HMP Birmingham

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

My right hon. Friend encourages me to reflect on our sport strategy, which is coming through. Broadly speaking, there is also the key point about how education changes lives. By changing lives and helping people to get employment when they leave prison, education reduces reoffending and protects the public. Stabilising our prisons and delivering high-quality education in prisons is good not just for prisoners but for the rest of society.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

A month ago my constituent was beaten within an inch of his life at HMP Birmingham not once but twice, and not in a dark corner but in the full glare of a video that was then posted on social media. The chaos over which G4S presided at HMP Birmingham was dark, dangerous and violent. It is very hard to square a future in which this prison is returned to G4S with the level of investment and staffing that is needed to ensure it is a safe prison. Will the Minister reflect again on what the shadow Secretary of State said about the need for an independent commission to stand as a gateway, a test, before any decision is made to put this prison back into the private sector that so desperately failed the people of Birmingham?

[Rory Stewart]

That is a very shocking, very immediate illustration of just how horrifying what was happening at Birmingham was. The right hon. Gentleman is right that, when something like that happens, not only should we take back control from G4S but we should think very seriously before returning the prison to it. That is why, for exactly the reasons he raises, we are giving the House the assurance that we will be taking over for a minimum of six months—that is a minimum of six months —and we will be very tough and clear in the decisions we reach at the end of those six months on whether we believe the prison is stable enough to be handed back to G4S.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Liam Byrne Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate, and it is a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy). He gave a thoughtful and considered speech, the tone and content of which were extremely consensual and helpful. If I may say so, it would be nice if more Conservative Members gave similar speeches.

I accept the referendum result, and I am happy to vote for the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition tonight because it accepts the result as well. A majority of my constituents voted for Brexit, but more people have contacted me to raise concerns about the Bill—in particular, about the timetable and the potential impact on environmental legislation—than to tell me that they are happy with it.

At the beginning of the year, the Procedure Committee embarked on an inquiry into what was then known as the great repeal Bill. The inquiry was halted by the general election, but in April we published evidence and interim findings, and I want to share some of them with colleagues tonight. The potential in the Bill for the excessive use of delegated legislation is alarming. The Bill is not what people were promised during the referendum campaign, which was greater parliamentary sovereignty. It is a power grab by Tory Ministers, who cannot be trusted, as they have repeatedly shown.

Relying on delegated legislation will not give Parliament proper opportunities for debate, scrutiny or control. Let me remind hon. Members of some of the processes. A statutory instrument introduced under the negative resolution process can become law without debate or a vote. It can even become law before it has been published and laid before the House. The Secretary of State for Justice is frowning, but that is the case. Paragraph 1(3) of schedule 7 sets out that most of the statutory instruments will be subject to negative resolution procedure unless—Ministers are nodding now—they are about transferring powers from European agencies. Last year, a fifth of statutory instruments were in force three weeks after publication. If Ministers were given such a power, there would be nothing to stop them signing laws one day and seeing those laws on the statute book the same day.

Scrutiny by the affirmative and super-affirmative processes is not much better. Such statutory instruments must be approved explicitly, but most go to Committees upstairs, and now the Government are trying to overturn the result of the general election by packing those Committees. Even when such statutory instruments are debated by the whole House, time is limited to 90 minutes, and they cannot be amended.

The drafting of clause 7 is wholly objectionable. It is too wide. Ministers may make regulations as they consider appropriate—not necessary, but appropriate—and regulations may repeal and replace primary legislation. That indicates that it is not the Government’s intention to limit such regulations to technical and non-controversial matters.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech, but is the challenge of the Bill not this: we used to talk in this country about an elected dictatorship, but what is now being proposed is a barely elected dictatorship? Has she ever seen a bigger gap between a Government’s mandate and the power that they seek?

Birmingham Pub Bombings: Legal Aid

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald]

That is a point that the hon. Lady has made. I will come to it in a second, but I think there is an issue here that needs examination. The decision about whether to provide legal aid funding in an individual case should not be a political one. It is solely for the director of legal aid casework at the Legal Aid Agency to decide whether a particular case is within the regulations and the laws, which we in Parliament have set.

On the overall position mentioned by the hon. Lady, I want to make it clear that we acknowledge there is a wider issue. It turns on the perception that, as she mentioned, families in very difficult circumstances with complicated cases have gone unrepresented while public bodies and individuals are represented at a cost to the public. The Ministry of Justice and the Home Office are rightly working collaboratively to consider that issue.

As the hon. Lady said, the families at the 7/7 inquest received legal aid exceptional case funding, which was under an earlier scheme. The issue related to the terms and conditions for receiving legal aid. In fact, it is obvious from what has happened in recent days that it is possible to receive legal aid under the current scheme.

Questions have been asked about other possible funding arrangements, and the arrangement used for the Hillsborough families—the Home Office made direct grants for representation at the hearing of inquest—does raise a question. The Hillsborough inquiry was expertly conducted by Lord Justice Goldring, who investigated the case in a very sensitive, effective and thorough way, but there are lessons to be learned about the tragic history of Hillsborough. As the hon. Lady may know, Bishop James Jones, who played a distinguished part in tackling the Hillsborough case, is preparing a report on how it was dealt with, and we want that report to inform how we take this work forward.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

The Minister is addressing the points raised well. If, as he says, he is looking at the lessons to be learned, will he tell the House tonight that he agrees with us that there should be parity of funding for the legal costs in this inquest? Does he agree with the parity principle—yes or no?

[Sir Oliver Heald]

What is important is that there should be an element of equality of arms in the sense that the work that needs to be done for the families should be done effectively and in accordance with the funding arrangements put in place by the Legal Aid Agency. Let us be clear that for cases that involve an inquest for which exceptional case funding has been agreed, I have never heard the scheme described as not providing enough funding for particular items of work for lawyers. The point is that there are rules about how people can enter the scheme and, as appears from the decision that has been mentioned, such a case has led to funding.

I want to make the point that the coroner for the Birmingham inquest will be His Honour Judge Peter Thornton, the previous Chief Coroner, and I am sure that he will have the confidence of the families. I am grateful to hon. Members who have spoken in this debate, and I think we will all want to pay tribute to the way in which the families have campaigned.

Deaths in Custody (Legal Aid)

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I am very sorry to have to rise in my place tonight to bring this debate to the Floor of the House of Commons. For nearly three years I have worked to avoid this debate, and I come here tonight because I have been left with no other choice.

Let me say at the outset that there is no more determined campaigner for the police of my city than me. For 10 years as a Member of this House I have campaigned for bigger, stronger police teams. I have run half-marathons and triathlons to raise money for the West Midlands Police Benevolent Fund, and it has been my privilege on the Floor of the House to praise the bravery of officers such as PC Adam Koch and his colleague who literally risked their lives to save worshippers recently at a Ward End mosque. I am motivated tonight by their courage, because I believe our police are so important to our communities that they deserve to have the best team around them, but I am motivated too by an injustice that I want to bring to the attention of the Government.

Because the police service is a human and not a divine organisation, sometimes there are shortcomings, but if we want the best police service, it is important that we do not stand by when there are shortcomings; it is important that we act. For three years now I have been seeking to help a constituent of mine to act. My constituent’s case is sub judice, but I can give the House the essence. My constituent’s son, a boy she loved, died in police custody—a tragedy the pain of which I, as a father of three children, cannot possibly imagine—but this tragedy is deeper and darker for the alleged culpability of police officers who were paid by us on that night to keep my constituent’s son safe.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I am very glad my right hon. Friend has brought before the House this issue of people who die in custody. I have informed the Minister of the case of my constituent Philmore Mills. His case is very unusual. He was in hospital in a lung ward, and on 11 December 2011 the staff were made anxious by his behaviour. They called the police and the police restrained him, and he died under police restraint. The inquest into that death is due on 1 April—two and a half years later—yet his family still do not know if they are going to have legal aid for representation at that inquest and they are thus made more anxious still. Their dad was in hospital with a breathing problem, yet he died at the hands of the police. They should be legally represented without having to pay.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I remind Members that they should be very careful about reference to live cases because of the sub judice rule?

[Mr Byrne]

Thank you, Mr Speaker; I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) for her intervention.

In the months that followed the death of my constituent’s son, the family and I sought, together with the Independent Police Complaints Commission, to ensure that the police officers involved were judged. I am sorry to say that they were judged to have been so negligent, and to have fallen so far short of their sworn duty, that they were found guilty of gross misconduct.

Now, the family are approaching the last trial of their strength: the inquest. It will be their final opportunity to find the truth of why and how their son died. Yes, it might bring grief, but I hope that it will also bring closure. The inquest is also important for our community, because it could provide critical insights that would help us to ensure that others need never suffer the same fate.

Despite my representations and the arguments that we have put forward, the family have been told that they must pay to have questions put on their behalf during the proceedings. Like me, they are outraged. The original bill was going to be nearly £7,500. It is true that their costs have now been reduced, but our system has become perverse. The fact that the family are having to provide a smaller cut of their savings cannot be judged a great success.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I thought that my right hon. Friend would like to know that the Home Affairs Select Committee will be opening an inquiry into the issues of deaths in police custody, and policing and mental health, later this year. It will also look into legal aid provision for the families involved.

[Mr Byrne]

That is very welcome, and I hope that my right hon. Friend and his Committee will be able to draw the right conclusions and, perhaps, use some of the evidence from the case that I am raising here tonight.

My point is very simple: when a family have lost their son while he was in the custody of the state, and when servants of the Crown have been judged guilty of gross misconduct, it is a gross injustice to tell that family that they must now help to pay their costs at the inquest into how their son lost his life.

I know the objections to my arguments. There are few in the House who know the pressures on the legal aid budget as well as I do. As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I too had to negotiate reductions to that fund. However, if we cannot fund an inquest into a death of which the state appears to be culpable, we have got it wrong. Our article 2 obligations demand a thorough investigation of state action and culpability in cases such as these. Like me, the Minister knows that, following the case of Main in 2007, a wider public interest test must be satisfied if legal aid is to be awarded. A death in state custody, especially when Crown servants have been found negligent, must surely satisfy that test. We in this House agreed to that principle when we passed the Coroners and Justice Act 2009. Section 51 of that Act extended the principle of public funding for advocacy at inquests such as these.

As a parliamentarian, I want to know what happened on that night. That is the wider public interest test that is being satisfied here. I want to know whether we need changes to the law, or to the organisation of the police service. I want to know that, so that I can help to bring those changes forward. I do not want this House, this Government, or this Minister to be kept in the dark. I do not want the comfort of ignorance. I want to know why my constituent’s son died, and I want to know what we must do together in this House to ensure that none of our constituents ever has to face the same fate.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I have had a similar case in my constituency. The inquest has now taken place, Mr Speaker. James was in his 20s, and he was mentally ill. He was restrained and, unfortunately, died in police custody. When the police force in question has access to unlimited legal advice and expertise at no quantifiable cost, is it not an outrage that the parents, who are so vulnerable at a time like that, should be asked to seek advice from a local solicitor who is not an expert in mental health or deaths in custody?

[Mr Byrne]

Let me deal with a point directly. The family did not choose to be in this position; the Coroners Act 1988 demands an inquest. We in this House are the people who insist on the position my constituents are now in, and we do so for a very good reason: we want to know what happened. Our predecessors in this Parliament felt so strongly about the unchecked actions of an arbitrary state that they deposed the monarch and fought a war to insist on the liberty of the individual and a measure of their protection—we want to know what happened.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

There were 5,998 deaths in police custody in the 11 years from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2010. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there must be a method for families to access support in suspicious cases and that legal aid is an important part of that support for grieving families?

[Mr Byrne]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Some will say, “We should not get too worked up about this. The inquest process is inquisitorial not adversarial. It is just a gentle canter around the facts.” But when we are dealing with death in custody, it is different. How can we tell? It is because the public servants represented at the inquests will not just have one lawyer; they will have teams of lawyers, paid for by the taxpayer, on their side. We have to ask ourselves: how can we allow such a profound inequality of arms in the inquest room? How can we pretend to ourselves that that is even remotely equal, fair or right? There is now growing evidence, not just in my home city of Birmingham, but across the country, that wrongful legal aid decisions are being made in cases such as this. Many in this House will have seen the tragic case confronting Alex Kelly’s family, which was highlighted in The Observer on Sunday, and INQUEST, an organisation I wish to praise to high heaven, has brought to me a number of other cases where bad decisions are being made in our name.

In the short time remaining to me, I want to put five questions to the Minister. I appreciate that he will not be able to answer all of them tonight, so I hope that he will follow up in writing and that the House will be able to return to this subject, perhaps in the light of the report by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) later in the year. First, will the Minister meet me to discuss the legal aid decision in my constituent’s case? The case clearly meets the threshold of having “wider public interest'” set out in section 2.4 of the Legal Services Commission’s funding code criteria, which refers to the “potential” of the proceedings

“to produce real benefits for individuals other than the client”.

Secondly, when will the Lord Chancellor bring into effect section 51 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, which will extend advocacy support to those who died in custody? No stand part debate was held on that measure and, to the best of my knowledge, the Minister was not in the House to vote on the Bill on Third Reading. I do not believe the Conservative party or the Liberal Democrats opposed this legislation when it was brought to the House, so will the Government give us a date for bringing in section 51 as soon as possible?

Thirdly, will the Minister confirm that it is ministerial policy, and not simply administrative discretion, to seek a contribution from the family in inquests where a death in state custody has occurred? Fourthly, will the Minister tonight agree to a review of the way families are offered support and funding for inquest costs, not least because there is now evidence that the process is out of control, with the most invasive questions being asked of families in order for them to prove they do not have the resources to help contest these cases? Finally, will the Minister tell us how many families have been asked to make a contribution since 2010? What is the total bill that families in this country are now paying for cases such as this?

When I asked my constituent what she wanted from tonight’s debate, her answer was as generous as she is compassionate. “Hopefully,” she said, “we can change this for other people so that they will not have to suffer what we have suffered.” When all is said and done, the question at the heart of this debate is simple. It is the story of a mother’s loss, a mother’s love and a mother’s search for justice. Will we, in this House, stand on a mother’s side, or will we stand against her? When we begin work in this House each day, we pray for strength and wisdom to make the right decisions. I hope that we can now call on that strength and wisdom and make the right decisions in the case of my constituent and her lost son.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vara]

The hon. Lady seeks to tempt me into territory into which I cannot go. What I will say is that as far as her constituent’s case is concerned, the process is still ongoing. As I understand it, a decision on legal aid has not been made, and dialogue is still going on. I trust she will accept that.

Although I cannot comment on the decision concerning Mr Butler’s family, I understand from the Legal Aid Agency that there was an issue concerning financial eligibility and whether it was appropriate for the family to pay a contribution, which is something that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. I hope I can assist the House by explaining how the means test is applied to inquest cases. Legal aid for the representation of bereaved families at inquests is means-tested, like nearly every other element of the civil legal aid scheme. It is important that we focus our limited resources on those who need them the most, and the means test is an important and long-standing part of the legal aid system which has been in place since well before this Government came to power.

There is discretion to waive the financial eligibility limits for inquests if, in all the circumstances, it would not be reasonable to expect the family to bear the full costs of legal assistance at the inquest. Whether that is reasonable will depend in particular on the history of the case, the circumstances, the issues raised against state institutions, the applicant’s assessed disposable income and capital, the other financial resources of the family and the estimated costs of providing representation. Contributions from the applicant can also be waived in whole or part.

That is the position under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, but it was also the position under the Access to Justice Act 1999, the legislation that applied to Mr Butler’s case.

[Mr Byrne]

The Minister is replying in a courteous and thoughtful manner. He has given us a number of helpful words about the broad principles of the means-testing regime, but I hope he will not elide over the point that when we passed the 2009 Act we decided to include section 51, which accepted that there were wider public interests at play in inquests that delved into deaths in state custody and explicitly provided for full legal aid costs to be provided to families in such cases. The Lord Chancellor has not implemented section 51. The arguments about it have already been rehearsed and the House has passed it. When will it be implemented?

[Mr Vara]

In the same way as the previous Administration did not implement it for 11 years—

[Mr Byrne]

It was the 2009 Act.

[Mr Vara]

Well, the previous Government made provision for it but they did not implement it. I do not know when it will be implemented, but I am happy to reflect on that matter and write to the right hon. Gentleman. Let me put on the record that the criteria under the Access to Justice Act still apply, as that was the Act that was applicable when Mr Butler’s case first arose.