Assisted Dying

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in my view, even official Oregon health division data show how dangerous this law is.

First, non-terminally ill disabled individuals are receiving lethal prescriptions contrary to the law. That is the evidence.

Secondly, in any given case, the certifiers of non-coercion and capability need not even know the person being killed. Furthermore, one witness may even be an heir with a financial interest in the death.

Thirdly, there is no reliable way of checking whether the death is a suicide, and therefore lawful, or administered by a third party and therefore unlawful.

Full euthanasia is being introduced by the back door in some cases in Oregon. In all, it is a dangerously unreliable law which contains unsatisfactory safeguards. My answer to the noble Baroness’s second question is a resounding no.

Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL]

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 27th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have occasionally heard it said that Private Members’ Bills in your Lordships’ House are an opportunity for self-indulgence. If anyone still believes that, they should look at today’s business, in which we have four pieces of legislation, each one of which has the capacity to make an enormous and beneficial difference to people’s lives. We are very privileged to be here on a day such as this—and I feel particularly privileged to be able to stand up in your Lordships' House and support my noble friend’s Bill. She has been a doughty fighter on these issues for many years. I shall freely confess that she persuaded me of the merits of this legislation some years ago and I hope that the House will give full support to her today.

The relationship between religions and the law comes in many shapes and colours on a long scale. At one end of the scale—it was a great privilege to sit next to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Carey, when he made his speech—we have the established Church, whose compliance with the law is evidenced daily by its presence in this House. Unfortunately, at the other end of the scale, we have cults that impose rigid and often eccentric discipline on their disciples. I certainly do not accuse Islam of that, but it is part of the picture.

The law must be able to intervene when a point on the scale is reached that undermines accepted legal rights—and that is what this debate is about. I do not want to attack any religion. It is wrong to do so; people are entitled to their beliefs. As a lawyer, I certainly do not want to attack the value of arbitration and alternative dispute resolution. In her wonderful speech, the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, gave ample justification for that process, whatever one calls it. If a religious organisation provides alternative dispute resolution and does so fully within the law, we should all welcome it as a very useful process.

If that form of mediation or alternative dispute resolution adds a zone of comfort because all the parties happen to adhere to shared beliefs and views, so much the better. It is no different in degree from them all being members of a good trade union. They share a vision which, one would hope, helps them to agree when they have differed. However, the entry into something that is called a marriage but which is not seen as a marriage by the law undermines rights in a very dangerous way. It removes the legitimate expectations that all the rest of us who have entered into a marriage, or a comparable relationship, enjoy. The use of the term “legitimate expectation” is important in this context because it is recognised by the law that enables people to take legal action against those who have abused their use of administrative action. We call this by the shorthand, “judicial review”.

The consent to a status of, for example, a wife has validity only if there is genuine consent to the consequences of that status. My noble friend’s Bill enables people to acquire those consequences by law, rather than being deprived of them arbitrarily. Where bodies fail to inform an individual of their legal rights, they are failing to fulfil their duty of care to their members. A simple analogy would be the misdescription of goods under trades descriptions legislation. If we buy Chanel perfume and it turns out to be a fake, we are entitled to have our rights enforced. If we marry and it turns out to be a fake, we are surely entitled to the rights of a married person. So where such bodies act contrary to the law, it is a matter for real concern. Where there can be an effect on innocent third parties—for example, children—it is a matter for acute anxiety. My noble friend’s Bill addresses those issues and I applaud it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

The noble and learned Lord said that a new criminal offence is unnecessary. Does he not agree that the criminal offence of holding oneself out as a medical practitioner has been extraordinarily effective? Does he not think that there is an extremely strong case not for doing nothing but for providing a similar sort of offence for those who hold themselves out to be a court or tribunal?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

There are, of course, provisions already in respect of that. We do not propose to do nothing, as I seek and have sought to explain.

As I said, our reservations about the Bill remain. It would be unfortunate for the Government to rush into any legislative change that did not, in the end, turn around the experience of the women whom the noble Baroness seeks to champion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie]

The noble Lord will appreciate that, even at the Dispatch Box, I cannot give guarantees of government legislation.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew]

But you are the Government.

[Lord Keen of Elie]

That is beyond my pay grade. However, I challenge the suggestion that I have sought to shoot down the various proposals made by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. I acknowledge the importance of the issue that she has brought before this House. I acknowledge the importance of us being able to address these issues openly and effectively. I acknowledge the importance of considering whether all persons within the United Kingdom—and they are not required to be British citizens for this purpose—have the protections of the rule of law in the face of coercion or threat, even if it is supposedly religious-based. Therefore, I do not accept that I have sought to shoot down the proposals put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox.

There are aspects of the Bill which we would say are legislatively unnecessary because of existing legislation. There are aspects of the Bill which we would consider need to be thought through with greater care. There are issues here that should be considered in light of the sharia review, which is coming out this year, and in light of the report from Dame Louise Casey, which we received in December, just one month ago—and we intend to do that. We do not intend to head in the direction of any long grass in that context.

Rehabilitation of Offenders (Amendment) Bill [HL]

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 27th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I start by saying how strongly I support the Bill proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who has built up an enormous wealth of knowledge about the penal system since he first became involved in it as Chief Inspector of Prisons, and we listen to him with great respect.

Your Lordships will not be surprised to hear me say, after the speech that we have just heard, that it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord McNally, albeit from this distance, rather than sitting next to him these days. Both from the Government Front Bench during the coalition and in his very distinguished period as chair of the Youth Justice Board, he has made an immense contribution. The Youth Justice Board has done a remarkable job in recent years, particularly in helping to reduce the number of young people held in custody.

If I have a slightly adverse comment about the Bill it is that, for my taste, it goes nothing like far enough. I do not believe that there is any really convincing evidence that using criminal records to prevent people obtaining perfectly ordinary jobs after a conviction that comes somewhere in the middle of the criminal calendar does anything other than send them back to prison. My view is that we should be very radical about these matters. There is, of course, cross-party support for being very radical about these matters, and I respectfully remind the noble and learned Lord who will reply to this debate of the contribution made by Michael Gove on these matters. It may be dangerous to cite Michael Gove these days as an argument ad majorem on almost any issue, but it has to be said in a debate like this that Michael Gove showed remarkable commitment to reforming the youth justice system. I believe that Michael Gove and Charlie Taylor, who has already been mentioned, and who produced his excellent report, were committed at the very least to the kinds of proposals that we are hearing now. I hope that the new Lord Chancellor will, within a short time, see that she, too, should support this agenda.

I want to say a few words about youth justice. As has already been mentioned, I had the privilege of chairing an unofficial, all-party parliamentarians group that reported on the youth courts system in June 2014. The group had as one of its members a then Back-Bencher who is now the Solicitor-General, Robert Buckland. As a committed Conservative of long standing, he was as enthusiastic as anybody about the changes that we were suggesting. “Treating children as children” should be a mantra that we keep repeating; it means a great deal more than some similar mantras that we have been hearing in recent times in the political agenda.

I recall in particular one instance, when I was a Member of the other place between 1983 and 1997, a woman who was a teacher came to see me one day at a constituency surgery. She was having a successful career as a teacher, and it was really time for her to move on and look at becoming a head of department in another school. She had a conviction for possession of cannabis while at university for which she had been fined £25. I should say that I do not, but I would not mind betting that quite a few Members of your Lordships’ House of a certain age were fined £20 or £30 for possession of cannabis. I see a few nods around the House, but I shall not name the nodders. She was prevented from obtaining that new job because, when the choice came between her and another person of equal merit, it was that conviction that prevented her obtaining her promotion—she told me so because she had been told so. It seems to me ludicrous that that should still obtain today. She was a person who was not going to get into trouble again; the fact that she did not obtain the job as head of department meant that she would carry on working in her present job—but there are people who are prevented from obtaining employment who, because of a criminal record obtained when they were very young, do not obtain a new job and go on to commit crime and walk round and round and round in that terrible revolving door that is the entrance to a prison.

As we have, alarmingly, been hearing this week, we see in prisons all the worst aspects of a criminal justice system that is built on punishment. Of course there are people who should be locked up, but when I was a young barrister, nearly half a century ago, I was told never to use the word “punishment” in a court room. Now it is used all the time. We are losing integrity by that approach to the criminal justice system. The Bill makes proportionate provisions that would make a significant, if not complete, contribution to people whose lives have started badly but whose potential can be unlocked.

Investigatory Powers Bill

Lord Carlile of Berriew Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I absolutely understand the motivation behind the amendment, but I wonder whether the Minister might consider another objection. He referred to the risk of the person who was notified changing his practices in the knowledge that what he was doing was being observed by one or other of these various methods. The problem may be not the individual himself but the people with whom he is in contact. One does not know how wide the web is of the group to which he belongs, and it would be so easy for that message to be passed around to people to warn them that there is a particular mechanism in play which is tapping into what he does and that those who operate in the same way as he does will be subjected to the same kind of scrutiny. I rather suggest that the problem is more wide-ranging than the Minister was telling us in his very careful reply to the amendment.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (LD)]

My Lords, with great respect to my noble friends Lord Paddick and Lord Beith, I am with the Minister and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, on this one. What my noble friends may have overlooked is the strength, distinction and effectiveness of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner. If there was any evidence to indicate that the commissioner, whether the present one or a future one, was likely to behave in a malign way and not reveal where improper action had taken place, then my noble friends’ concerns might have some validity. As has been said, though, the Bill is a world leader, not least in the protections that it contains. I commend to the House the provisions that have been placed in the Bill without these unnecessary amendments.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I shall briefly respond to the points that have been made. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beith, for amplifying the case that his noble friend made in introducing the amendment. In the end, we come back to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has just articulated. We are talking here about the proper, legitimate use of the powers that the Bill contains, with robust oversight and mechanisms for redress built in, and the Investigatory Powers Commissioner is indeed an important safeguard in that context.

We are absolutely on board with the proposition that where an innocent person has been completely wrongly subject to the use of the investigatory powers—that is, where a serious error has occurred—there is no argument that that person should be informed. However, I submit that one cannot talk in the abstract about someone who has been “wrongly investigated”, which I think was the phrase used by the noble Lord, Lord Beith. You can be wrongly investigated if you are completely innocent, but you can also be wrongly investigated if there is perhaps not enough to pin on you as the culprit in a particular case but you might nevertheless, subject to further evidence, be implicated in a serious crime or a threat to national security. So we have to be clear about our terms in this context.

I come back to the fact that there are issues of principle and practice here that make this particular amendment unworkable. I also take on board the very good point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, that it is not just an individual who could react to the news that they had been investigated in a way that would frustrate law enforcement agencies or intelligence services but a whole group of people. That in turn could affect national security, or indeed the conduct of criminals, much more widely.