Lammy Review
Lucy Powell Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Alex Chalk
Absolutely right. Although we recognise that we have to go further, because we should never be complacent, my goodness, how far we have come. We should take a moment to recognise that we have come a long way. In fact, from memory, I think the introduction of the Lammy review says precisely that. I will not read all of it out, because you would get cross, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it says:
“There is a growing BAME middle class. Powerful, high-profile institutions, like the House of Commons, are slowly becoming more diverse.”
We have done a lot: more to do.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
No disrespect to the Minister, but this is not about outputs or actions. This is about outcomes, and the outcomes for black and ethnic minority young people, in particular, in our criminal justice system are all going in completely the wrong direction. Does the Minister accept that the outcomes are going in the wrong direction, and that a lot more needs to be done to reverse that?
Alex Chalk
With respect, I think the position is more nuanced than that; I do not think that outcomes in education, for example, are all going in the wrong direction. One of the success stories over recent years is in how black British boys are achieving much higher standards than they were as little as 10 years ago. That is encouraging, but it is right to say that in some aspects of the criminal justice system, things are moving in a different direction. I completely get that, but it was this Government who commissioned the race disparity audit and then, when people thought it was going to be a one-off, actually decided that it had been such a valuable exercise that we would recommission it again and again. We have leaned into this issue because we recognise that if we want a fair society we have to make sure that outcomes are even too.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lucy Powell Excerpts(4 years, 3 months ago)
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Chris Philp
I wholly agree with the sentiment that my hon. Friend is expressing. Let me reassure him on the question of rape defendants in the youth court. If the judge feels that the crime is sufficiently grave and merits a sentence of more than two years, they can move the case to the Crown court, where it is then eligible for the unduly lenient sentence scheme. In the past few years, the number of referrals under the ULS scheme has increased significantly. In 2018, 1,066 cases were referred to the Attorney General, who passed 140 on to the Court of Appeal; the sentence was increased in 99 of those cases. We keep the ULS scheme under continual review and will certainly consider very carefully my hon. Friend’s representations about its scope.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Chris Philp
The hon. Lady is quite right to raise that issue. I do not have the figures she asks for immediately to hand, so perhaps I could undertake to write to her. Let me assure her that this Government are certainly committed to making sure that miscarriages of justice are properly investigated, and if there is anything more that needs to be done, she can rest assured that we will do it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lucy Powell Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Robert Buckland
The hon. Lady, like all of us in this House, whether we are parents or not, shares the worry about young people either carrying knives or coming into contact with people who do. The truth about the trends in knife crime offending are these: there was an alarming rise 10 years ago and there was then a decline, but we are seeing a rise again. We are taking a twin-pronged approach, which is about not just sentencing, but intervention. That is why announcements about youth funding at last week’s Conservative party conference are welcome and indeed this is part of the work our youth offending teams are doing all across the country.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State may be aware of the recent murder of high-flying teenager Yousef Makki from Manchester. His killers were found not guilty of either manslaughter or murder, coming as they were from affluent Hale. The case stands in stark contrast with many I have raised here recently involving groups of young black men from Moss Side, who are all serving mandatory life sentences under joint enterprise. Given that the Secretary of State’s Government’s own race audit and Lammy review found that there were burning injustices in our criminal justice system when it comes to race, background, class and wealth, what are the Government doing to address these very different outcomes in the same cases?
Robert Buckland
The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. I think she would agree that it is difficult to extrapolate trends from an individual case, however concerning and deeply distressing that case was. I think the lesson is that knife crime respects and knows no class or race boundaries. We should not stigmatise this, particularly outside London, as a crime that is exclusively based upon any racial profile—that is wrong. However, I take the point that she makes and clearly we need to look carefully across the piece as to whether we are sometimes being a bit shy—institutionally shy—about addressing knife crime in some of the less typical places.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lucy Powell Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Edward Argar
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Something that runs through our female offender strategy is moving away from short sentences to alternative provisions. He highlights a particular issue in the context of Wales. It is something on which I have had discussions with the previous Cabinet Secretary, Alun Davies, and I look forward to meeting his successor in that role to have further discussions.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Many of those convicted of murder under joint enterprise thought that they would be able to seek appeals of their convictions after the Supreme Court ruling that the law had taken a wrong turn. However, the recent loss of the Laura Mitchell case, the first brought by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, has shown that the appeal bar is impossibly high. What will the Government do about that?
Lucy Frazer
I know that the hon. Lady has campaigned very hard on this. I was very pleased to answer her debate shortly after my appointment. As she knows, the appeal bar is set in relation to all cases, not just in relation to this case, but I am very happy to discuss this issue in a meeting with her.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lucy Powell Excerpts(5 years, 7 months ago)
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Lucy Frazer
I was pleased to meet my hon. Friend, together with Heather Buchanan from the all-party group on fair business banking and finance. The APPG has produced a thorough report on this very issue, which I have read with interest. As he identifies, it is important that small businesses can bring claims against the banks when they need to do so. I have spoken to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who is carefully considering the APPG report, together with—when it comes out—the Financial Conduct Authority’s consultation on expanding the role of Financial Ombudsman Service, and who will consider Simon Walker’s independent review of complaints. I know that he is keen to set out the Government’s position as soon as possible after that.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Given the findings of the Lammy review, which showed that those from black and ethnic minority backgrounds face discrimination in the criminal justice system, what progress has the Department made in ensuring that juries and judges better reflect the communities that they are there to serve?
Lucy Frazer
The hon. Lady makes an important point, because everyone who takes part in our justice system, as in politics, should reflect the society that it represents. That is not only juries; it is the professions that are there to support the judiciary on the bench. It is important that we look at the position in relation to juries.
Joint Enterprise
Lucy Powell Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House notes the Supreme Court judgment in the case of Jogee and Ruddock of February 2016 that the law on joint enterprise and parasitic accessory liability had been wrongly interpreted for more than 30 years; further notes that since that judgment, the number of cases brought under joint enterprise has remained unchanged; further notes that there have yet to be any successful appeals of cases from before February 2016; and calls on the Government to review the use of joint enterprise and to bring forward legislative proposals to clarify the law on joint enterprise.
I welcome you back to your place in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I am sure that the whole House will join me in wishing you and your family all the best; I know that it has been a very difficult few weeks for you.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for accepting the application for this important debate, and I thank the right hon. and hon. Members who supported that application, particularly the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), all of whom were co-sponsors of the application. I also thank the families and campaigners on joint enterprise, who are known as JENGbA—Joint Enterprise: Not Guilty by Association—and many of whom are in the Public Gallery today. They have never given up in their fight for justice for their loved ones.
Why are we having this debate now? It is nearly two years to the day since the Supreme Court made a landmark ruling that the law had taken a “wrong turn”. That followed years of campaigning and high-profile and seminal documentaries and films, such as “Common” by Jimmy McGovern. Since then, however, nothing of substance has actually changed. In the run-up to the ruling, the campaigners highlighted how, particularly in murder cases, secondary parties were too often receiving mandatory life sentences for having a lesser part or no significant part when compared with the principal party. They also showed that the evidential threshold was much lower than would normally apply to murder, particularly the notion that secondary parties “might” have foreseen the actions of others, rather than having knowingly foreseen them.
At the time of the ruling, campaigners, parliamentarians and others viewed it as a victory and had confidence that injustices would be put right and that the use of joint enterprise would be more limited going forward. However, two years on, the Supreme Court ruling feels increasingly like a pyrrhic victory, with no case from the 30 years in which the “wrong” law was applied being awarded an appeal, and many new cases with all the hallmarks of the old cases being successfully prosecuted.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing a debate on this difficult issue, which is not a small matter. Does she agree that 4,500 people are currently in prison having been caught by the wrongful application of joint enterprise law? Men, women and children are serving long sentences for crimes that they did not commit.
Lucy Powell
I fully agree with my hon. Friend. We know it is at least that sort of figure—we do not have accurate figures.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. This crucial issue is a priority for the newly formed all-party parliamentary group on miscarriages of justice.
The particular case of Alex Henry is of great importance. I chair the Westminster Commission on Autism, and several people in this ghastly predicament are on the autism spectrum and have been taken totally out of care.
Lucy Powell
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that particular case, and I know the family are here today. The case has many of the hallmarks that we will come on to discuss.
We are now seeing a new generation of joint enterprise lifers in prison. The Supreme Court says it is
“the responsibility of the court to put the law right”.
But many of us have come to the conclusion that the criminal justice system will not right itself, and is not righting itself, in relation to joint enterprise, and that we need to act. That is why Members on both sides of the House have joined together to send a strong signal both to the Government and to prosecutors and others that the way in which we continue to apply the law and the incredibly high bar that has been set for previous unsafe convictions to be reheard need to be redressed.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing this important subject to the Floor of the House. I have had reason to represent one of my constituents, Jace Ryan Smith, who was convicted and sentenced to 31 years under joint enterprise. He was doubly punished recently because he was not allowed to go to his grandmother’s funeral, not because of anything he had done wrong but because Greater Manchester police thought he may become a victim of another gang. Is not the real problem with joint enterprise that people are punished and given long prison sentences of more than 30 years for actions they did not carry out themselves?
Chuka Umunna
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I reiterate that it is very good to see you back in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I have two questions. First, following on from the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), the statistics show that 37% of those serving long sentences for joint enterprise are black. That is 11 times the proportion of black people in the population. The figures for people of mixed race are similarly disproportionate, which underlines why it is essential that we have the review that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) calls for in the motion, which I fully support.
Secondly, given the uncertainty, surely we are seeing the courts acting, in effect, as legislators. That is wrong. Where there is uncertainty in the law, it is for this House to tidy it up, particularly where the law is visiting injustice upon people in the way we are seeing.
Lucy Powell
I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments, and I will address some of that in my speech.
With hundreds of lifers in prison after being convicted under what the Supreme Court views as a wrong application of the law, this is potentially one of the biggest and most widespread miscarriages of justice ever to face our justice system. As such, I fear that the cosy club of the criminal justice establishment is closing in on itself to prevent this from ever being fully exposed.
What is joint enterprise? Joint enterprise has been applied in cases for more than 300 years, although it is a common law that has never been passed by Parliament. The doctrine allows for more than one person to be charged for the same offence, despite the fact that they may have played a different role, or no role, in the crime. Joint enterprise applies to all crimes, but in recent years it has been particularly used as a way to prosecute murder, especially, but not exclusively, in cases involving groups of young men.
This is obviously a very emotive issue, particularly for families of murder victims, and no one is suggesting that those who commit murder, or who knowingly and intentionally assist in committing murder, should not face the full force of the law. However, nor should the evidential bar for serious offences like murder be lower, by virtue of presence or association with the principal offender, as we have all too often seen.
Indeed, there are many cases, many of which I am sure will come to light today, in which people are serving life sentences when it is clear that they did not commit murder but were found guilty under the “old” or “wrong” law of parasitic accessory liability. Furthermore, many others who were convicted as secondary parties are carrying the same sentences as the principal based on a prosecution narrative of gang and association, even though intent and foresight are unproven and the secondary party was not physically present or had withdrawn from the scene.
When one looks at the profile of those convicted of murder, there is a further flaw in how the doctrine is applied. The majority are of black and ethnic minority backgrounds, and the vast majority are young, with many teenagers serving life for a secondary or parasitic role. I will say more, as will others, but we have to ask questions about the disproportionate use of such doctrines in cases involving certain communities.
The political context is also relevant to this debate.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I hope to give everybody 10 minutes. If Members intervene, the danger is that I will have to drop the time limit immediately.
Lucy Powell
I fully agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), but I will try to make some progress.
There was a political context when the joint enterprise law began to be overused and extended in its use during the 1990s and the noughties, but there is a different political context today. As my right hon. Friend has just said, we now more clearly understand the consequences of disproportionate and unfair applications of the law against certain groups. I am pleased the Government recognised that when they launched the Lammy review and in the Prime Minister’s recent comments on “burning injustices”—I hope she can live up to that rhetoric.
Practice and the law have been far too slow to catch up with the changing mood in the country. I will briefly discuss what the Supreme Court ruling does and does not say, and what still needs to be addressed. First, the ruling is clear that the law governing secondary liability has taken a “wrong turn” and has resulted in the “erroneous” application of the law. However, it also sets out that, in order for appeals to be heard “out of time,” a substantial injustice test, not the usual unsafe conviction test, will be applied. Yet the substantial injustice test was not clearly set out in the ruling and has never been set out by Parliament. The substantial injustice test has subsequently been tested through case law and is now an almost impossibly high bar for people to clear. That is why, nearly two years on, there has yet to be a single successful appeal awarded by the Court of Appeal.
Finally, in our opinion the Supreme Court failed to address another question put before it: does joint enterprise over-criminalise secondary parties?
What needs to change in the law—first, what needs to change going forward, and secondly, how can we put right some of the injustices of the past? It is clear that joint enterprise continues to be overused and is disproportionately used against groups of young men, particularly those from black and ethnic minority backgrounds. I saw that at first hand in a recent case in which 11 young black men from Moss Side faced charges of murder. Seven of them were convicted of murder and four were convicted of manslaughter. The youngest was only 14 and many of them were not previously known to the police. As research by Manchester Metropolitan University has shown in its study “Dangerous Liaisons”, more than half of all those serving life sentences are children or young adults, and more than half are from a black and ethnic minority background.
Lucy Powell
I will have to make some progress. I am sure someone else will give way later.
The extensive research also found that the establishment had a gang narrative that often relied on neighbourhood narratives, racialised assumptions, unevidenced constructs and loose associations. Things such as social media tags and videos have been critical to securing many of the joint enterprise convictions. We know that there are serious flaws in this approach. That is why my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham has raised it in his review and why the Home Affairs Committee is looking into it. Indeed, joint enterprise cases continue following the Supreme Court ruling, albeit under new Crown Prosecution Service guidance, but that remains problematic.
We want the Government to look at three areas for future cases. The first is proportionality and whether joint enterprise is being used correctly or disproportionately against certain groups. We ask the Government to do what the Supreme Court failed to do, which is to establish whether joint enterprise over-criminalises secondary parties. Secondly, and related to that, we need the data. Collating the data about who is being charged and convicted, and where, is urgent now and long overdue. Thirdly, the long-awaited outcome of the review of the CPS guidance needs to be brought forward, and quickly. It must include clearer guidance for prosecution discretion so that lesser offences can be brought against secondary parties in many cases.
The final point is about retrospective cases and putting right the injustices of the past. We are not asking for automatic reopening of every single case. It is right that there must be a test, but the test is now so impossibly high that no cases have successfully been heard by the Court of Appeal, and the Criminal Cases Review Commission has yet to recommend that a single case should come back, despite having received 99 fresh applications and reviewing 90 more. Indeed, appeal judges seem utterly dismissive of these cases. Unlike in a usual appeal case, where the threshold is the possibility of an unsafe conviction, applicants in the case of the “wrong” law of joint enterprise are also required to demonstrate that, as well as being unsafe, had the correct law applied there “would” have been a substantial difference to the outcome. In most other cases, this would be simply that it “may” have done so. So we believe that the substantial injustice test needs establishing by Parliament in law, and it should make it clear that the threshold is “may”, not “would”.
Moreover, we think that the Court of Appeal should also be allowed to consider the ongoing effect of the conviction on the applicant and, critically, take account of the applicant’s age, mental health and other vulnerabilities at the time. The old, or wrong, foresight test now applied correctly to adolescents or those suffering with learning or mental difficulties would surely provide a substantial change to convictions. Today we would not expect an immature teenager or someone with learning difficulties to understand the old, weak foresight test.
I want the Government urgently to consider a mechanism for clarifying the threshold in these cases. Just to be clear, this is not about opening the floodgates, but if the law has been wrong for 30 years, during which time hundreds if not thousands of mandatory life sentences were handed out under the old wrong law, then it stands to reason that at least some—not a tiny, tiny few—of the cases are a clear injustice that the courts are currently failing to put right.
I think we can all agree today in the House that the law took a wrong turn. That now needs putting right. The establishment is evidently not putting itself right, so the Government and Parliament need to act. We urgently need a review of the use and scope of the prosecutions brought under joint enterprise, particularly its disproportionate use against young BAME men. We also need urgent clarification of the qualification for appeal so that we can put right decades of substantial injustices and unsafe convictions leading to many serving life sentences for murders they did not commit.
Several hon. Members rose—
Lucy Powell
Notwithstanding the Minister’s response, I think that everyone watching this debate can take away from Parliament the fact that there is a clear and unified view that the law has got it wrong and that the law needs to be put right. Judging by today’s debate, I suggest that there would be a parliamentary majority in favour of doing just that. In the meantime, I ask all who are watching—the prosecutors, the Appeal Court judges, the police and others—to start putting things right. We will consider, as a cross-party group, how to put further pressure on the Government and work with them to improve the situation.
I think that there is a clear consensus about proportionality, gangs versus groups, the CPS guidance—the initial interim guidance was problematic—and a wider homicide review. Critically, there is a broad consensus on the retrospective cases and the substantial injustice test, which would prevent unsafe convictions. It is critical that age, maturity, mental wellbeing and potential disabilities can be taken into account.
This has been an historic debate, and many people who are watching will feel its historic importance. We are not going to stop here. I hear what the Minister says, and I disagree with some of it. We will continue to press the Government to take further action.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House notes the Supreme Court judgment in the case of Jogee and Ruddock of February 2016 that the law on joint enterprise and parasitic accessory liability had been wrongly interpreted for more than 30 years; further notes that since that judgment, the number of cases brought under joint enterprise has remained unchanged; further notes that there have yet to be any successful appeals of cases from before February 2016; and calls on the Government to review the use of joint enterprise and to bring forward legislative proposals to clarify the law on joint enterprise.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lucy Powell Excerpts(6 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Lidington
When a proposal is made to close any court centre there is a public consultation, which enables representations to be made and evidence to be looked at seriously. Such a consultation is always accompanied by an analysis of the travel times, both by car and by public transport, for people who use the court centre scheduled for closure to attend the proposed alternative. These things are considered in detail.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
In the context of court modernisation, will the Secretary of State look at making the courts more transparent, particularly by allowing defendants and those who have been sentenced to get court transcripts and copies of the judge’s direction to the jury? Especially in cases of potential miscarriage of justice, it can be incredibly difficult to get that information.
Mr Lidington
I would like to take away and reflect on the serious points made by the hon. Lady. Obviously the conduct of a trial in court is a matter for the trial judge, but I will look seriously at the issue and write to her when I have had the chance to take advice on the matter.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lucy Powell Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Gyimah
The hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten that we have a duty to house those who are sentenced by the courts. The prison population in England and Wales is 86,000; we have a duty to provide accommodation for them to serve their sentence in. We still have a commitment to investing £1.3 billion in the prison estate to create 10,000 additional prison places during this Parliament.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will be aware that one of the main causes of overcrowding in our prisons is the very long delays in our criminal justice system and the number of prisoners on remand. I wrote to him about Cordell Austin’s very long delay on remand; he was first arrested back in May 2016 under a very large joint enterprise case, but was acquitted in August this year. He is still in prison after nearly 18 months, and his oral hearing is not due until December; originally, we were told it would be next year. Are these not the sorts of cases that need attention, and do not hearings need to be prompt?
Mr Gyimah
Justice for those going through the system has to be swift. May I correct an assumption in the question? The reason why the prison population has increased in England and Wales is that more people convicted of sex-related offences are serving longer sentences. Given our duty to protect the public, it is right that when these people are convicted by the courts, they serve their time. The hon. Lady mentioned a case in her constituency and what she perceives to be the injustice there, but I would not generalise from that case and say that that is why there is overcrowding in our prisons.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lucy Powell Excerpts(7 years ago)
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Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
As the Minister will be aware, the use of Spice and its impact on our communities are now reaching epidemic levels. This is particularly hitting city centres such as Manchester and other towns and cities across the country. What discussions is he having with colleagues in other Departments to get a proper handle on this issue and to crack down on it? It is putting intolerable pressure on our public services.
Mr Gyimah
The hon. Lady makes an important point. Spice is a blight on our communities as well as in our prisons, where it fuels the disorder and violence that we see there. We take this extremely seriously and I am working with my colleagues in the Home Office to deal with the issue not only in the custodial system but in the community.