Criminal Legal Aid Reforms

Karl Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I am sure it will be a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I have not done so previously, but I am very hopeful.

I am delighted, and relieved, to have secured this debate on an important issue, because without it and the recent Backbench Business Committee debate, the Government had no plans whatever to give Members of Parliament the opportunity to challenge profound, fundamental changes to our justice system.

I am pleased that the Backbench Business Committee granted time to discuss the issue, and it was telling that we had contributions from 31 Members, the vast majority of whom were opposed to the proposals. Furthermore, more than 100 Members of Parliament have put their names to the early-day motion urging the Government to think again about their plans, while the e-petition sponsored by Rachel Bentley has attracted more than 103,000 signatories.

It is a shame that the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice was unable to attend the Backbench Business Committee debate as he had more pressing matters—campaigning in a marginal Tory constituency—but I am pleased that the Minister is here to respond for the Government. It would have been fitting, however, for MPs to have had the opportunity to challenge the Lord Chancellor on the latest attack on our justice system, although I suspect that he is not keen to be challenged in whatever guise.

At this point, it is right to pay tribute to Michael Turner, QC, the former chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, for his achievements in uniting the two professions—I suspect that the Government were hoping for a divide between the two, which has not happened. I was surprised, and suggest that it was a shame, that the Lord Chancellor refused to meet Michael Turner—who, as chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, represented thousands of criminal barristers—apparently on the basis of his having been rude about the Lord Chancellor. To be clear, Michael Turner has never been rude about the Lord Chancellor. He has, however, dared to criticise publicly the plans and proposals of the Government in their consultation. The Lord Chancellor does not seem to like being criticised.

Furthermore, the Joint Committee on Human Rights report seems likely to be ignored by the Government, and the Lord Chancellor will plough on with his barmy proposals without even considering it.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate, which is of considerable importance. I agree that the proposals contain many things that are hugely damaging. On the JCHR’s ongoing investigation, does he agree—I am sure he will—that the least the Lord Chancellor should do is to delay any decision on the proposals until the investigation into whether they are fully legal has been completed?

[Karl Turner]

Absolutely. That should be the least that the Lord Chancellor is prepared to do, because the further proposed cuts to legal aid come hot on the heels of the last hacking that legal aid received from the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. Within a few months of taking power, the Government introduced that Bill to Parliament to slash legal aid and remove many areas of civil legal aid from scope, which has already denied many of the most vulnerable access to justice. We saw the effects in our surgeries when the changes kicked in, in the spring. I have seen a huge increase in the number of people at my surgery who cannot get a lawyer, but who are desperate for legal advice on housing, benefits and other complex legal issues.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend about the impact on access to justice, with many of our constituents turning to MPs for advice on complex areas of law, although most of us are not in any position to give such advice. Will he mention the big worry about the insidious impact of the new proposals on victims of crime?

[Karl Turner]

My hon. Friend makes my point for me. He is right: Members of Parliament are not competent to give legal advice. One option that had been open to us was to signpost people to citizens advice bureaux and other pro bono clinics, but due to budget cuts—local authorities and charities being slashed—they have closed or are buckling under the pressure of reduced resources and vastly increased referrals. Local authorities are desperately struggling to provide advice services as they try to absorb cuts of more than 30%, while charities and authorities up and down the country are being forced by the Government to withdraw vital funding for local projects simply to ensure that they can sustain basic, statutory obligations.

During the first attack on civil legal aid, my party’s Front Benchers and I were accused of scaremongering. Since implementation, however, 600,000 people have been denied access to advice on many aspects of civil law. There has been a 30% fall in the number of providers of civil legal aid and a 12% fall in providers of criminal legal aid, yet the most recent consultation paper, “Transforming Legal Aid: Delivering a more credible and efficient system”, which was published on 9 April, goes beyond anything that anyone could have imagined. The proposals can only damage the legal aid system yet further.

The proposals aim to save £220 million from legal aid spending by 2018-19, but the Government have not said from which year’s spend that money is meant to be found. Many of my colleagues in the profession believe that the proposals will cost the taxpayer more money in the long run—a valid point to make. A common misconception promoted by the Government is that legal aid is the principal cost, but as the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) rightly pointed out in his contribution to the Backbench Business Committee debate, the cost of our legal aid system is just three quarters that of similar systems in many other European countries. The President of the Supreme Court—no less—supports that notion. He said that the bill for legal aid increased substantially between 1965 and 2000, which I accept, but it has since been cut and projections show that it will continue to decrease over the coming years.

I am persuaded that in some areas there may be further savings to be made, but I do not believe that the proposals are the way to achieve such savings. At the Justice Committee session at which the chairman of the Bar Council, Maura McGowan, QC, Michael Turner, QC, and others gave evidence, Michael Turner suggested savings of a surprising £2 billion. The Government should be prepared to sit down with the professionals, the practitioners and the people who are expert in the area to discuss where those savings might be made.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Is it not the case that some of the motivation for the proposals has nothing to do with savings? The Lord Chancellor himself has acknowledged that, for example, restricting access to legal aid for prisoners is a simple matter of ideology.

[Karl Turner]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point and I will develop it in a moment. She is right to raise the issue, and many people argue that the changes are a false economy because costs will increase. Matrix Chambers and Bindmans LLP have pointed out that the Government’s proposed savings are nonsense. They believe that costs—I suspect that they have done proper research—will increase by £24 million if the proposals go through. I agree with Bill Waddington, chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association—

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee, which looked at the matter. Does he agree that the inefficiencies of the Courts Service may increase as more people try to represent themselves? I was recently a witness in court and saw for myself at first hand how inefficient that is. Perhaps the Minister should concentrate on some of those inefficiencies.

[Karl Turner]

My hon. Friend makes a point that, again, I was about to develop. It is accurate to say that costs will increase and people will self-represent.

I was about to say that I agree with the chairman of the CLSA who said that the Government are wrong to say that the issue is simply about savings when their figures show that costs have been coming down for years and projections show that they will continue to fall. Ministry of Justice figures show that public expenditure on legal aid between 2004 and 2009 has fallen by 25%. Figures also show that, between 2004 and 2010, the cost of criminal legal aid fell by £165 million. Those are Government figures, and they are expected to fall by a further £264 million by the end of 2014. My respectful submission is that it is about not saving money, but ideology.

Desperate people who have no choice but to represent themselves—this is my hon. Friend’s point—will clog up the courts and cost more money. Court time is expensive and not only will extended court time cost more money, but self-representation will provide fertile ground for miscarriages of justice and I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making his case very well. A long time ago, I ran a solicitors firm on a high street in north Shropshire. Does he agree that it is extraordinary that a Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government are making proposals that will specifically hit small firms on our high streets which are some of the most important providers of advice and services to local communities?

[Karl Turner]

My hon. Friend has stolen one of my best points. He is right of course.

I want to concentrate for a moment on the courts and staffing levels. I was not practising in the criminal courts during the recess, but I was there briefly. It is clear that since 2010, the courts have been stretched. There is no doubt that the proposals will put more pressure on the clerks in trying to advise clients who may be faced with no option but to self-represent.

Last year, the National Audit Office found that the cost of our legal aid system was average compared with other countries, and costs continue to fall. I accept that, according to the Government, 48% of criminal legal aid costs account for 1% of cases. Those are the cases that we should look at to make savings. The Government should concentrate their attention on high-cost cases. In times of austerity, we should look at all Departments for efficiencies, and the Ministry of Justice should shoulder its responsibilities and accept the burden for that.

It is right to make those who can afford it pay legal fees. It is also right to freeze the assets of convicted criminals to fund their legal costs. I am sure that my Front-Bench colleagues would be happy to work with the Government on that. However, it is not right that the legal aid system is sold off to the lowest bidder at the expense of quality. It is not right that huge global corporations that also run prisons, probation services and tagging—they do not do that well—are likely to bid for criminal defence contracts. That suggestion is appalling.

It is clear that there is a conflict when organisations involved in criminal defence also run the prisons. It is not right that companies such as G4S, which have great financial power, outbid smaller local firms at the expense of quality and local expertise. Local expertise is valuable. The legal aid scheme has evolved and changed over many years since its inception in 1949, but it remains a system in which the Government fund private expert practitioners to provide a pivotal public service.

[Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. A solicitor in my constituency says that 50% of the clients he deals with are innocent, and are neither cautioned nor charged. Does my hon. Friend agree that the proposals are also an attack on the innocent and, as is sometimes painted by the Government, that they do not affect just people with criminal records?

[Karl Turner]

Absolutely. That is correct. Before coming to the House, I was at the Bar with local chambers in Hull, but before that I was a criminal solicitor. I attended police stations and the vast majority of clients I represented had no further action taken against them or were dealt with by an alternative to court, but most often no further action.

[Sir Edward Garnier (Harborough) (Con)]

That may be so, but I am sure the hon. Gentleman accepts that even those who turn out to be guilty are equally entitled to legal representation.

[Karl Turner]

Of course, but the point is to dispel the bonkers notion that old lags cost the money. The reality is that people are entitled to a defence, and I will address that later.

I want to deal briefly with the suggestion that the previous Labour Government were profligate with the system. I have spent years defending my party because many practitioners say that the previous Government cut the system to the bone, but we were careful with legal aid spend. I also want to dispel the myth that only self-interested, fat-cat lawyers are concerned about the changes. I have been lobbied by charities, constituents, colleges and trade unions that do not benefit in any way from legal aid, but want a system that continues to be fit for purpose and protects the most vulnerable at the time when they need access to justice.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing this important matter to the House for consideration. On his reference to those who are less well off, Citizens Advice in my constituency has told me—I am sure that many other hon. Members here have received similar information from their citizens advice bureaux—that the least well off will suffer more and those with little or no money will be unable to take a case to court to protect or defend themselves. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the critical issue is that the less well off will suffer more?

[Karl Turner]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. The reality is that the proposals will lead to a system in which only the rich—those who can afford to be represented privately—will have access to the courts. That is simply not justice.

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend is rightly making a point about justice and has drawn attention to the danger of miscarriages of justice if we go back to a system that we thought we had left behind. Does he agree that there is another side for the victims of crime because if the wrong person is convicted they suffer a double injustice?

[Karl Turner]

Of course. My hon. Friend highlights the point that victims of crime suffer again because funding for charities that represent the interests of victims of crime has been severely slashed under the coalition Government.

[Kate Green]

On victims of crime, does my hon. Friend not also agree that with access to a good, trusted legal adviser, many defendants will plead guilty early, saving pain to the victim as well as cost to the system?

[Karl Turner]

In my experience, for what it is worth, my advice to a client was based on the evidence. If that was overwhelming or strong, and if, in my opinion, the defendant needed to plead guilty, they were advised accordingly. I think solicitors and barristers will always act in the best interests of the client.

May I address the caricature that the Government have peddled, which is that all lawyers earn salaries like that of the Prime Minister’s very wealthy brother? It is not true. The vast majority of legal aid lawyers, up and down the country, earn a modest wage; often, they will take home less than a nurse or a teacher. I wonder what information the Government have on that issue, because I think that the Bar Council could provide them with information about average salaries at the Bar, and that the Law Society could assist as well.

A very important point, and perhaps an unintended consequence, is that the proposals will prevent many young people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, less advantaged backgrounds, and poorer backgrounds from coming into the professions. This is not a plea for the so-called fat cat lawyers, but, as John Cooper, QC, put it:

“This is recognition, before it’s too late, that if the proposals go through we will be complicit in excluding many young people from less advantaged backgrounds from becoming part of what can only be described as the National Health Service of the Law”.

I also want to deal with the misconception that all people seeking legal aid are old lags. I have dealt with that briefly, but the Government seem to suggest that such people do not deserve representation. Of course, there are repeat offenders who are found guilty, or who plead guilty to a further offence, but just because someone has previously been convicted of burglary does not mean—cannot mean, surely—that they are automatically guilty of the further alleged offence. They might not be.

Fundamental to our legal system must be the presumption of innocence. Denying people’s liberty is one of the strongest powers of the state. It is vital, therefore, that that can be done only when a court of law is presented with evidence, for and against, by highly skilled and trained lawyers.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Fundamental to our system is the issue of choice, which the hon. Gentleman may come on to. He is a former member of the Select Committee on Justice, which I now sit on. The right for someone to choose who represents them goes very much to the heart of our system.

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would agree that the price-competitive tendering proposals, as originally drafted, would appear to deny that, but as he knows from the Justice Committee’s hearings and the Backbench business debate, the Government have moved on that issue. I wonder what his feeling is on where that movement on choice, which very much holds the PCT proposals together in their original form, leaves us. He should acknowledge that the Government have already moved a little on the issue.

[Karl Turner]

I will address that point later in my remarks.

I am concerned about what seems to be an outdated concept, in the Government’s vision, of a Tesco-style justice system, but I still believe that the defendant is innocent until proven guilty. Surely we should be looking to protect that system. I add that these stereotypical clients are not the only people who seek criminal legal aid. Thompsons Solicitors, in its response to the consultation, made it clear that many who seek legal aid are people such as teachers, nurses and police officers, who are wrongly accused of assault or similar, and who need to clear their names and save their livelihoods.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He has not mentioned a category of people who suffer a form of injustice greater than anything he has spoken about. Those people cannot defend themselves, either because they have died as a result of a state action—I am thinking of Baha Mousa, in particular, who was beaten to death by British soldiers—or because they are incarcerated by either British or foreign states. Such people, without legal aid, have no recourse whatever. There is no self-representation, because they cannot do that, and no cheap representation, as they cannot do that either.

[Karl Turner]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an extremely valid point, which I, again, want to address briefly in my remarks. I disagree with many aspects of the proposals—the right hon. Gentleman is correct—but as my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) said, denying prisoners access to legal representation simply goes against everything that a civil society should represent.

Defending prisoners is not a vote winner, but we live in a civilised society, and I believe that prisoners must have the right to legal representation. The reforms will essentially mean that justice stops at the prison gates and that prisoners are denied legal representation, if the Government plans go ahead. As colleagues have said, denying prisoners access to justice in the way that the consultation proposes seeks to save £4 million. In times of austerity, it would be flippant to say that that is peanuts, but actually, when I think about it, those efficiency savings come at what cost? For goodness’ sake—it seems incredible to me.

[Kate Green]

It is likely that the proposals will save nothing in the round, because they will lead to more inefficiencies inside prisons, as people will be kept in higher-security conditions, when they need not be, for longer, and as there will be greater difficulty in managing discipline and behaviour in prison as a result.

[Karl Turner]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes a valid point.

I think that this next point was the one made by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr David Davis). I am also concerned that the proposals to introduce a residency test will see victims of human trafficking denied access to legal representation and will prevent many cases from being brought against the Government when they are accused of wrongdoing abroad. The new proposals will mean that families such as that of Jean Charles de Menezes would not have been able to fight the case for their dead son, who was wrongly shot by armed police.

I also disagree with the proposals to reform judicial review. They will mean that an individual will no longer be able to hold public bodies to account. Shelter, for example, provides specialist social welfare law advice—on housing issues, in particular—to about 15,000 people each year, under various legal aid contracts. However, it is clear that the proposals will prevent it from doing that.

The Government proposals limit funding for judicial review to only those cases where permission to proceed is granted by a judge. That must severely limit Shelter’s ability to help people. None of us in this place can imagine the prospect of losing our homes. It seems incredible that the Government, in their plans, seek to attack the most vulnerable people at the time when they need assistance the most.

Clearly, the Lord Chancellor has thought about the proposals since the Backbench business debate. Following absolutely overwhelming criticism from many Opposition Members and Government Members, I was very pleased to see the Secretary of State U-turn on the accused having the right to choose their lawyer. However, we do not know what the impact of that will be, because as far as I understand it, the Lord Chancellor is still keen to press ahead with what he thinks is a workable system of PCT. I suspect that it is not workable; I do not think it ever has been.

The client choice issue was designed to assist with PCT, in the sense that it would be attractive for large corporations to bid for contracts on the basis that they are getting a vast client base, but I am not sure what the impact of that will be and how the proposals will change things as a result. I hope, however, that the Lord Chancellor continues to listen, and that he will concede that PCT, in any form, is not suitable for allocating legal aid contracts. Legal aid contracts should not simply go to bidders who are willing to do the work for the lowest price.

As I have said, I am concerned about many aspects of the proposals, but I want to focus, in the time remaining to me, on chapter 4 of the consultation document, which is about PCT in relation to criminal legal aid.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

A constituent of mine recently wrote to me in praise of a small local firm of solicitors that had supported her and her family through a long, traumatic and very serious case. She felt that the attention to detail and dedication shown by that small local firm would not be replicated in the new system, in which speed and economics would be of the essence. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Karl Turner]

Absolutely. That is an excellent point. It is just the reality of business. Small firms of solicitors have established themselves over a long period. The hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) thinks that my remarks are amusing. They may be amusing to him, but I can tell him that the reality of the proposals will not be funny to people in my constituency who are looking to access justice.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

I am listening very carefully to the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, and he is making a strong case for access to justice with which no one, in any part of the House, would disagree. What I would be interested to understand, though, is whether his position is that legal aid as it is currently is pretty much right and cannot be reformed or that reforms are possible but the Government are pursuing the wrong ones. If it is the latter, why has the Bar Council not come forward with more substantive proposals than it has apparently done so far?

[Karl Turner]

I am not the Bar Council; I do not represent the Bar Council. It is not for me to say why it has not come forward with proposals, but my opinion is this. Why should the Bar Council, the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, the Criminal Bar Association or any other organisation that represents the professionals come up and do the Government’s job? I suggest that the hon. Gentleman goes away and reads the evidence of the Justice Committee and looks at the proposals put forward by the experts—the practitioners, the people who do this work every day. Michael Turner, QC, came up with a suggestion for making £2 billion of savings if the Lord Chancellor was only prepared to allow him enough time to sit down and discuss the proposals with him.

[David Mowat]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. I thought I heard him earlier give that figure of £2 billion, which of course is a very significant amount. I believe that it is 10 times the amount that the Lord Chancellor is seeking. If Michael Turner has identified £2 billion of savings, would it be possible for the hon. Gentleman to identify for other hon. Members the main areas in which those savings would be made?

[Karl Turner]

The former chairman of the Criminal Bar Association put forward various suggestions in the Justice Committee evidence session. I happen to think that some of them are feasible. He talked about saving money in courts. In my experience, an awful lot of money is wasted in the courts system. Then there is the Crown Prosecution Service. I do not mean to criticise colleagues in the profession, but very often defence lawyers are blamed for delays and loss of court time when in fact it is the CPS, whose staff are rushed off their feet, overworked—in my area, the service is terribly understaffed—that causes the delay. There are all sorts of things that the Government could look at, but the reality is that the Lord Chancellor is simply not prepared to sit down and discuss them. I am hoping that the new chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, Nigel Lithman, QC, has the ability to persuade the Lord Chancellor to sit round a table and discuss the proposals.

[Mr David Davis]

First, let me help the hon. Gentleman with a reminder of some of the things that were proposed. There was a proposal for a levy on the commercial courts in London that would raise large amounts of money. There were proposals that the banks should pay for the fraud cases that make up a large part of what we are discussing.

I also want to ask the hon. Gentleman a question. The Law Society has come up with a proposal that maintains choice but still puts in place a bidding system— a rather more thoughtful bidding system, if I may so—a rolling three-year bidding system, which would keep in place some of the smaller specialised companies and so on. Does he think that that is a good route to go down?

[Karl Turner]

Absolutely. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The Law Society’s proposal, I think, is a much better alternative. To answer the point made by the hon. Member for Warrington South, of course I accept that efficiency savings have to be made across the board in Departments—I made that point earlier—but it seems to me that the Lord Chancellor has just gone off without really being prepared to consult. I think that we are talking about a period of two months. It seems to me—the Minister shakes his head, but this is the justice system. There are a lot of professionals involved. I think that the Government received 16,000 responses. Surely there was a requirement to have some form of proper consultation—I do not think that it was proper, frankly—so these things could have been discussed more properly.

I think—this point was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas)—that what is proposed defies everything that the Conservatives allegedly stand for. It is contrary to all that they say they are doing to promote growth on the high street. The idea of savagely attacking small businesses seems barmy to me. Do the Tories not believe that small private firms are the backbone of our economy? It beggars belief that this policy will without doubt break the backbone of the legal profession and, in my submission, severely undermine local economies such as my own in Hull. Let me be very clear.

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

For the record, I am still a practising solicitor, although my firm does not do criminal law. I want to take up the point about rural areas. Already in places such as Cumbria there are gaps in terms of the legal profession giving advice. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with me that the potential is that the reforms will exacerbate that problem, particularly in rural areas?

[Karl Turner]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I have not read the 16,000 responses to the Government consultation, but I know from my discussions with colleagues in the profession that a vast majority of those responses make the point about advice deserts. Let me refer to my area of Humberside. Bridlington, which is in the area, will, in my submission, become an advice desert. It is covered currently by all the firms of solicitors in the area, but there is one firm of solicitors that is based in that town.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that whatever changes to legal aid are brought in, they will, in Wales, have to accommodate the legal requirements of the Welsh Language Act 1993? It is a great concern of many people that the capacity will not be there to do that.

[Karl Turner]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point. Clearly, this is not my area of expertise, but the point has been raised by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd), the leader of Plaid Cymru in the House, who is very worried. He is a practising barrister and is concerned that that obligation will go as a result of the proposals. That cannot be justice.

I am conscious of the time, so I will now make a little progress. The Government proposals for PCT will irrevocably damage the criminal justice system. PCT will inevitably lead to the market being dominated by the big multinationals—the usual suspects—G4S, Serco, Capita; and I fear that many new entrants to the market who have no experience whatever of delivering criminal justice will dominate the market. The small businesses, the expert businesses, that have established their practices over a number of years and have a great relationship with local authorities will just close their doors. It will become economically unviable for them to continue to exist.

The proposals are designed to cut a further 17.5% on top of the 2011 reduction of 10%. Firms that win the contracts will assert that they can provide the service at the cheapest possible rate. Stack it high and sell it cheap will see our criminal justice system reduced to the lowest common denominator. I have no doubt that it will be taken over by less qualified people providing a less qualified service. We will see the cornerstone of a civilised society reduced to a factory mentality where quantity will trump quality each and every time. The only consideration in our justice system will be the cheapest provider.

The plans also perversely propose the same fee being paid whether the case is resolved by way of a guilty plea or contested at trial. To me, that suggestion beggars belief. There is undoubtedly a concern that that will lead to undue pressure being put on a defendant to plead guilty to speed up the process, thus saving time and money for big legal aid providers. There will be a clear financial incentive for the defendant to plead guilty as quickly as possible, even when a trial would be in the client’s best interests. It is unlikely to happen, because, in my honest view, solicitors always act in the best interests of their clients and always advise based on evidence alone and the strength of the evidence presented in the case, but do the Government not accept that advice might be misconstrued? A particular client might plead guilty to an offence when the evidence is strong and overwhelming, but there might be a later discussion, perhaps in the pub, along the lines, “You pled guilty, mate, because your brief was paid the same money whether they did their best for you in a trial or forced you, with your arm up your back, to plead guilty.” Surely that will be the result.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. I do not wish to interrupt the flow of the hon. Gentleman and I have no idea how much longer he intends to go on for, but other people wish to contribute, not least some of his hon. Friends. I urge him, in the spirit of co-operation with his colleagues, to consider bringing his remarks to an end.

[Karl Turner]

I am grateful, Mr Davies. I will bring my remarks to a close. I apologise. I think I took too many interventions.

Well-established, local, high-quality providers that have strong links with local police authorities, courts and councils will be replaced by large corporations. That is not a good idea. It is not helpful to the justice system. The reality is that people will suffer as a consequence of the proposals. I hope the Government listen. I hope that the Lord Chancellor—according to rumour, this will be the announcement tomorrow—has changed his mind and decided once and for all to bury the idea of price-competitive tendering.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point in relation to settlement. Again, if he will forgive me for now, I will write to him about it, because it is not something that I can go into in the two minutes I have left. Nevertheless, he is right to make the point, and we will certainly explore it—

[Karl Turner]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jeremy Wright]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I would rather not give way to him; I want to deal with the point about price-competitive tendering that he referred to. Obviously, it is a crucial question. Should we deal with legal aid reform in that way? I am sure he is aware that as recently as last year, the hon. Member for Hammersmith was still saying that there was no reason not to do price-competitive tendering in legal aid, and that he said that he had seen nothing in the past two years to say why we should not press ahead with it. The hon. Gentleman may want to speak to the hon. Member for Hammersmith about whether price-competitive tendering is a deeply flawed concept that could never work.

However, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East will also know that we are considering a range of submissions—we will also consider his submission—and that the Government will respond to the consultation that we have held. In addition, he knows that there will be a further period of consultation on some of the proposals. I hope that he will be a little more patient and see what those responses entail, because we will want to consider carefully a number of things and to decide what our response to them should be. He will forgive me if I cannot give him a sneak preview today, but he will not have to be patient for very much longer to see how we intend to respond.

There are crucial points to be considered—they have been raised again in this debate today—about the nature of rural areas and the advice to be provided to people there. As I say, hon. Friends and hon. Members have made those points, and they have been listened to and understood. Similarly, the point was made about Welsh language requirements. Any contracts that are issued will include a requirement that Welsh language services be provided. That is the law and that is as it should be.

Again, I stress that this process is an opportunity for people to contribute their views about what we have set out. With our legal aid reforms, the intention is to do two things: first, to address the real financial challenge that we face; and secondly, to reinforce public confidence in what is a very important system of providing taxpayer-funded subsidy to those who need it in our courts. Our proposals have those twin objectives. We will listen to the submissions that have been made to us, but in the end those objectives are what we seek to achieve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Karl Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Over the past few weeks, I have had very constructive engagement with the Law Society and I welcome the counter-proposals it has put to us. We have recognised many shared objectives in that and it has behaved with professionalism over this matter. I was very disappointed that when the Bar Council submitted its report and recommendations to us in response to our consultation it did not contain the same degree of constructive engagement. I am due to meet the Bar Council later today and I hope we will see that change.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

Now that the Lord Chancellor concedes that client choice is integral to the criminal justice system, when will he announce that price-competitive tendering has been dumped once and for all?

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman needs to realise that the concept of competitive tendering in criminal legal aid was originated by his own party. Now we are hearing the Labour party oppose the things for which it argued for years, and it is typical of this Opposition that they will say one thing when in government, and when in opposition will say something completely different. I am proud to be part of a party that is defending health budgets and taking tough decisions in other areas; the hon. Gentleman is part of a party doing the opposite.

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[Chris Grayling]

One of the comments from colleagues in the House and elsewhere, which we must clearly factor in when developing the next stage of the proposals, is what we will do in areas that are rural or have particular geographical issues. That is something I am very mindful of—

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East)]

It is a mess.

Legal Aid Reform

Karl Turner Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Teather (Brent Central) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered legal aid reform.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing the House to debate this very important issue. I am hugely grateful to the many Members who have remained in the Chamber on a Thursday afternoon even though the debate is not on a dividable motion. I offer my apology for the fact that I did not ask for a full day’s debate—clearly, there is much more desire to debate this matter than I expected when I went before the Committee.

As many in the House will know, the background to the debate is that just after the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 came into force, the Government began a new consultation, “Transforming Legal Aid.” That consultation closed on 4 June, and the Government are due to respond after the summer recess. The proposals were incredibly wide ranging and arguably more significant in some ways than those in the LASPO Act, but it looked as if the House would not get an opportunity to debate that consultation document before the Government responded. As the Government are currently proposing secondary legislation for the matter, my concern is that we may not get an opportunity to have a debate before the legislation is introduced.

Because the proposals are so complex and wide-ranging, I think it important for us to get the details right, and I therefore hope that the Minister will view the contributions of Members in all parts of the House as part of the consultation process.

I am grateful to the 31 members of all parties who supported my application to the Backbench Business Committee. I particularly thank the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), who is a former legal aid Minister, and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who I know wants to speak later about some of the constitutional implications of the proposed changes.

The fact that so many organisations, including Mind and Shelter, have contacted Members of Parliament with briefings and queries demonstrates that it is not just lawyers who are worried about these proposals.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

Is it not very disappointing that that the Justice Secretary has not bothered to come to the House today? As the hon. Lady has pointed out, the debate is very oversubscribed. More than 96,000 people signed the e-petition, and I believe that 96 Members of Parliament signed early-day motion 36. The Justice Secretary should be here.

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[Mr Djanogly]

Further cuts in the rate are the easy option. The market is out of sync with the legal profession and it needs reform.

My theory is that Labour’s contracting proposals failed because they not only succumbed to the reactionary wing of the legal profession but shied from the bottom line facts of criminal legal aid contracting, which are that in order to get efficiencies and savings, contracting will always involve fewer but larger practices operating over a larger area. If the market is to be sustainable, there must be fewer firms each receiving a larger slice of the remaining pie.

Although I support the Government’s consultation and the contracting proposals in general, my personal view is that we are missing an opportunity radically to restructure the market and bring it into line with modern practice norms. At the core of that lies the need to consider the type of organisation that can bid and how they are paid. The historic position in England and Wales is that the client instructs a solicitor and then, particularly for more complicated advocacy, the solicitor employs a barrister. That involves two fees and I would strongly advocate moving to a single fee.

[Karl Turner]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has read the consultation document. The proposals are very different from what the previous Government proposed under best value tender. There are major constitutional differences in these proposals that will ruin the entire criminal justice system.

[Mr Djanogly]

The previous Government were considering contracting, as were Labour Front Benchers during this Parliament. We need to appreciate that the Legal Services Act 2007, brought in by the previous Government with Conservative support, has transformed the potential for legal service provision. To cut a long story short, there is now no reason why solicitors and barristers should not go into partnership together, or indeed, with non-legal organisations, via alternative business structures. There is no reason why barristers should not take instructions direct from the client nor any reason why barristers should not themselves bid for contracts and employ solicitors. In practice, there have been blockers to this kind of progress, not least a barrister regulator that seems unable to see the writing on the wall for its own profession.

If I seem radical, I am explaining a scenario that would seem more or less natural to most Commonwealth common law countries.

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[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

Prior to my election to this House, I worked as a criminal barrister from my local chambers in Hull, and before that, I was a criminal solicitor. I was never a fat-cat lawyer—in fact, my waistline has increased only since coming to this place.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I am pleased that my hon. Friend is not a fat cat, but could he say whether fat-cat lawyers actually attend police stations at 2 o’clock in the morning?

[Karl Turner]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. As far as I know, it is very unusual for a partner in the firm to come out in the early hours of the morning. The important point is this: a solicitor who attends at a police station in the middle of the night is often dealing with extremely serious allegations—sometimes allegations of murder. I have been in that position on a number of occasions, representing clients who are alleged to have committed murder. The solicitor is there on his or her own, whereas the police have advice from the CPS and many officers to assist them. The solicitor is facing all that pressure and is not being paid properly, even under the current arrangements, for his or her expertise.

Of course we accept that in these straitened economic times, cuts have to be made to Departments across the board, but these plans are massively ill conceived. They will, in my respectful submission, irretrievably damage the criminal justice system. I will focus my remarks on price competitive tendering.

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

Can the hon. Gentleman help with this point, then? If irretrievable damage is done to the criminal justice system by any change to legal aid, why was it that the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), when Lord Chancellor, said:

“I hope that everyone…will accept that the growth of spending on legal aid seen in the early part of the decade and before is no longer sustainable”?

[Karl Turner]

It is very disappointing, but I suspect the hon. Gentleman has not read the consultation document.

I shall go on to deal with price competitive tendering, but first let me try to bust a myth. There seems to be a suggestion that the Labour Government were particularly generous to criminal lawyers. We were not. Criminal lawyers have sustained cuts to fees from successive Governments. The current proposals are far reaching and, if they go through, they will be horrifically damaging to the criminal justice system. PCT will inevitably lead to the market being dominated by the big multinationals—the usual suspects—G4S, Serco, Capita, and probably the new entrants to the market who have absolutely no experience, Stobart.

The plans are also unconstitutional. They dismiss the notion that an accused might have the right to choose a solicitor. The cavalier ignorance of the Lord Chancellor was exposed when he remarked:

“I don’t believe that most people who find themselves in our criminal justice system are great connoisseurs of legal skills.”

Not only does he dismiss everyone requiring legal advice as a criminal before they have even been charged or had a trial, but he apparently has the naiveté to think that those who come face to face with the criminal justice system are not capable of judging the competence of their own lawyers. This is the “too thick to pick” point. The notion is completely contrary to attitudes applied to, say, health services in this country or education, where choice is deemed essential.

The proposals look to implement yet another changing fee structure. Fees would be cut by 17.5%, on top of the 2011 reduction of 10%. Firms that successfully bid for PCT will have demonstrated that they can provide the services at the cheapest possible rate. This means that advice will probably be provided by less qualified people supervised, perhaps, by a single lawyer. The “stack it high, sell it cheap” mentality will reduce the criminal justice system to a sausage factory where the quantity of cases trumps the quality of the service provided every time.

The proposals specify this in paragraph 23, suggesting that there is no need to be concerned about the quality of provision because work shall not be

“above the acceptable level specified by the LAA”—

the Legal Aid Agency. The plans also perversely propose the same fee to be paid, whether the case is resolved by way of a guilty plea or contested at trial. There is strong concern that this will inevitably lead to undue pressure being put on a defendant to plead guilty when in fact they have a defence.

The proposals will change the sort of people coming into the profession. This is not a plea for so-called fat-cat lawyers, but as the eminent barrister John Cooper QC put it to me yesterday,

“This is recognition, before it’s too late, that if the proposals go through we will be complicit in excluding many young people from less advantaged backgrounds from becoming part of what can only be described as the National Health Service of the Law”.

I have only one minute left. The Lord Chancellor showed his ignorance and lack of understanding of the profession. He showed ignorance today by not attending this important debate, yet the civil servants Box is full to the gunwales. The Lord Chancellor should sit down and meet for the first time the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, Michael Turner QC, and Bill Waddington, the chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, and discuss alternatives to these undemocratic, unconstitutional and worrying plans.

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[Simon Reevell]

My hon. Friend makes the same point very well.

Secondly, as a Conservative, I do not like the removal of choice from the market. It does not really matter that the individual concerned happens to be a defendant in criminal proceedings; after all, at that stage he or she is presumed innocent until proven guilty—we do still have that. The removal of choice in the selection of representation concerns me. The idea that the state will prosecute, that it will contract those who defend, and that those contractors are likely, under these proposals, to employ the defence advocate, is worrying. I have dealt with cases that have involved issues of security and of taking on the Government, for example in relation to what the previous Government did in Iraq. I wonder whether someone working for an organisation that had a contract with the Government would feel as able as I did to take on those issues and seek to expose them in the course of a trial, regardless of consequences, as a member of the independent Bar.

There are smaller difficulties. The hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) referred to the proposed fee structure. In fact, that already exists elsewhere. Some military cases in Germany are paid for on that principle, but with an escape clause, as it were, that recognises that it is not suitable for the more serious cases. That suggests that it is therefore not suitable to be rolled out across the Crown court system for the vast majority of criminal cases.

The expression of support for an independent Bar in the consultation document is inconsistent with the model that is proposed, under which advocacy would be kept in-house to offset the reductions necessary to take part in the tendering process. That has implications not only for members of the independent Bar but for judicial recruitment and for the availability of experienced prosecutors. The Ministry of Justice might want to think about what it is doing not only in relation to those who defend in the Crown court but to where it will get those to whom it looks to prosecute serious cases—the murders, the rapes, the woundings, and matters of that sort.

Having criticised the consultation document, it does contain something that has not been offered to any other group of people. I used to be a soldier. Soldiers were not told, “These are the proposals—if you’ve got some of your own we’ll look at them”; they were simply told, “These are the proposals.” It is the same for teachers, firemen and everybody else. Lawyers are being told, “These are the proposals—if you’ve got alternatives and they achieve the same result, then the Department will go with them.” Anybody who works in the criminal justice system knows that savings can be made.

[Karl Turner]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the consultation document is really about considering alternatives, the Justice Secretary should meet the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association? He has made himself available on numerous occasions, and the Justice Secretary has refused to see him. Would it not be sensible for the Justice Secretary to agree immediately to that meeting?

[Simon Reevell]

The hon. Gentleman knows full well why that discussion has not taken place and that the prelude to it did not involve a method that was taught at the Bar school course that he did. I hope that those difficulties can be resolved.

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[Karl Turner]

rose—

[Simon Reevell]

No, the hon. Gentleman has had one go and that is quite enough.

The consultation has a blunt instrument to deal with the expense of long trials which impacts on the majority of Crown court work, but there is a simpler solution—the abolition of very high-cost cases. Nobody needs them, nobody wants them, and they can be got rid of. That would save money at a stroke.

Allowing choice but banning the practice of client poaching is another effective way of saving money. There are simple measures such as making prisons provide video links so that solicitors can have video conferences and therefore not have to be paid to travel to prisons. The majority of prisons will not allow solicitors to have such facilities. Other options would be controlling who within defence teams is paid to read and use material, thinking about whether those with frozen assets can be asked to pay for their own defence, and looking at how those who are convicted can be asked to contribute towards the cost of their representation. There are all sorts of ways of doing this.

If those making these proposals and those opposing them on the grounds of the consultation document, while recognising in principle that savings have to be made, were opposing litigants, a sensible judge would tell them to go outside and settle the case. The flaws in the consultation document are apparent, and the alternatives are there for consideration. I agree with the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) that we are getting to the time when this needs to be sorted out and resolved, because that can obviously be done with the acceptance of all.

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[Robert Neill]

I have given way twice, so my time is running out. I am sure that my hon. Friend will forgive me.

There might be different means by which the same objective can be achieved. It might be possible to have some form of panel system. It might be possible to have a different approach to police station work, where there is a strong argument for saying that firms need a guaranteed volume of work to make the business case sustainable, as opposed to the preparation of litigation and the ongoing court work in both the magistrates court and the Crown court. It is not unreasonable to say that choice has to be provided in the context of affordability. We must not be afraid to say that.

We must recognise that the number of people seeking work at the Bar and in the solicitors’ profession has grown greatly, frankly to an unsustainable level. The profession has to recognise that too many people are chasing a diminishing work load. The number of cases that go to court has reduced by broadly a third since I came to the Bar, whereas the independent Bar and the solicitors’ profession have become about three times as large. Something has to give. Let us sit down sensibly and find ways in which that can be achieved.

[Karl Turner]

rose—

[Robert Neill]

I have given way twice and am afraid that I cannot give way any more. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will find another opportunity to make his point.

We should not be sniffy about the development of alternative business models that might deliver the service properly. I recognise the points that have been made about accessibility in rural areas and about the particular types of expertise that may be needed. We could do more within the existing mechanisms to assist people with such issues.

I have come across such a situation in my constituency. Bromley council has set up an online platform in negotiation with reputable and well-established solicitors firms in the area that puts potential clients in contact with a solicitor, who provides the initial advice without any charge. There was difficulty in setting that up because, despite the willingness of the established solicitors firms to take part, the Solicitors Regulation Authority would not provide the necessary regulatory clearance. That is a needless bureaucratic obstacle to a practical solution to a genuine problem. That could sensibly be looked at and I hope the Minister will consider what might be done.

There are other ways in which we can make savings in criminal matters. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham) has suggested using the independent Bar more within the Crown Prosecution Service. We should look at whether more efficiencies can be made in that body more generally. Perhaps we should look at the operation of the new centralised magistrates courts service. Again, there might be scope for savings.

We spend markedly more on legal aid than any comparable common law jurisdiction. We spend about £39 per head in the UK, compared with about £20 per head in the Republic of Ireland, about £10 per head in Canada and about £13 per head in New Zealand. Those are jurisdictions with the same system and trial processes as we have, but they do it markedly cheaper. I do not believe that a reduction of 10%, which is not out of line with other reductions, is unacceptable.

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[Karl Turner]

It ought to be on the record that it is the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, Michael Turner QC, whom the Lord Chancellor is refusing to meet, not the chairman of the Bar Council.

[Valerie Vaz]

Absolutely. I am sure hon. Members received the e-mail from Michael Turner QC stating that the Lord Chancellor refused to meet him.

It is not clear what the Lord Chancellor is trying to achieve, other than to undermine the legal system. The Lord Chancellor does not appear to understand that if people are given access to legal services, they do not need to go to court—if that is where he wants to make the savings. Perhaps he wants to make the savings in court time. However, as a result of these proposals, court time will be filled by people who can afford going to court. In certain circumstances, companies can offset their legal costs against tax and even get the VAT back. An ordinary citizen cannot do that.

Judicial review is an important branch of law. Of course, the Executive do not like it because it holds the Executive to account—it looks at how public bodies come to a decision. Given the legislation enacted since 2010, it is no wonder that the Government want a neutered judicial review. No one can predict the outcome of a case, so having to make a judgment that there is a 50% chance of winning to receive legal aid, is absurd. Evidence has to be heard from both sides and a decision is made based on arguments that are made before an impartial judiciary. Lawyers are obliged to advise a client whether a case has merits before they proceed. What about the figures for judicial review? They are not increasing exponentially. A written answer to me revealed that in 2009 there were 2,145 cases in judicial review, with that figure going up to only 2,304 in 2011. In criminal judicial review, it was 316 for 2011. Those are just the figures for cases lodged; they are not even the figures for cases that have gone to completion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Karl Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We have taken care with these proposals to put together a package based on our statistical analysis which we think will protect incomes at the lower end of the Bar particularly. It is my intention that where we have to impose changes on the profession, they come through either the reorganisation of businesses or income changes at the top end of the income scale.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

The Justice Secretary knows full well that his plans for price competitive tendering in criminal legal aid are completely opposed by the profession. They are unworkable. Will he now sit down with the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association and discuss a way forward out of this mess?

[Chris Grayling]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the principle of price competitive tendering was first proposed in a report commissioned by the last Government eight years ago. We have looked carefully at the best way in which we can deliver better value in our legal aid system, which we have to do to meet financial targets. We will do so in a way that protects the interests of the justice system, but no change is simply not an option.

Home Department

Karl Turner Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2013 Ministerial Corrections

Recall of Parliament

[Karl Turner]

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what estimate she has made of the additional cost of police and security as a result of the recall of Parliament on 10 April 2013.

[Official Report, 18 April 2013, Vol. 561, c. 502W.]

Letter of correction from Damian Green:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) on 18 April 2013.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Damian Green]

This information is not collected centrally. The cost of security services on the parliamentary estate is a matter for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA).

The correct answer should have been:

Rehabilitation of Offenders

Karl Turner Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I can reassure my hon. Friend that the issue unites the coalition—there has been a lot of talk of the coalition parties having differences on policy, but let us champion a policy on which we are united on the need for change. As hon. Members will see when they read the document, one thing that is different in the package I have announced is that we are building rehabilitation support into community sentences. Clearly, the aim is to ensure that people do not get to prison in the first place. My goal is to see prison numbers fall steadily not because we want to close prisons for its own sake, but because fewer people reoffend, and we therefore do not need to put them in jail in future.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

When probation officers dared to criticise the Secretary of State’s bonkers plans, he put a gagging order on them. When the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association criticised the Secretary of State’s bonkers ideas for criminal legal aid, he refused to meet him. Is it criticism he cannot stand, or engaging with the professions within the justice system?

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman needs to stop believing everything he reads in the papers.

[Karl Turner]

They told me.

[Chris Grayling]

My ministerial and I colleagues have regular meetings with leading figures in the legal profession and with leading probation staff, and will continue to do so. I most recently had meetings with both the Bar Council and the Law Society within the past couple of weeks.

[Karl Turner]

You’re telling fibs.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I heard that last sedentary interjection, which was an imputation of dishonesty. I know the hon. Gentleman will want to withdraw that.

[Karl Turner]

Yes, please, Mr Speaker. I withdraw it.

[Mr Speaker]

We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman and will move on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Karl Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

As I indicated earlier, I intend to bring forward shortly a consultation paper on the youth estate. Our challenge at the moment is that across the youth estate we are detaining a small number of young people at a very high cost and with an unacceptably high reoffending rate—something like 70%. I want to see whether there is a better way of doing things to reduce that reoffending rate and help turn the lives of those children around.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

T5. This morning I met Bill Waddington, chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association. Despite what the Minister said in response to an earlier question, I was assured that there has been a sharp increase in cautions for serious offences, including sexual offences and violent assault. That is soft on criminals and harsh on victims. Will the Secretary of State meet me and Bill Waddington to discuss the issue?

[Chris Grayling]

I take seriously the issue of cautions being administered for serious offences. Indeed, one of the first things I did as Justice Secretary was commission work on the issue, and I am due to meet senior police officers to discuss it in the next few days. I do, however, caution the House to be careful. For example, we would all view a caution for rape as completely unacceptable, but in some cases where the victim is absolutely unwilling to give evidence it may be the only way to get something on the record about an offender. We must be careful about this issue and try to get it right.

Female Genital Mutilation

Karl Turner Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, which I have done on many occasions.

I am delighted to have secured this important debate on what I believe to be a national scandal, with thousands of victims violated and failed every year. Although the scandalous practice of female genital mutilation is shrouded in secrecy, the Government estimate that 20,000 girls under 15 in England and Wales could be at high risk of FGM. That is more than 50 young victims every day. It is happening now, as we speak in the debate. The issue is not party political, and has been raised by Government and Opposition Members. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), who is recognised in this place and outside the House for her tremendous work in raising the matter.

Eradicating the practice will take not only cross-party support but cross-departmental work involving the Home Office, the Department for Education, the Department of Health and the Foreign Office. The subject is complex, but I want to use today’s debate to understand the Ministry of Justice’s role in dealing with FGM and to press the Minister responsible for victims of crime on what the Government are doing to ensure that those voiceless victims are protected. I want to know what her Department is doing to champion that cause and what she is doing not only to prevent people from becoming victims in future, but to seek justice for existing victims. I understand that several failings fall under the remit of the Home Office, but my concern is that no Minister is specifically responsible for FGM. Given that there are 20,000 victims every year, the victims Minister should perhaps shoulder a fair proportion of that responsibility.

Female genital mutilation has been a criminal offence in this country since 1985, but some may argue that it has been a criminal offence for much longer, under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. In my respectful submission, FGM is without a shadow of a doubt grievous bodily harm. It is an appalling practice. The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 made it illegal to take children abroad for the purposes of FGM. Despite that, however, it is astonishing that there has not been a single prosecution. I welcome the recent efforts of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the publication of the Crown Prosecution Service action plan. Keir Starmer QC stated:

“It is critical that everything possible is done to ensure we bring the people who commit these offences against young girls and women to justice”.

Right hon. and hon. Members will welcome that commitment, but those words need to translate into justice for thousands of victims.

Despite those recent developments, I am confused as to why it has taken such a long time for basic questions to be asked about why there has been a failure to prosecute this most despicable child abuse. It is a criminal offence, and it is not good enough for the prosecuting authorities to try to mitigate inaction by suggesting that prosecutions are made difficult, or even impossible, merely because young girls do not present themselves at a police station to report their parents for this vile abuse. It is a criminal offence and it needs to be tackled.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I am pleased that my hon. Friend has secured today’s debate. When I raised the issue of female genital mutilation and questioned the lack of prosecutions, the problem did not seem to be at the Crown Prosecution Service end; the police were simply not referring cases to it. I think that there were three cases in which the CPS had to make a decision on whether to prosecute, but it felt that there was not enough evidence. Does he agree that the police also need to make female genital mutilation a much greater priority?

[Karl Turner]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who has raised the issue on several occasions in the House. She is absolutely right that the police need to do much more, and they need to work with other authorities.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I am pleased and grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing today’s debate. To pick up on that last point, there is one thing that the police need to think about. There was a recent and well-known exposé in a major national paper. Some hon. Members were present at the annual general meeting of the all-party group on female genital mutilation when the Director of Public Prosecutions explained that prosecutions were not possible on the back of that exposé. However, the idea of going after the aiders and abettors, for which the 2003 Act more than makes provision, is one thing that we need more heft behind, because it is obviously a more promising route than trying to get children to report their parents.

[Karl Turner]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. I had the opportunity through Hilary Burrage, who has campaigned tirelessly on female genital mutilation, to meet the leading French prosecutor. What the hon. Lady suggests is exactly the action being taken in France. Working in that way clearly helps to prevent perpetrators from committing the offence.

I am pleased that we now have a victims commissioner. It is not a party-political point, but it has taken at least 12 months for that to happen. I am sure that Baroness Newlove will do an excellent job and continue the good work of Louise Casey. I want to know the Minister’s thoughts on how much the victims commissioner should prioritise female genital mutilation.

Over recent months, we have heard many positive words, but I am concerned that positive words are not reducing the shocking number of victims on the ground or delivering the justice that victims deserve. The NSPCC rightly states that preventing future victims should remain a priority, but we need to see justice for the 50 victims who will suffer the abuse this very day.

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman feel that other measures ought to be brought into play? In other countries, nurses in schools automatically have to ensure that the authorities are informed about such matters. That does not seem to happen in this country.

[Karl Turner]

I agree with the hon. Lady that the authorities need to work more closely together, and to share information with teachers, nurses and GPs. I have spoken to many professionals who avoid the issue either because of the sensitivities or, as was suggested to me recently, because they are struggling with their departmental budgets. They avoid dealing with the matter. The hon. Lady does not seem terribly impressed at that comment, but that point was put to me very recently. The reduction in social services budgets is definitely an issue, because female genital mutilation is not the priority that it should be.

The lack of evidence and witnesses is also an issue. The lack of prosecutions is compounded by many factors. The police are not investigating FGM with enough vigour, as was suggested earlier. It is estimated that of the 20,000 suspected cases some 6,000 will be based in London. The Metropolitan police’s Project Azure was set up to tackle the problem, but a freedom of information request showed that the team consisted of only two police officers—one full-time and one part-time. It is ridiculous to suggest that such policing is sufficient to tackle this shocking issue.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Has he considered whether the authorities can work with individuals in the communities involved who are concerned about what is happening? Does he have any views on that?

[Karl Turner]

I do have views, and my hon. Friend makes an excellent point. She has raised the matter in the House on numerous occasions. An issue that follows from that is the obvious lack of data collection. It is accepted that robust data collection and assessment of the problem are urgently needed. A Government equality impact assessment was published last year and stated:

“Lack of data is an ongoing issue in the government’s work to prevent and tackle FGM.”

It will be impossible to tackle the problem without robust systems in place to identify its true level and at-risk children. I am pleased that this is now a priority in the Crown Prosecution Service’s action plan, but the Home Office assessment said that a large-scale community-based study would have a very high cost, and that the Department will continue to examine alternative options and to consider how existing data may capture information about FGM.

[Jane Ellison]

I apologise for intervening again. On that specific point, the House may like to know that nearly a year ago Quality Now! led a Home Office-funded two-day expert methodological workshop. It made specific recommendations on how robust data could be gathered in ways that would be less expensive than those that the hon. Gentleman described. That report and the recommendations have been sitting in the Home Office for almost a year. It is good that it funded the original workshop, but a plan exists and could be funded cross-departmentally to get us away from relying on data that are extrapolated from the 2001 census. Hon. Members will be aware of how much Britain’s demography has changed since the 2001 census.

[Karl Turner]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. She is more expert in the matter than I am, and has raised the issue consistently since being elected to the House. I welcome her thoughts on the issue.

I have said previously that the Crown Prosecution Service action plan is a step in the right direction, and I welcome it, but I would be interested to know whether the Director of Public Prosecutions believes that current legislation should be reviewed, and whether evidence to prosecute under other legislation is easier to support. The CPS action plan is not the silver bullet. We need a national action plan—an integrated cross-departmental plan—that is adequately funded to stop this despicable crime.

I am concerned that for many years there has been interdepartmental buck passing. When I say that the issue is not party political, I mean that sincerely. The reality is that the previous Government failed dreadfully in tackling the issue. They had 13 years in which to take the matter on, and since then the current Government have not done a lot. We must have a national action plan because the issue needs strong political will, not just warm words.

Given that this crime produces 20,000 victims every year, I suggest that the Minister’s Department has a single Minister with specific responsibility for providing justice to victims. As the NSPCC rightly states, female genital mutilation is a form of physical child abuse that should be dealt with through the child protection system. Reticence or failure to intervene effectively is not acceptable in other instances of child abuse, nor should it be in the case of FGM. We need a standardised FGM data collection policy. I wholeheartedly welcome last month’s landmark passing of the UN resolution calling for a global ban on FGM, and I hope that the UK will now act on the issue with focused priority.

Finally, I suggest that statutory teaching of sex education in primary school may assist in helping to eradicate this vile practice.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mrs Helen Grant)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Hollobone, to serve under your chairmanship. I earnestly congratulate the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) on securing this debate on victims of the abhorrent crime of female genital mutilation. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler), the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) and my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) on their important interventions. I congratulate particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea on her tireless work over many years, and as chair of the all-party group on female genital mutilation.

Female genital mutilation is an extremely painful and harmful practice that blights the lives of many young girls and women. The Government roundly condemn the practice and are determined to see it eradicated in this country and elsewhere. In my joint role as Minister with responsibility for victims and the courts and Minister for Women and Equalities, I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity of responding to this debate.

The practice of female genital mutilation is an age-old one that is deeply steeped in the culture and tradition of practising communities. Those who practise it no doubt genuinely believe that it is in their children’s best interests to conform to the prevailing custom of their community, but that does not excuse the gross violation of human rights. It is wholly unacceptable to allow a practice that can have such devastating consequences for the health of a young girl. The physical and psychological effects can last throughout her life. The mutilation and impairment of young girls and women have no place in a modern society where equality is prized.

My Department is responsible for the criminal law in this area. The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 extended significantly the protection that the law affords these vulnerable young victims. It created extraterritorial offences to deter people from taking girls abroad for mutilation. To reflect the serious harm caused, it increased the maximum penalty for female genital mutilation from five to 14 years. Sadly, like the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985 that it replaced, the 2003 Act has yet to result in a successful prosecution, which is a source of considerable frustration. That is not, as some have suggested, a reflection of the effectiveness of the law itself. The law is perfectly capable of dealing with perpetrators if offences are reported to the police, and evidential and public interest tests for prosecution are met. At the time of mutilation, however, victims may be too young, too vulnerable, or too afraid to report offences, and they may be reluctant to implicate family members. The simple fact is that no law can be effective in this area unless the barriers to prosecution are overcome.

[Karl Turner]

Before being elected to this place, I practised as a criminal lawyer, and I worked on behalf of defendants who were charged with serious sexual abuse of children. It is not often suggested that it is difficult to bring such cases to prosecution, and the same issues are involved. Will the Minister explain her point?

[Mrs Grant]

I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s criminal law experience. The law is robust, extensive and adequate but, unfortunately, dealing with the issue often involves very young children who are frightened and reluctant to take action against family members. There is often pressure within their community not to give evidence and not to say anything.

[Karl Turner]

It is the same with sexual abuse.

[Mrs Grant]

I would disagree, but obviously, the adequacy of the law is something that we will always keep under review. I know that the Director of Public Prosecutions has had conversations with the Home Office and Ministry of Justice officials—I think the hon. Gentleman is aware of those—on the effectiveness of the law, and whether new laws or other legislation, such as the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims (Amendment) Act 2012, might help in those areas. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the matter will be kept under review, but I will discuss a number of other things in my speech that can be done in the interim.

Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme

Karl Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

The right hon. Gentleman is right: cuts have to be made to the departmental budget that we inherited and the scheme was, to all intents and purposes, bankrupt. That had to be addressed properly and in a hurry. Savings had to be made throughout the rest of the Department, so it was extremely difficult to include compensating expenditure in the scheme in order to rescue it.

The Government’s proposals will put the scheme in sensible order. As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice has outlined—as did the new Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) during the two Statutory Instrument Committees—they will get rid of bands 1 to 5 and make sure that victims of sexual crime and the most serious crimes are protected.

We then looked at the whole context of what we ought to do about victims of crime. Frankly, I am proud to say that we pushed to examine how we could stretch the victim surcharge so that we could get offenders to contribute to victims’ services. Under the proposals made, not in the statutory instrument, but in parallel with it, at least an extra £50 million will be raised from criminals for victims. Surely it is a basic principle that offenders should fund victims’ services and, indeed, compensation, which is an issue to which the shadow Secretary of State alluded, and which I will come on to later.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman said during an exchange with my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State that more money is going to victims’ services, but is it not true that the powers and discretion will be devolved to police and crime commissioners, and that that money will not be ring-fenced?

[Mr Blunt]

Police and crime commissioners will be accountable to their local electorates, as we will find out on 15 November, and they will get the victims’ services budget for all of the services that are not best dealt with at the national level, such as rape and murder.

[Karl Turner]

That is a yes, then.

[Mr Blunt]

Of course—that is what happens when we do not ring-fence. I would have thought that that was straightforward. It is about local accountability. The PCCs will get a much enhanced budget in order to provide services for victims of crime, and that is an extremely healthy place to be. That is only part of the story. In addition, we are raising £50 million from offenders for victims’ services.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to be called to speak in this important debate, and to follow the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt). He worked hard when he was in the Ministry of Justice; I did not always agree with him, but I know that he was committed to his brief.

I received briefs from all sorts of organisations in preparation for this debate, one of which was the RMT. Its general secretary, Bob Crow, is a very good friend of mine, but I did not expect to be reading a brief from the RMT and imagining a situation in which Bob Crow agreed with the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood). It beggars belief because the right hon. Gentleman is not known for his left-wing tendencies.

It was disappointing—although not surprising—that on 1 November a motion on the Draft Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012 was passed by a narrow majority in the Seventh Delegated Legislation Committee, despite many Tories having rejected those cuts some weeks before. Tories on the First Delegated Legislation Committee—which included, as I have said, the right hon. Member for Wokingham—accepted that taking compensation away from innocent victims was a line too far. Sadly, however, the Government simply rejected that advice which, as I said, came from across the political spectrum. They went away promising good things, but, in my respectful submission, that was only so they could beef up the Committee with loyalists and Parliamentary Private Secretaries.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

On that point, Government Members who sat on the First Delegated Legislation Committee yet supported the Opposition have disappeared from the Chamber. Of those who sat on the Seventh Delegated Legislation Committee last week, the only ones on the Government’s side who are left are the Minister, the Whip and the Parliamentary Private Secretary, the hon. Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott). Everyone else has flown the scene of the crime.

[Karl Turner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and do not think I need to comment further as he has made the point perfectly well.

The statutory instrument was brought back to Committee unchanged, but presented to a less vocal composition on the Government side. Without any shadow of doubt, that was simply to ensure that it went through under the radar. It is disappointing to think that the Minister, a family practitioner who has practised law and is bound to have come across victims of crime, would behave in such a terrible way. As right hon. and hon. Members know, the criminal injuries compensation scheme is the very last resort for innocent victims of crime, and I understand that it helps between 30,000 and 40,000 victims every year who genuinely have no other recourse to compensation.

I will restrict my remarks to reiterating what the Government proposals will do. Terror victims, people injured in violent dog attacks and many hard-working shop workers will lose out on compensation that is intended to put their lives back to where they were before any injury or loss. Almost half the victims who apply for compensation for crimes in bands 1 to 5 will no longer be eligible for a compensatory award. Bands 1 to 5 include injuries such as permanent speech impairment, partial deafness that lasts more than 13 weeks, multiple broken ribs, post-traumatic epileptic fits, and burns and scarring causing minor facial disfigurement.

To be ready for the Government’s defence, I today spoke to a colleague in civil practice to check whether that is the position, and was told that it is—according to that solicitor, we are certainly not talking about the least serious injuries. Rates for bands 6 to 12 will be slashed by between £1,500 and £2,500, or 60%. Injuries in that category include significant facial scarring, permanent brain injury resulting in impaired balance and headaches, and serious injury to both eyes.

I also spoke today to Mr Andy Parish, a postman and constituent. He is concerned about postal workers who have been attacked by dogs, many of whom are scarred and disfigured for life. He told me that many have lost fingers in terrible, unprovoked attacks by dogs. I am very worried that those workers, who have been permanently injured while trying to make a living, will no longer be able to receive compensation.

[Katy Clark]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point on injuries suffered by postal workers who are attacked by dogs. In fact, the majority of victims of dog attacks are children. Does he therefore agree with communication workers that compulsory insurance for dog owners should be introduced, to ensure that compensation is available when people are attacked?

[Karl Turner]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point for me. She is absolutely right: dog attacks do not happen just to postal workers; children are often the victims. In fact, the impact assessment carried out as part of the consultation identified that the highest proportion of such victims were children. Many of the attacks are caused by irresponsible dog owners who do not have the financial means to pay any compensation whatever. I urge the Government to consider the calls to introduce compulsory third-party insurance, as my hon. Friend suggests.

Another problem is that people will have to pay £50 for their medical records, including physical and psychiatric records—any medical assessment that needs to be carried out to evidence their injury will need to be paid for. That will present financial and practical difficulties for many at the worst time, when they have experienced, for example, a terrible dog attack. They are not working, but will have to come up with that money.

I am dismayed that the Government have failed to listen not only to Opposition Members but to their Back Benchers. In my submission, these are heartless cuts to compensation for innocent victims of crime. The Government will not get away with it when it comes to the general election.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner). We are both lawyers and have an interest in this area—I was a criminal defence practitioner. I also have form as a shadow Justice Minister, and was one of the Members who considered the last revision to the scheme back in 2008. The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) accused me of peddling myths when I simply quoted the then Under-Secretary of State, who, when the scheme was last considered, said:

“The scheme does not make the state liable for injuries caused to people by the acts of others. It is a recognition of the public feeling of sympathy and solidarity with blameless victims of violent crime. Since 1964, the state has sought to provide a monetary award on behalf of the community that is not compensation for all of the injuries suffered, but a recognition of that solidarity, fellow feeling and sympathy.”—[Official Report, First Delegated Legislation Committee, 14 July 2008; c. 13.]

I am sure that all hon. Members would want to express their solidarity with those who suffer injuries as victims of crime. It is one thing to express solidarity, but it is another to jump on a bandwagon on the backs of victims of crime.

The right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) accused the Government of degrading the victims of crime, and that is a very serious charge. I remember that during my years as a shadow Justice Minister I spoke to many families of homicide victims and the associations standing up for them who regaled me with accounts of how they had been let down by the criminal injuries compensation scheme, having to wait for months and months. They were already victims, and then they were victims all over again—victims of an inefficient scheme that left them without recourse for months and even years. They did feel degraded and yes, there is a need for reform.

What did the previous Government do? They consulted, as they did a lot in those days, publishing “Rebuilding Lives - supporting victims of crime” in 2005, which considered the issue of refocusing the scheme more on serious crimes. They decided not to do that. Instead, they decided to make the scheme more administratively efficient to address the fact that it was grossly oversubscribed and there was not enough money in the pot. As was typical of the previous Government, they ducked the issue. They ignored it and did not address it. As we know, the issue of administrative efficiencies continues, and it is not possible to deal with the money available in an efficient way.

[Karl Turner]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be rewarded for his loyalty to the Government, but as a criminal defence solicitor would he not do better just to accept that this is about making cuts? That is the reality—cutting the budget of this very important compensation scheme—and he should admit it.

[Mr Burrowes]

I am a very patient man, but this issue has dragged on too long and people’s patience has been exhausted as they have waited for some compensation from the criminal injuries compensation scheme. The reality is that the scheme cannot be afforded. Last year, the authority was provided with additional funding and a total of £449 million was paid to victims, the largest amount in a single year. Despite the cash injection, total liabilities currently stand at some £532 million. This Government will not ignore the historic underfunding of the scheme. We will not hide behind administrative efficiencies. We are facing up to this difficult issue. We want to express solidarity, but we are not jumping on the bandwagon. We cannot simply have a sustainable scheme if it has to go cap in hand to the Treasury every year asking for a top-up. That does not do justice to the cause of victims. It must be sustainable and on a stable footing. We need a decent, open and transparent way to deal with compensation.

Policing

Karl Turner Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to be called to speak in this important debate. It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), who speaks with conviction on behalf of his constituents and with great knowledge, as a fellow criminal lawyer.

This week we have had another non-announcement from the Prime Minister—“tough but intelligent” on crime. Surely it goes without saying that we need to be tough on crime, but I have not seen anything intelligent from this Government to support their claim. Does the Prime Minister think it is intelligent to take 16,000 bobbies off the beat while crime against the person has increased, despite crime falling more generally? In Humberside, domestic violence has rocketed in recent years. I wonder whether the Prime Minister thinks it intelligent to take 440 police officers away from Humberside when levels of domestic violence are very definitely increasing. Does he think it is intelligent to sell off parts of the police force to companies such as G4S, which so monumentally failed to deliver for the Olympics?

There is nothing intelligent coming from the Government in terms of police policy. They have been terribly incompetent. The alleged “I’ll have your job” comment from the former Chief Whip now seems somewhat ironic, given recent events. I wear with pride today my new cufflinks, “Plebs” and “Toffs”—[Interruption.] I am pleased to say that I consider myself to be a proud pleb, despite what the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) is shouting from a sedentary position.

Policing is a public service and should not be for sale. There is no place for shareholder profit-making in policing. Policing decisions should be based on reducing crime and must not be taken in the shadow of shareholder profit. The Policing Minister has been encouraging forces to consider the value of private sector partnering to save money, and the Government justify this drive because of reduced budgets, yet it is the Government who are reducing budgets to dangerous levels. G4S clearly did not cope in the summer. That smashes any false belief that the private sector is always more efficient and effective than the public sector.

[Andrew Percy]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Karl Turner]

Not at the moment.

In the time remaining, I want to concentrate on police and crime commissioners. Despite my reservations about police and crime commissioners, I am reassured that Labour has chosen so strong a candidate as my predecessor, the right hon. Lord Prescott, who I know will definitely act as a final line of defence against privatisation.

[Andrew Percy]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Karl Turner]

Not at the moment.

Lord Prescott is worried about the fundamental changes to policing and considers them to be extremely alarming. It is unacceptable to put private security officers in areas where police have responsibility. Lord Prescott was quite right to point out recently that private employees will not be accountable and will be responsible only to private employers.

In conclusion, there are serious concerns about creeping privatisation in the police service. The Peelian principles of policing with the consent of the community must be upheld. I am absolutely sure that Lord Prescott will not only do that, but raise awareness of the campaign in Humberside. I am convinced that he will be duly elected.