime is changing. Fraud has increased by 34%, but we know that that is just the tip of the iceberg, because much online crime goes unreported.

Despite those worrying indications that a generation of progress is being reversed, all we have heard from the Government is the constant assertion that crime is falling. However, the Government’s independent statistics watchdog has said that the statistics can no longer be relied on, and has downgraded its precious gold standard. The UK Statistics Authority chair, the eminent Sir Andrew Dilnot, has said that the more accurate the statistics become, the more likely it is that they will show that crime is rising. That is the result of three years of cutting too far and too fast, and yet here we are again. The Government refuse to see the damage being done by their reckless cuts to police and local authority budgets.

Not only Her Majesty’s Opposition are raising concerns. The Association of Chief Police Officers president, Sir Hugh Orde, has warned that we may now be at the tipping point—he has used those words. Tony Lloyd, the chair of the police and crime commissioners national body, and the Greater Manchester police and crime commissioner—he is highly respected across the spectrum as a former Member of the House—has said:

“I have warned since before I was elected that the government’s reckless programme of cuts is endangering community safety…We are now standing at the edge of a cliff . The chief constable”—

the eminent Sir Peter Fahy—

“has told me that he cannot provide the levels of policing that Greater Manchester people expect and deserve”

in future. He adds that, if the cuts continue:

“There simply will not be enough money in the pot”

for the police to discharge their duties.

The independent commission on the future of policing, led by Lord Stevens—it is a royal commission in all but name—and on which some of the most eminent figures in police and crime sit, has sounded a warning bell about the future of neighbourhood policing, which has been hit hard by Government cuts.

[Dr Huppert]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jack Dromey]

Lord Stevens has said that we are in danger of returning to a

“discredited model of reactive policing”.

The hon. Member for Cambridge may choose to ignore those voices, but if the head of ACPO, the head of the PCCs and the former head of the Metropolitan police speak with one voice, they send an unmistakable message that there is cause for concern.

[Dr Huppert]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way finally. He talks of an independent commission. Is it appropriate and honest to do so when the website says clearly that the report is published on behalf of the Labour party? It says that the Labour party will place cookies on the computers of those who read it. Can he sustain the idea that the commission is independent?

[Jack Dromey]

Is the hon. Gentleman accusing Lord Stevens or any member of that commission of having a bias?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huppert]

If the commission publishes a report that states clearly that it is published on behalf of the Labour party, it cannot be independent. The Labour party is not an independent body.

[Jack Dromey]

The hon. Gentleman reins back from impugning the integrity of the commission members. The shadow Home Secretary and the leader of the Labour party were absolutely right to listen to the widespread calls for what the Stevens commission became—a royal commission in all but name. It was 50 years since the last royal commission, and the police service required serious examination for the future in the 21st century. We were right to commission those eminent and responsible individuals, who produced a report independent of the Labour party. It challenges all political parties, but focuses on the growing concern in the crime and policing world at the Government’s direction of travel—the hon. Gentleman, having pledged 3,000 additional police officers, is propping them up.

It is not only police chiefs and the various people I have referred to who are raising concerns about the future of British policing. If the Minister stopped and listened to communities up and down the country, as I have been doing as part of our consultation arising from the Stevens report, he would hear their concerns loud and clear. He should talk to those in Coventry, Greater Manchester, Worcester or indeed Kent about neighbourhood policing, and they will say how crucial it is. He should talk to them about what is happening to neighbourhood policing, and they will rightly express their growing concern about that which they value and know from experience works.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

It is, as ever, a pleasure to follow the Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee. I recommend membership of that Committee, if only for the chance to see the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) brandishing a firearm in a training exercise. There were photos of that.

I have some sympathy with the shadow Minister, because before I was elected to this place I was leader of the opposition on Cambridgeshire county council. It is incredibly tempting simply to say, “I would do everything better and I would spend more money on it,” without identifying what would be done better and particularly where the money would come from. On the council I forced my own group to make our annual proposals go through the same scrutiny process as the administration did, so that we would be forced to work out where the money would come from to pay for what we wanted to do. That meant that our proposals were far more coherent and were at least plausible ways of doing things.

While I have some sympathy with the shadow Minister, who said encouragingly that Labour would, in principle, spend more, without specifying how much more or where it would come from, I also have a sense of déjà vu. So far as I can recall, every year when we have had this debate—at least in the current Parliament—Opposition Members have made similar comments. They have said that too little money is being spent, and that we are about to see a huge increase in crime as a result. Every year, when crime has not increased, it has been suggested that it is about to increase, and that we simply need to wait a little longer.

[Jack Dromey]

rose—

[Dr Huppert]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman, to whom I shall give way in a moment, will accept that we have, in fact, seen a reduction in crime, whether it is measured by police reporting or by the crime survey.

[Jack Dromey]

Let me make it absolutely clear that what the Opposition have said from the outset is that economies are necessary and can be achieved, and that we accepted expert advice on the 12% figure. The hon. Gentleman is part of a Government who have imposed a 20% cut. Has he apologised to those who elected him on the basis that he was going to put an additional 3,000 police officers on the beat?

[Dr Huppert]

Even in that intervention, the hon. Gentleman very carefully avoided saying where he would get the extra money. I think that we would all love to have more money to spend on policing, and, indeed, on almost everything that a Government do; the problem is where that money is to come from.

The hon. Gentleman also missed an opportunity to intervene earlier—this is relevant to the point that he raised just now—in order to congratulate Cambridgeshire constabulary, which in 2012-13 recruited 72 constables and 13 officers who transferred themselves to the area. I have not scaled up that number to cover the whole country, but it shows what can be achieved. I feel no need to apologise to the people of Cambridgeshire for the fact that we have been recruiting those extra police, and have been able to protect the front line in the county. The hon. Gentleman is welcome to intervene again to give a clearer view of what he would cut in order to raise the extra money, but if he does not wish to do so, I shall move on to the more substantive aspects of the debate.

Let me begin by paying a tribute, which I think all Members would echo, to the work done by the vast majority of the police. They do a fantastic job day in, day out. Some times are easier than others, but most times are quite tough for police officers. It is a very hard job and it makes a big difference to people’s lives, whether it involves directly combating crime and catching criminals, or the much broader role that police officers play. I have always welcomed community policing, although I must say that I was slightly concerned when, back in the days when I was a councillor, one of the best community beat officers in my constituency, who had managed to halve the crime level in a single year, was given a reprimand for not arresting enough people. I think that that was target-driven rather than being particularly sensible.

As I have said, the police in general do a fantastic job, and they feel let down by the few officers who behave badly. A number of officers have spoken to me directly about some of the issues that we explored in the Select Committee, such as Plebgate, and have told me that they are ashamed to wear the same uniform as some of those involved. Those officers deserve better. According to recent reports, in the last few years there have been more than 2,000 cases of officers and staff breaching data protection rules, in some instances by looking at the police national computer. Those officers constitute only a small fraction of the total force, and like most police officers, I wish that they would behave much better.

We are lucky in this country to have such good policing, and to have a core of policing by consent. I hope that that continues, because I am not at all keen on the idea of increasing militarisation in the police. For that reason I am concerned about Tasers, although they are a subject for another debate. Policing by consent—the sort of policing that we have here—is not just about throwing money at problems, and it is not just about passing more and more laws to make more and more actions criminal offences; it is about giving communities a say, and working closely with them. We need the police to work as part of the community, and for the community.

[Richard Drax]

The hon. Gentleman has just mentioned Tasers, and said that they were a subject for a debate on another day. I wonder whether he has ever faced two or three completely drunk hooligans at three o’clock in the morning with no more protection than a protective vest.

[Dr Huppert]

As it happens, I had very similar experiences when I was an ambulance technician with St John Ambulance. One of the things we did in order to increase our safety was try to make it clear that we were not playing any form of quasi-militaristic role, and that the role that we were playing was much more relaxed. I worry about the message that is sent to people who see something that looks like a firearm and is used like a firearm. I agree that there is a place for Tasers as a less lethal option, but I do not think that they should be rolled out for basic use. That is a subject for another debate, however.

The police work very well. The establishment of the College of Policing is one of the best things that the Government have done in this area. It will make it much easier for policing to become a more established profession and for the police to work with a proper evidence base and a more effective way of sharing and developing information. That will follow on from the work that is already being done to reduce crime despite tight budgets.

When times are tough, it is even more important to do things that actually work to reduce crime and the fear of crime, rather than things that merely work anecdotally. A huge amount of research has been done in this area, and I pay tribute to the work of Professor Larry Sherman at the institute of criminology at Cambridge university. He is a member of the board of the College of Policing, and he has done a great deal of work on what actually makes a difference in reducing crime. How we place police officers and how we move them around a city can make a difference, for example. He has also produced proposals relating to crime harm indices. Where his proposals have been tried, they have been very effective in reducing crime. That is the sort of lesson that the college should be developing and that we should all be trying to follow.

We should also look at other ways of reducing crime. Providing more support to people serving very short sentences is a really good thing, for example. We know that some people reoffend repeatedly, and it is more efficient to invest in reducing their reoffending than to invest in catching them and dealing with them afterwards. I am also pleased to see a drive towards the use of more technology. It is far more helpful to get police officers to go out and do their job, as they want to do, rather than fighting technological problems. The police are far happier when that happens. I have spent time with a police officer, and I will never forget that it took more than an hour to download a video from a shoulder-mounted camera because of technological problems. That was an hour that could have been much better spent.

We should also give the police much more flexibility to innovate. An example is a scheme in my constituency known as “lights instead of tickets”. Cyclists who cycle without lights are given seven days to buy lights to avoid paying a fine. That has led to a huge number of people acquiring lights, which is far better than a huge number of people paying a fine and continuing to cycle without lights.

We can also ensure that money is spent more usefully by focusing on the more serious crimes. I will not go into detail, but the Deputy Prime Minister has suggested certain reforms of our drugs policy. The Home Affairs Select Committee has also found that we could do as Portugal has done, in transferring effort and money from the police and criminal justice system to the health service to help to reduce addiction. Similarly, we could reduce the stop and search that does not lead to arrests. That would save police time and free up the police to get on with other things.

Perhaps the Minister could give us an update on the reforms of stop and search. Such reforms are important because they relate to trust in the police. Certain communities start to lose trust in the police because of stop and search and, in my view, because of increasing Taser use. That lack of community interaction is a problem. It leads to distrust and makes it harder for the police to find out what is happening. It makes people work against the police rather than with them.

We could also do much more to help the police by sharing information, although that must obviously be done carefully. The Select Committee has recommended asking hospitals to share non-confidential information—about numbers of incidents, for example—with the police more often. There have been some good pilot models of that, but they do not happen often enough. The public could also have more information. The data available from police.uk is helpful, but we could go further in that regard. Indeed, Professor Sherman has some ideas on how to engage communities and give them real information about what is going on. Such data also need to include hate crime, which should not be considered separately from the main national crime statistics.

The whole information drive is important, but we do not always use the most up-to-date information. I hope that the Minister will comment on this. I note that some of the figures in the report on the police grant have used the 2001 census data. I represent a county that is growing rapidly, and I hope that we can move to using more modern censuses, because we are already facing issues based on the present population, not the one we had in 2001.

The subject of saving money has been discussed at length. I am pleased that the proposed expenditure of £1.8 billion on the communications data Bill will now be available for other policing. When I asked the Met commissioner how he would use that amount of money over 10 years, he said that he would use it to get more neighbourhood policing, more technology and more training. I am pleased that we are able to do that, rather than spending it on the original proposals.

The finances are tight. We would all love to have more money available to spend on absolutely everything, but it is a great tribute to the police that despite times being tough, crime continues to fall. I hope that that will continue for a very long time to come and that we will see more effective use of our wonderful police.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman and I take a different view on this matter. I simply refer him to the recent comments by Lord Judge, the previous Lord Chief Justice and distinguished judicial figure who commands respect around the country. He said he believed the Court had overstepped the mark, and I agree with him. It is a tragedy, given the Court’s history, but it is the reality, and it has to be dealt with.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Does the Justice Secretary think it helps those of us campaigning for LGBT+ rights in Russia, for example, or trying to persuade Belarus to behave more like a responsible country for this country to be so negative about the European convention on human rights and the European Court? These are our standards, and we should be trying to export them, not pull away from them ourselves.

[Chris Grayling]

Fundamentally, in my opinion, the problem is that the Court is interpreting the convention as an unfettered jurisprudence that allows it to move into areas never envisaged by the people who wrote the convention. My clear view is that the Court is moving into areas that are matters for national Parliaments and which do not belong within the remit of an international court. It is a matter of disagreement between the coalition parties—we are open and honest about that—but we will leave it to the electorate in 14 months to decide which of our approaches they prefer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

We will begin rolling out the part of the reforms set out in the Offender Rehabilitation Bill in the latter part of this year. I say to the right hon. Gentleman that he represents a party that was in government for nearly 15 years, during which time tens of thousands of offences were committed by people on short sentences who had no supervision when they left prison. The Labour Government did nothing about it. We are doing something about it, and it is not before time.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

T2. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 is one of the great achievements of this Government but it left a few issues unresolved, one of which relates to humanist weddings, which are very popular in Scotland but currently not allowed here. The Act required the Secretary of State to conduct a review. What progress has been made on it, so that we can get on with allowing such weddings to happen?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

My hon. Friend is right to say that the Government made a commitment to have a review, and we will do that. We will be starting it soon, and we will have a consultation. We intend to have the results of the review by the end of the year.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I should add that I wish the House to agree to amendment (a).

Clause 151 defines what amounts to a “miscarriage of justice” for the purposes of compensation under section 133 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. There has been much debate about the clause, both here and in the House of Lords, and I am indebted to all who have contributed to examining this important issue. The Government have taken account of all the points that have been made and all the concerns that have been expressed, and our position has changed as a result of the very good debates that have taken place in Committee here as well as in the House of Lords.

I was pleased to note that Members of both Houses and members of the Joint Committee on Human Rights agreed with us that that the current definition set out by the divisional court in the case of Ali was not clear enough, that we needed to legislate for a clear definition of a miscarriage of justice given the ongoing uncertainty and reinterpretation of definitions by the courts, and that our aim was not to seek to restrict compensation, but to provide clarity. The question that remains before us is how it can be determined whether someone has suffered a miscarriage of justice.

This is indeed a complex issue. When a case is properly brought to court—that is, when there is evidence of a crime on which it is right to ask a jury to adjudicate—there is no miscarriage of justice when the result of the trial is an acquittal, or even in very many of the cases in which a guilty verdict is later quashed as unsafe. The Government believe that a miscarriage of justice arises only when there is in existence a fact which entirely exonerates the accused: in other words, a fact which makes it unquestionable that the accused did not commit the crime. In such cases, it is only the ignorance of this fact that allowed the accused to be convicted in the first place. What we are seeking to define is something far more than merely a failure in the investigative or trial processes. We are seeking to define a clear miscarriage of justice which is—and, in our view, can only be—the wrongful conviction of the innocent.

Our aim is to create an unambiguous statutory description of such a situation for the purposes of compensation. The fact that the definition inserted in the Bill by Lords amendment 112 is open to various interpretations is obvious from the significant number of judicial review cases awaiting consideration by the administrative court—13 at present—in which the aim is to challenge the Secretary of State’s application of the Supreme Court’s judgment in the case of Adams. That number excludes the three cases that are awaiting judgment from the challenge to the divisional court’s decision in respect of Ali and others, which was heard by the Court of Appeal last December. A test similar to the “Adams test”—the definition that is at the heart of all these cases—is the test that is now being proposed in Lords amendment 112.

It is vitally important for us to ensure that the definition that is introduced into statute for the first time is “fit for purpose”. It must be clear and robust enough to avoid the need for further judicial interpretation, and, as far as possible, to limit the scope for argument about what will amount to a miscarriage of justice. The amendment that we propose would leave applicants in no doubt: if the new fact that led to their conviction being quashed showed that they did not commit the offence—for example, if it were shown that they had been somewhere else at the time, if someone else was proved to be the perpetrator, or if the courts acknowledged that no offence had in fact been committed—they would have suffered a miscarriage of justice, and would be likely to be compensated.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Will the Minister explain to those of us who are not lawyers what the difference is between the Government’s original wording and the wording of the amendment that they are now proposing?

[Damian Green]

I join my hon. Friend in that state of grace of not being a lawyer. The difference is that we have removed the word “innocent”. There was, I think, a feeling that the original Government proposal required people to prove their innocence, which, of course, would alter the presumptions that lie at the heart of the criminal justice system. That is what could be described as the non-legal significant difference, which is none the less a significant difference.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I well recall the horrific case in her constituency. I do regret the fact that the Government did not accept what were reasonable suggestions on that issue. I hope we will be able to return to them in future, because we have seen some awful attacks, against children in particular but also against adults. This is something we will have to deal with in future.

We have reservations about some of the Lords amendments, but all in all we are glad that the Government have accepted them. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply to some of my queries when he sums up.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

There is a huge range of issues to cover in this group of amendments. I will not even try to touch on them all, but will talk about a few that I am particularly concerned about and have raised on a number of occasions.

This Bill started with pre-legislative scrutiny. It is telling, to me at least, that quite a number of the amendments made in the other place were originally recommended during pre-legislative scrutiny. Perhaps if the Government looked at pre-legislative scrutiny earlier, we might get there somewhat faster. With that in mind, I particularly welcome the changes to the injunction to prevent nuisance and annoyance, or IPNA—the issue that has received perhaps the most attention—in Lords amendments 1 to 5. This is a welcome change, and I pay great tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister for his work in getting us to this place.

During the pre-legislative scrutiny, the Home Affairs Select Committee said there was a risk that the provisions could be interpreted as being too broad. The Minister has quite rightly described why some of the stories that were going round—for example, about how carol singing would be prevented—were simply not true but were good debating points. We made it clear that we had real concerns with the provisions as they stood. I am pleased that, as a result of the changes in the other place, we now have something that is much more proportionate. We have moved away from causing nuisance and annoyance in the general sense to something more serious. That is definitely right, because all of us are quite capable, I am sure, of causing nuisance or annoyance to people on various occasions.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Some more than others.

[Dr Huppert]

I hope my hon. Friend would join me in being in the annoying category.

[Richard Fuller]

It would be a club of one.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I think we go through the Chair.

[Dr Huppert]

I was somewhat surprised by the original amendment passed in the other place, which was backed by many, including Labour peers, because it wrote into law discrimination that I would not be happy with. We have rules about behaviour that is unfair—behaviour that is too harsh—but I was really surprised to see an amendment that said there should be one set of rules for people in social housing and a completely different set of rules for people in private housing. If someone’s behaviour is causing problems that are sufficiently serious to be dealt with under the Bill, the form of tenure should not matter. I was very disappointed by that amendment and very pleased that the Government corrected it. What we now have corrects that problem and I am happy to support it, because I would not have been able to support the previous version from the Lords.

[Jack Dromey]

Just for the record, the proposal for a tenure-neutral approach in fact came from Labour Lords.

[Dr Huppert]

I do not have the list of exactly who proposed what. The Government amendment we have is neutral; the one that Labour peers supported in the other place was not tenure-neutral. I hope the hon. Gentleman agrees that that was a flaw in it, although the other principle was there.

I welcome the change, although I remain surprised by the position of the Opposition, who felt that the version that left this place was both too draconian and too liberal. I am glad that their position has moved in a more liberal direction. The new approach is far better than the failed system of ASBOs, which many young people collected as a badge of honour. A huge number of people broke them; they simply did not work. I think that this non-criminalising approach will work much better.

Let me turn now to some of the other issues. Lords amendment 10 is important and concerns the principle that we should not be using these rules to throw children out of their own homes. The Lords pushed for that, and it is a shame that we did not manage to get it fixed in this place. The importance of care for the under-18s should have been emphasised more strongly during the Bill’s earlier stages, and I am glad that it has been emphasised more strongly now. This is another of the issues that were dealt with by the Home Affairs Committee. I am also pleased that Lords amendment 11 proposes the removal of clause 13, because it discriminated on the basis of tenure.

Lords amendments 23 and 24 deal with the rights of free expression and free assembly. The Home Affairs Committee recommended that we should ensure that dispersal powers were not used in a way that could damage those rights. Before my hon. Friend became a Minister in this Department, the Government moved some of the way towards this, and I am glad that he has now been able to persuade them to move the whole way, so that we can protect all forms of free expression and free assembly.

Lords amendments 59 to 64 deal with cases of riot. Riot is of course very serious, and we have already seen what it can lead to in this country. As a result of what happened, the Prime Minister said that he wanted stronger powers to deal with the families of people who were rioting. Many of us felt that, although we could understand the tensions that existed at the time, his suggestion went too far. It did not seem appropriate to throw everyone out of a house because a 16-year-old child had committed a minor offence where a riot was happening. I do not in any sense condone either the riot or the behaviour, but throwing an entire family out of their home seems to be a disproportionate response. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister for his work in this regard, which has led to the proposal that an automatic eviction should take place only if the offence is committed by an adult, and only if it is a serious, indictable offence. A trivial offence that happened to be committed near a riot would not lead to such an eviction; nor would an offence committed by a child.

Finally, let me raise two issues that we had very little time to discuss during our initial debates in this House, and that were not particular topics of interest at that stage. The first involves surveillance and the Terrorism Act 2000. Lords amendment 102 and related amendments deal with the powers of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal to deal with complaints about the surveillance commissioners and their decisions. The IPT does not necessarily work as well as it needs to, and it is not as transparent and open as it needs to be, but I am glad that we are taking a step towards more transparency. Surveillance oversight is an extremely important subject, and the Bill does not finish what we need to do about it. There is much more to be done, but although the amendments represent just a tiny piece of the jigsaw, I welcome them.

Lords amendment 100 and related amendments deal with schedule 8, which amends schedules 7 and 8 to the Terrorism Act. Schedule 7 became very topical at the time of the detention of David Miranda. I am pleased that, after a great deal of argument in this House, we have managed to get some changes made in the House of Lords. People must be questioned within an hour of detention, reviews must take place within two hours of that, and people’s right to consult a solicitor is made clear. That fundamental right was omitted by the Terrorism Act when it was passed by the last Government. There is much more to be done about that as well, but I am very pleased with all the amendments. I commend the Minister and his team for their work, and look forward to our passing the amendments promptly.

[Mark Field]

I agree with the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) that it is a shame that the Government did not take more account of the pre-legislative scrutiny, relying instead on the other place. I accept that all too often, whichever Government are in play, the electoral arithmetic ensures that legislation is rushed through and guillotined here in the House of Commons, and some sensible suggestions are then made in the House of Lords, many of which—as in this instance—we end up not seeking to oppose. Given the relative paucity of legislation in the House of Commons over the next 15 months, I hope that we will pay the House a little more respect, and ensure that whatever Bills come before us during the fifth year of this five-year Parliament are given proper scrutiny.

I support what the Government are doing in Lords amendments 40, 41 and 44 to 47, which relate to public bodies that can issue a public spaces protection order. That has particular resonance in my constituency, and I am glad that a number of friends—in the broadest sense—of the City of London corporation in another place were able to make some important changes. Numerous other bodies which operate open spaces under local Acts—such as the Wimbledon and Putney commons conservators, to name but two of them—will also benefit from what the Government are doing. The proposed new clause would enable bodies other than local authorities administering open spaces under byelaws to use public spaces protection orders. I believe this is particularly relevant to trustees or local conservators who operate under byelaws inferred by private Acts of Parliament, many of which go back not just many decades but some centuries. I hope the Minister agrees with that point.

The City of London corporation operates some of the most important open spaces in London and the south-east, including Epping forest and Hampstead heath. There are also important local authority parks. In Newham there is West Ham park and there is Queen’s park in the London borough of Brent. It was often under private Acts of Parliament, frequently through bequests of what were the curtilage of large mansion houses, that these local parks and amenities were founded, often back in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Conservators have exactly the same issues as local authorities in terms of the public open spaces they administer, so it is sensible to include these places in order not to have duplication but to ensure there is not an opportunity for some of these powers to slip through the net. Conservators are not required to use the orders, and they can keep to the local byelaws if they so wish. If they do make an order, however, and the local authority for the area makes its own, the local authority’s order will take precedence. That is right.

These clauses are sensibly drafted. The powers of the City of London corporation would not in any way usurp those of the relevant local authority, but this does provide a belt-and-braces approach to ensure there is a proper focus on public order within those important open spaces.

I wish the Minister and Government well in getting this change into the Bill and I hope there will be no opposition from any corner of this House.

Police and Crime Commissioners and ACPO

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Wednesday 15th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, and to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who is the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, and my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless), who gave an excellent summary. He and I have often taken up this issue on the Select Committee, because it does matter.

When I talk to experts in policing structures from around the world and they look at how ACPO works, they are often shocked at the amount of power that has accumulated without oversight and without deliberate intention. Nobody would deny that there is a role for operational discussion between chief constables, but far more than that has been accumulated and gone into the new structure, as I have seen in many cases. Several years ago, the Cambridgeshire police authority was told that it had to agree a particular policy on Tasers, because it had been mandated by ACPO. The police authority should have known better than to accept the policy, but that is what it was told, in writing, from the chief constable at the time. That is simply inappropriate. It is not up to ACPO to set that sort of policy.

The Parker review is deeply critical on several points, as was summarised by my hon. Friend. Some things have been annoying many of us for a long time, such as the fact that it is a private limited company and exempt from freedom of information requests. In fairness, the president, who is on the parliamentary estate today, has highlighted those as things that he would like to change, but I have not seen them change yet. We have the opportunity to change things now as a result of the Parker review, the new College of Policing, the bringing of a good evidence-based environment to policing, and the changes around police and crime commissioners.

PCCs now have the right to choose what model they would like. It is obviously their choice to make, but I hope that they consider the sort of model outlined by my hon. Friend. I say yes to a chief constables’ council, yes to a place for chief constables to talk, engage and interact, and yes to it having a part-time chair, who should have support and be able to be involved with operational policing. ACPO should be trimmed down, with far more responsibilities lying with accountable bodies, and far less of the power that it has accumulated. Many people at ACPO have worked hard and with the best of intentions, but it has not been accountable, and it has led to a few people collecting a huge amount of power.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

Absolutely. The right hon. Gentleman is entirely right to make that point. I am conscious that Sir Hugh Orde has thought as much about these matters as anyone else and has, as one would expect, come to thoughtful conclusions.

I support the broad direction of travel of the Parker review, and I was pleased that PCCs had taken collective action to review the role and functions of ACPO. I was also pleased the review recognised the need for efficiencies and for deriving maximum value for money from services that are currently provided under ACPO.

The PCCs have a vital role in ensuring that there is a national forum in which chief constables may come together to co-ordinate what they see as their needs at the national level. We all agree that that is an essential function. As the review recognises, crucially, the majority of ACPO functions have now transferred to the College of Policing. We are using the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill to give the college the power to set standards. It will be for the college to provide leadership for the whole of policing in future.

[Dr Huppert]

The Minister is absolutely right to highlight the role of the College of Policing in providing standards and leadership. It is also important to evidence-informed policing and to developing new approaches that were not seen in the previous policing landscape. Will he talk about that role as well?

[Damian Green]

Indeed. My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am about to come on to the college and its vital, central role in future, but first I will point out the one part of the Parker review with which I disagree: the need for a centralised change management programme for police reform, potentially run from the Home Office. That is exactly what we do not need and is very much against the ethos of the more accountable, locally driven and bottom-up police service that we are introducing. That is one of the reasons why I am so glad that the PCCs have grasped the nettle of reform themselves, because it shows that we do not need a small group in the Home Office driving all change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

That is an interesting point. Although we understand and respect the differences between the coalition parties on this matter, the Labour party is dancing on a pin. One week, it says that it opposes votes for prisoners; the next week, it supports the rulings of the European Court. As our party sets out its proposals over the next 18 months, it will be fascinating to see exactly where Labour stands.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

Can the Secretary of State list the European countries that are not part of the European convention on human rights? Does he really think that Britain’s international standing would be enhanced by joining the club with Belarus?

[Chris Grayling]

It is important to say that my concern has always been about the Court, not the convention. As I have said to my hon. Friend in the past, anyone who reads the terms of the convention would find it to be a document that we would all agree with. The problem is the way in which it is being interpreted, which, in my view, has moved a long way away from the intentions of the people who drafted it in the first place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

Well, this question is familiar to me. The answer is 10,789—I think that figure is heading in the right direction although there is a lot more to do. My hon. Friend is right to say that the Government’s clear intention is to return all the foreign national offenders we can back to custody in their own countries. That requires compulsory prisoner transfer agreements of the kind that we are negotiating and that Labour failed to negotiate.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I would not want the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) to feel either forgotten or ignored. We must hear the hon. Gentleman, with brevity.

[Dr Huppert]

For many years there has been an increase in private companies doing public sector work. Does the Secretary of State agree that that must be done in a transparent and accountable way, and will he extend the Freedom of Information Act to cover it?

[Chris Grayling]

I am very much of the view that the Freedom of Information Act should be extended to cover some of those provisions, and I am also in favour of an open-book arrangement with our contractors. I hope that when the hon. Gentleman looks at the list of organisations that have put their name forward for probation, which will be published shortly, he will see some powerful partnerships between the private and voluntary sector of the kind we all hope to see.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Julian Huppert Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I will first deal with the Government’s proposals, although I am aware that hon. Members will wish to speak to other amendments. I will deal with those at the end of the debate on the group.

The Government proposals in the group are on the setting of fees for two distinct public services. New clause 10 concerns fees charged by the Disclosure and Barring Service. It is Government policy—I imagine and hope that this is supported by hon. Members on both sides of the House—to encourage volunteering in our communities. To that end, it has long been the case that criminal record checks, where needed, such as in respect of work with children, are provided free of charge to volunteers. The new clause puts on a clear statutory basis the ability of the Home Secretary to take into account the cost of providing criminal record certificates and other services covered by part V of the Police Act 1997 when determining the fees charged for those services.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

The Minister is making important points about ensuring that people are able to pay. As I understand it, it is not currently possible to get a basic disclosure within England and Wales—it has to go through Scotland. Will he look at ensuring that, where appropriate, basic applications are available and free?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Dromey]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention; he is of course right.

We support a rigorous and fair justice system, but it must ensure that where a serious miscarriage of justice has happened, innocent people receive fair compensation for all that they have suffered, which, in the more extreme cases, can involve years of their lives. If a miscarriage of justice has taken place, it is the justice system’s mistake, and it should be its job to put it right, not to make it harder for innocent people to do so. If—God forbid!—we ever saw a repeat of what happened with the Birmingham bombings and the subsequent convictions, it would be absolutely unthinkable that those people would not be entitled to compensation.

I very much hope that the Minister will respond constructively to the amendment and our representations. We intend to support the amendment in the other place, where we believe that further detailed scrutiny should take place, because the Government have got it wrong and we must put that wrong right.

[Dr Huppert]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow the opening comments.

I thoroughly support new clause 10, because it is right that we recognise volunteers. Too often, people have had to pay far too much to go through the processes necessary to volunteer, as I know from my own voluntary work, although that was more of a problem when people needed separate certificates for everything they did. I am glad that we have made some progress at least.

There is an issue, however, about the availability of the right level of disclosure for criminal record certificates. I thought I knew this area reasonably well, but I did not realise until recently that it was not possible to get a basic certificate—there are three levels: basic, standard and enhanced—listing unspent convictions in England and Wales; the only body that does it is Disclosure Scotland. While getting the pricing correct, therefore, we must also ensure availability. It seems perverse that only under Scots law can somebody get what most employers ought to have access to. Most employers do not realise that they should have the basic, rather than standard or enhanced certificate. I hope that Ministers will consider that point and ensure that while providing the right costings, we also get that right, and that the Government implement the relevant provisions in the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

On new clause 28, the Minister made a strong case for having some fees. I think we would all agree that if a Russian oligarch makes great use of our courts, they should make some contribution. None of us would suggest that their having to pay £1,000 or so would inhibit their ability to get justice. Perhaps the cost of using the courts should be a fraction of the fees going to the lawyers; that might be a safe way of ensuring that we make our fair share. That is not the route chosen, however, although it is quite tempting, given how large the legal fees are in many of these cases. It is not just Russian oligarchs, of course; it is anybody with a very big transaction. It seems right that they should contribute to the costs of our fantastic court system.

We need to ensure, however, that people not in a position to pay are not hit. It should still be possible for people without money to access the courts, and in that, the fees system could help, because by taking more money from those who have lots of it, we could subsidise those who do not. I note that there is broad support for the idea that any money made should be reinvested in improving our court system and ensuring that it works well. Broadly, therefore, I am pleased to see the new clause.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Hunter (Cheadle) (LD)]

Go on!

[Dr Huppert]

It is nice to be encouraged by the Whips to speak at greater length, but I am sure we have enough to debate and I do not want to take time from the important debates coming up.

On the concerns about clause 143, the hon. Member for Islington North has, of course, tabled his amendment, but the Joint Committee on Human Rights has also tabled an amendment that would get rid of the clause completely. I am not a lawyer, but my assessment is that the JCHR approach is probably a cleaner one, but both amendments aim to achieve exactly the same thing. I agree with the shadow Minister that we should flag this up as a big issue, but leave it to the other place to find the right answer. By then, I hope that the Government will have reflected on it and accepted the principle that it is incredibly hard for anybody absolutely to prove their innocence. That is a really tough threshold. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that and that we can strike a better balance in the other place.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I will be brief; because of the odd timetable we have for the Bill, there is not much time to debate any of it. My remarks are concerned solely with amendment 95, which stands in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan), and for which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) explained, there is strong support.

Clause 143 will fundamentally overturn the huge changes made after the release of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four. For many years, along with Chris Mullin and many others, I was one of those who, from this position in the House, raised questions about the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four, and I could paper the walls of my house with the letters of abuse we received for taking up their cases. None of us who took up those miscarriages of justice was ever in favour of the bombing and killing of civilians in any circumstances; we were, however, in favour of justice.

The first person arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974 was Paul Hill, one of the Guildford Four, who had been a constituent of my constituency before I was elected, but was in prison when I was elected. Meeting him and the others in prison, I was struck by the sheer hopelessness of being locked up for an offence they did not commit, when every newspaper and commentator in the country said they were guilty and when their family members were abused in the street and vilified because they had a son, nephew or cousin in prison for an offence they did not commit. It made that campaign very difficult, but some very brave people stood up, and eventually those happy days when they were finally released brought about a fundamental change in the whole narrative of justice in this country.

[Dr Huppert]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his work on this issue over many years; it is a great tribute to him that he took it seriously. Does he agree that a fundamental principle underlies this point, which is that no matter what somebody has been accused of, however heinous it might be, they are still entitled to due process and due legal protections? That is an essential principle from which we should not vary, whether a person be accused of terrorist activities, sex crimes or anything else. Due process is important, because errors are made.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. However heinous the crime, however vile the accusation against an individual, unless they are treated as innocent until proven guilty, we undermine everything we believe in as a democratic society.

The big change that came after the release of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four—and Judith Ward for that matter—was the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which immediately started looking at 600 miscarriage of justice cases that had not received the sort of publicity that we had managed to engender in the three cases I just mentioned.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hughes]

I shall be very brief as we are short of time, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) also hopes to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I draw the attention of the House and those watching our proceedings to amendments 178 to 181 and 183. I do that not just in my own name, but on behalf of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which examined the issue as part of its consideration of the Bill. The Joint Committee is disappointed that the Government have not yet published in full their responses to their consultation on schedule 7. These are controversial issues. Of course, we need anti-terrorist legislation and there is always a balance to be worked out between the civil liberty of the subject and the powers of the authorities.

We believe, however, that it is very important that legislation distinguishes between the conventional powers to stop, to search, and to question, which can be exercised without reasonable suspicion, and more intrusive powers, such as those of detaining and taking biometric samples, for which the Committee believes the Government have not yet made a persuasive case. The Joint Committee recommends introducing a reasonable suspicion requirement for the more intrusive powers under schedule 7. I know that some argue that schedule 7 should go altogether. That is not the position of the Joint Committee nor, coincidentally, is it the position of my party, which debated this at our conference in Glasgow a few weeks ago and took a view that there should be amendment broadly along the lines set out by the Joint Committee.

The issue came to prominence, as the House will remember, in August, when Mr David Miranda was stopped at Heathrow when coming into this country on his way back home to Brazil and was detained for nine hours under the anti-terror laws. There were protests by the Brazilian Government and widespread concern about whether the powers were used extensively. We hope we can persuade the Government to take the position of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, but we will not seek to divide the House this afternoon, hoping there might be a chance not just for my hon. Friend, but even for the Minister to respond to our concerns.

[Dr Huppert]

I shall do my best to be brief to allow the Minister time to respond to the debate.

I welcome Government new clause 11. It is right to extend powers to PCSOs, allowing them to issue fixed penalty notices to cyclists riding without lights. I am a huge champion of cycling. I was delighted when the House passed a motion to get Britain cycling. One of the banes of my life in that context is cyclists who do not obey the rules of the road. Anything that we can do to get people to cycle safely and legally will make it easier for those of us who want to extend facilities for cyclists. There are sensible ways forward. In Cambridge we have been using a “lights instead of tickets” campaign to make sure that people get their lights. I welcome the new clause as a sensible step forward.

I shall spend most of my time talking about schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000, to which I have tabled a series of amendments. There has been particular controversy recently, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) mentioned, because of the detention of David Miranda, the partner of The Guardian journalist working on the Edward Snowden leaks. This has led to the Independent Police Complaints Commission taking the Met to the High Court over failure to address complaints and how schedule 7 is used. This is a very broadly written power. It should not be a surprise that it has expanded from its original use in Northern Ireland in the 1970s to become worse and worse as illiberal Governments have made it even heavier.

It seems to me that it is not right for people who “look like terrorists” to be detained. That is exactly what happens under schedule 7. StopWatch has done a huge amount of work on this. Last year there were 64,000 schedule 7 stops—a huge number. Twenty-seven per cent. of those stopped for under an hour were Asian, much more than their proportion in the community, and 77% of those stopped for more than an hour were from ethnic minority populations. We should not consider that acceptable. StopWatch cites some chilling quotes from one man Glasgow who said that

“the first thing you ask your friend is . . . not how was the holiday, it’s did you get stopped and what did they ask you?”

If we are setting up a power that creates huge concern in the Muslim and ethnic minority populations, that will separate people from the bulk of our country and is deeply alarming. The Equality and Human Rights Commission and David Anderson QC have also commented on how damaging that is.

This is a matter that Liberal Democrats have been concerned about for a long time. It is not just about David Miranda, who has the support of The Guardian. It is also about people who are detained routinely. That is why my party has debated this and why I tabled a range of proposals. There are many concerns about schedule 7. One option would be to get rid of it. There are alternative powers in section 47A. I hope the Minister will comment on that. There are other options that we have looked at. I would like to see us committed to David Anderson QC’s proposals to limit the scope of schedule 7. The Government should introduce provisions to that effect in the other place.

I have also proposed implementing proposals that my party made at our conference. They include getting rid of the principle that authorities can stop people without any suspicion at all, restoring the right to silence for those who are detained, and questioning to be recorded from start to finish. Restoring confidence and the basic principles of the rule of law to that process and making sure that data collected are not used inappropriately should be important in the case of David Miranda. I also propose a statutory principle of annual review and a sunset clause. The Government should look at these proposals and I hope they will take advantage of the process to make sure that that happens. I am glad that that is supported by the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

I would love to deal with the proposals made by the Opposition and their proposals to ban synthetic caffeine, but in the interests of time I will allow the Minister to respond.

[Damian Green]

I am grateful. I shall be brief.

On new clause 26, as I said in Committee, I entirely agree with the sentiments behind the clause. The work of a great number of people, whether within the public or the private sector, brings them into face-to-face contact with members of the public, and we know that some of these people suffer violence in the course of their jobs. It is essential that we are satisfied that the law adequately addresses this issue. However, I do not think the new clause is necessary to achieve that. There is already a range of offences that have general application and that criminalise violent behaviour and they would already apply in the context envisaged by the clause. Sentencing guidelines specify that where an assault is committed against someone providing a service to the public, whether in the public or private sector, this is an aggravating factor and so could well result in a higher sentence within the current maximum. So I do not think the clause is necessary, although as I said, I sympathise with the sentiment behind it.

New clause 27 seeks to introduce a system of independent authorisation for undercover policing operations. I announced to the Home Affairs Committee in June our intention to legislate to enhance oversight of undercover law enforcement officer deployments. This can be done through secondary legislation and I will lay the appropriate order before the House shortly.

The changes will mean that law enforcement agencies will need to notify the Surveillance Commissioners, all retired senior judges, at the outset of undercover operations and get their prior approval for every deployment that lasts longer than 12 months. In addition, I am increasing the rank of the authorising officer. Deployments of undercover law enforcement officers will be authorised at assistant chief constable level or equivalent. Deployments lasting longer than 12 months will be authorised by a chief constable or equivalent. The rank of an authorising officer for emergency deployments will increase from inspector to superintendent level or equivalent. These changes will promote the highest standards of professionalism and excellence in this most sensitive area of policing and therefore achieve the aims of new clause 28. I hope they will be welcomed by the House.

On schedule 7, there is clearly debate on whether this requires further modification along the lines proposed in some of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) and others. For the purposes of the debate today, I put it to my hon. Friend and to the Chair of the Joint Committee that it is premature to consider making such changes because the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, David Anderson QC, has decided to investigate and report on the exercise of these powers in the case of David Miranda. The Government, sensibly, will want to examine carefully any recommendations he makes in his report, and I am sure that the Joint Committee on Human Rights and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) will want to do likewise. It would be wrong to pre-empt that report or commit now to implementing its recommendations. It is for the independent reviewer to make recommendations, but it is for the Government and Parliament to decide what legislative changes should flow from them.

Given the importance of these issues, any such legislative proposals should be subject to full parliamentary scrutiny, as with the provisions in the Bill, rather than being implemented through secondary legislation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge suggests in amendment 150. Although I welcome this contribution—

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Green]

I sense the hon. Lady is trying to lure me into a debate she has just had with my hon. Friend the Minister. I heard his speech, in which he replied fully to the points made by her and others. She says it is not too late, but, in practical terms, it is—we have just had a Division and have moved on to Third Reading. [Interruption.] There will indeed be debates in other places.

The examination and detention of David Miranda at Heathrow airport in August has put a renewed spotlight on the changes we are making in the Bill to the powers in schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000. Schedule 7 remains a key part of the UK’s border security arrangements and is vital to preserving the safety of the public. I welcome the renewed scrutiny of the provisions. It is right that, as part of his function of reporting on the operation of the Terrorism Acts, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, David Anderson QC, has decided to investigate and report on the exercise of the powers in Mr Miranda’s case. The Government will carefully consider his report when it is received.

[Dr Huppert]

We had a slightly truncated debate on that earlier. The Home Secretary has rightly expressed concern about the use of stop and search—it disproportionately affects the ethnic minority population— and taken steps to deal with it. Given that a huge proportion of people who are stopped under schedule 7 are ethnic minorities—it is massively disproportionate—does the Minister agree that similar actions should be taken on schedule 7 stops?

[Damian Green]

The sensible thing to do is to wait for Mr Anderson’s report and then decide what changes, if any, are needed. Let us look at the evidence and then decide what changes are necessary, because the police need the power to stop, question and, when necessary, detain and search people travelling through airports and ports if they are to be able to determine whether an individual is, or has been, involved in terrorism. That power is essential to the prevention of terrorism because it enables the police to detect and disrupt individuals who might be travelling for the purposes of planning, financing and training for terrorist attacks.

The amendments to schedule 7 are in line with the Government’s continuing commitment to ensure that respect for individual freedoms is balanced appropriately and carefully against the need to reduce the threat of terrorism to the British public and British interests overseas. I have no doubt that the other place will want to examine the provisions particularly closely, including in the light of Mr Anderson’s report, but we should wait until we have all had the opportunity to look at the report before rushing to make a judgment on whether we have the balance right.

I should say a few words about the much expanded part 11, which deals with extradition. The ability to extradite people to and from this country is an important component of our criminal justice system. Those who commit serious crimes should not be able to evade justice by crossing international borders to escape arrest. We owe it to the victims of crime to ensure that there are efficient and effective arrangements in place to prevent justice being denied in that way.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Huppert]

I am sure we can do that, Madam Deputy Speaker. It seems positively generous, given some of the discussions that we have had today. I am very glad that we agreed yesterday to extend the debate to a second day, although I think that we could have used the time more productively.

There is clearly a great deal of common ground, and the scrutiny process has clearly been useful. It began with pre-legislative scrutiny by the Home Affairs Committee. The Bill was examined very carefully, and I commend the Government for that. A great deal has been added since then, but it was good to start in that way.

I think that the large disagreement that remains ultimately comes down to whether we think that antisocial behaviour orders were an effective solution. I very much think that they were not effective. Yesterday, we heard that they were not effective in terms of breaches and that young people often used them as a badge of honour. We have also heard that the public do not think that they were effective. Last year, about 8% of people in an Angus Reid poll said that ASBOs were an effective way of reducing antisocial behaviour. Therefore, I am pleased that we are moving away from them. Unlike the shadow Minister, I am pleased that we are moving from sounding tough on antisocial behaviour to trying to reduce it. There is a difference between the two.

I still have a number of concerns that I hope their lordships will have a chance to consider. I hope that the Government will reconsider those issues during the passage of the Bill in the Lords. I was pleased by the attitude of my hon. Friend the Minister in his maiden speech in his new role. He highlighted that we must not allow injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance to

“become a means of targeting young people simply for being young people.”—[Official Report, 14 October 2013; Vol. 568, c. 541.]

That is right. I am sure that the Government would not want that to happen. We must ensure that it does not. However, the breadth of the IPNA still concerns me. What counts as behaviour capable of causing nuisance or annoyance? I think that some draft guidance is going out. That needs to work. IPNAs should not be used to stop reasonable, trivial or benign behaviours that have not caused and are not likely to cause harm to victims or communities. Guidance can be misinterpreted and I hope that their lordships will look further at that issue. We must also ensure that any positive requirements granted are practicable and will not force people into a position where they simply cannot do what they are required to do and hence breach the IPNA.

I remain concerned about the naming and shaming issue. Judges should do that only where it is necessary. We should have legislation to deal with that. Failing that, the guidance must be expressly clear, but I hope that their lordships will look more carefully at that.

On eviction, the Joint Committee on Human Rights noted

“the seriousness of riot-related offences”,

but correctly questioned whether we need a special rule for riot-related antisocial behaviour, because it looks like

“a punishment rather than a genuine means of preventing harm”.

It punishes the entire family. I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister told the House that he would reflect on the issue. I hope that he will do so in the right direction.

On schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act 2000, I was pleased to hear the Minister make some commitments, having looked at David Anderson’s recommendations. That will take us forward. I am pleased that the Government saw the problem with the existing legislation before it became a massive media story. However, the Government can go a lot further. I have tried to itemise a series of amendments that would make a substantial difference. The time has already been reduced from nine hours to six. However, we should go further. We should get rid of the idea of holding people without reasonable suspicion.

One thing we do know is that, with all the people who have been convicted after being held, there has been intelligence ahead of that. I am told that not on a single occasion has someone been stopped and searched, effectively randomly, without suspicion, and been convicted. Therefore, if it is not working, we do not need it to be sure that we are convicting people. There is a series of processes—the right to silence, the right to a lawyer—which should be taken further in another place.

I am pleased that the Government have shown throughout the passage of the Bill, from pre-legislative scrutiny to now, that they are listening and will reflect. I hope that that will continue in the other place and that this can be the right sort of Bill that helps us to deal with the genuine problem of antisocial behaviour, but also protects, indeed enhances, civil liberties by retreating from some of the things that the previous Government introduced—antisocial behaviour orders, schedule 7 to the Terrorism Act and much more.