Legal Aid Reform

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 27th June 2013 Commons Chamber

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

I declare the interest that appears in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests that I am a member of the Bar, although I do not currently practise and have not done so since I have been in the House. For 25 years, I practised in criminal courts around London and the south-east. I defended almost invariably on legal aid rates and when I prosecuted, the remuneration was broadly the same. I have spent enough time at the sharp end to know and value the importance of legal aid in our justice system.

It is because I value legal aid that I find some of the responses to the Government’s consultation deeply disappointing. The criminal justice system and legal aid deserve better than the rather Panglossian view adopted by some Opposition Members and, I am sorry to say, some spokesmen of the profession that all is as well as it can be and that it would horrific to alter it.

More thoughtful Labour Front Benchers of the past have recognised that that view is not tenable. The former Lord Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), not only recognised that the growth in legal aid spending that we had seen over a decade or more was, to use his word, unsustainable, but observed that the profession needed to consider not just efficiencies, but structural change. He pointed out the opportunities that the Legal Services Act 2007 provided for such structural change. It is interesting that there is, yet again, collective amnesia on the Opposition Benches.

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

If we put aside the issues of cost for one moment, because there is agreement that we must always consider value for money, is the hon. Gentleman content that the Secretary of State has conducted the consultation in a timely and proper fashion? The rush in which this matter is being dealt with and the lack of a substantive vote in the House are of real concern, given the issues with which we are dealing.

[Robert Neill]

It seems to me that the Secretary of State has adopted a careful and measured approach. What the hon. Lady says is thoroughly misleading. I am sorry to say that she does herself no service by making such a thoroughly meretricious point.

This matter has been the subject of great public debate. I have referred to the former Lord Chancellor’s speech in 2009, in which he made specific proposals, including bringing in fixed fees and graduated fees as a precursor to best value tendering. He may not have delivered on those proposals, but the ideas have been out there for a long time.

The Lord Chancellor has met the chairman of the Bar Council and the president of the Law Society. It is right and wise that he chooses temperate interlocutors. He has been most willing to engage with Members of this House who are interested in legal matters. The hon. Lady therefore does herself a disservice to characterise the process as rushed.

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[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend makes a good point that I will return to later. He is exactly right—this is one of the likely unintended consequences of what is being proposed in the consultation.

In their efforts to cut legal costs overall, the Government are overlooking a far bigger cause of waste in the system than legal aid, namely the sheer inefficiency of the Crown Prosecution Service. In 2011-12, more than 123,000 prosecutions failed after charge because either no evidence was presented or the case was eventually dropped. The cost to the service, the courts and aborted defences was measured in tens of millions of pounds, not to mention the stress faced by people who were, presumably, innocent.

[Meg Hillier]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Davis]

If the hon. Lady will forgive, I am very tight on time. I will give way if I can a little later.

That does not tell the whole story, however. Time and again, we see trials delayed and extended by CPS incompetence. In my part of the world alone, the newspapers are littered with cases of lawyers not turning up, evidence not being presented and cases being adjourned again and again. I suspect we all have constituency cases just like that. This happens right across the country. We should not pretend that the legal aid system is a model of efficiency, but when it comes to finding savings and better, effective justice across the whole system, we should look first at the CPS itself before we let the axe fall again on legal aid.

I am yet to be convinced—this addresses the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab)—by Government assurances that the quality of legal aid providers will be guaranteed by a state body. This debate comes barely a week after the Care Quality Commission scandal. That demonstrates how difficult it is to guarantee the quality of complex intellectual services, which, of course, justice is. We should notice that even where the state has direct control—namely, the CPS and the Serious Fraud Office—it cannot guarantee quality there either. A judge in a recent murder case described the CPS lawyer as “completely inadequate”. The judge said that the lawyer cited old law, did not understand the current law, fell out with the prosecution team, and then simply did not show up on the following Monday. As a result, the trial had to be held six months later. If we cannot guarantee our own system and our own service, how are we going to guarantee 400 private operators around the country?

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

I want to talk about the impact of the proposals, the process and the politics of the situation. Before I start, however, I should mention that I have raised the issue with the National Audit Office, particularly after its very good work on interpreters in the criminal justice system. The Secretary of State ought to be a little worried, because the NAO will be watching and monitoring the situation and waiting to assess the impact. Of course, it always does that retrospectively, but the Secretary of State could save himself a lot of grief from an NAO audit if he improved the scheme from the beginning. What the NAO can do well is consider the system as a whole. I have asked it to do that and it is considering that request at the moment.

As time is limited, I will not repeat the arguments on the impact of the scheme that have been made eloquently by so many Members. Let me touch on a couple of points, however. The system is often painted as dealing with criminals but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) said, people are innocent until proven guilty. A local solicitor in my area has pointed out that more than 50% of the people who rely on legal aid with whom he deals are innocent and are neither charged nor cautioned. This is an attack on the innocent, as well as on those who appear in the picture painted by the Government.

One of the big impacts is through cost-shunting. We have heard a lot about self-representation, more time and duplication of work. Those are serious issues. I am a member of the Public Accounts Committee and when we consider such issues, we see time and again that one Department makes cuts and pushes the cost on to another. We must consider the system-wide elements and I am not convinced that the Government have done that.

I will not repeat the other arguments, save to mention what happened when I was a Minister dealing with challenging issues, when I took on dealing with children detained with their families. In that investigation, I uncovered the immense cost of not getting proper legal advice at the beginning of a case. It caused huge problems and damage to those children at a later date. There was also a huge issue with the geographical spread of cases. I did a round table in Wales and swathes of that nation in our country did not have immigration lawyers. I fear that this change will only exacerbate that.

On the process, the consultation has been rushed. There has been no proper opportunity for debate in this House and we have heard of some of the inadequacies in the consultation. The statutory instrument in the autumn will be the only opportunity the House gets to vote on these proposals and I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) has said that the Opposition are not afraid of a debate on the issue.

There have been no pilots. The points about changes made elsewhere should also be considered and perhaps pilots could compare this option with some of the others. I was a witness in court in the past year and was appalled at how much time was wasted. I was in a room with four other witnesses, some of whom were also victims. Only one was called into court that morning. One woman had some sandwiches and I realised as I left that she must have been prepared—indeed, she had been before and knew that her case might not be heard. What a waste of everyone’s time and money! It is everyone’s—it is taxpayers’ money, it is my constituents’ money and the situation needs to be considered. This is not the way to do it. It is a cack-handed approach, but the situation is presented in a very political way.

Costs have gone down, as legal aid spend figures published yesterday show, but I have not time to go into that.

The Government are trying to paint the picture that they are being tough on criminals and immigration. That rhetoric is unhelpful. It attacks many of my constituents, who need good advice. Even with legal aid, we have a two-tier system. The changes will cut the vulnerable adrift. Many of my constituents have suffered because they cannot afford expensive lawyers and legal aid lawyers are already stretched.

There is politics attached to this. We have heard from the Deputy Prime Minister, who is quoted in the Daily Mail as saying:

“You could say it’s perverse that a Government with Conservatives in it is reducing public choice”—

we have heard that already—

“rather than increasing it…on the back of the consultation we should see if there are alternative, less disruptive, less unpopular ways of delivering”

savings.

So there you have it, Madam Deputy Speaker. If the Liberal Democrats decide that this is unpopular, they might persuade the Government to drop it. Given that we have no vote on it, that might be our best bet. So I urge those who are listening to this debate to turn up in droves to the surgeries of Liberal Democrat Members and persuade them that it is unpopular. Then perhaps the Deputy Prime Minister will have his way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

That is a very important point. First, I have absolutely no intention of ending up with a legal aid market dominated by a small number of very large firms. A central part of the tendering process will involve a quality threshold that ensures that we have the quality of advocacy and litigation support in this country that we need and expect.

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

The Secretary of State talked about the quality threshold, but his own Department’s consultation document warns against the danger that some advice might go above the quality threshold and therefore be too expensive. What does he have to say to that and how will he ensure that criminals get a proper defence?

[Chris Grayling]

We must ensure that every defendant, innocent or guilty, has access to a proper defence. We also need a system that is affordable at a time of great financial stringency. Our proposals are designed to find the right balance between those two things.

Probation Service

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mudie]

The hon. Lady anticipates page 2, which I am just about to start.

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

Further to the previous intervention, does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems is the premise on which the Government are making their judgments? On 9 January 2013, The Guardian reported that the Secretary of State for Justice had said that

“a radical overhaul is needed to tackle the high reoffending rates with 58% of short-sentenced prisoners reoffending within a year and half a million crimes committed each year by released prisoners.”

The actual reoffending rate of those subject to state supervision—they are not short-term prisoners but those sentenced to more than 12 months—has dropped by 1.55 percentage points to below 10%. Does that not underline the wrongness of the Government’s approach?

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[Mr Mudie]

I agree with my hon. Friend; this is a bad example of a politician and a Department feeling right in proceeding on such a sensitive matter involving so much public risk. If the Minister feels that I am being unfair, the Select Committee and I would welcome it if he produced the evidence to justify the risks inherent in the policy changes.

The more the proposals are scrutinised, the more apparent it becomes that giving the majority of work to the private sector is the major objective. To my mind, it is also a major cause of the opposition to the proposals and of some of the difficulties in the consultation paper. I said earlier that I saw nothing amiss in involving the private and voluntary sector—it is, of course, already involved, and such arrangements have grown and are appreciated—but the scale and spread proposed are entirely different. The proposal to hand over 70% of the work load of existing probation officers so quickly to firms untrained in and unused to the work raises obvious questions.

The division of the work distribution—low and medium-risk to the private sector, high-risk to the probation service—looks clear on paper but ignores what professionals in the service say happens in real life. Medium-risk individuals can move dangerously quickly to being high risk. If the signs are not spotted immediately, high risk may escalate into dangerous behaviour with harm to individual and general public safety. That is a reality that experienced probation officers live with every working hour, and it is a tribute to their skill and dedication that it does not happen on a wider scale.

It would be wiser to introduce the private sector, if it must be introduced on this scale, to deal initially with the low-risk group alone. Even if that were seen as weakening the proposals’ profitability for the private sector, it would have the opportunity to take on the new work load of prisoners serving less than 12-month sentences. That would create a clear division and stop the overlap, which will certainly cause a problem. It could also help with the vagueness of the relationships and objectives of the differing cultures.

The private sector has the responsibility to ensure that court or licence agreements are adhered to. Obvious situations arise when individuals are in breach, and they are processed by the probation officer, but in areas of work where trust and relationships are all-important, the probation officer will have to accept the judgment of private sector personnel and haul the offender back to court. On the one hand, we have a public servant—a professional—who has no monetary motivation and whose only objectives are public safety and working with integrity with the person on probation. On the other hand, under the proposals, we will end up with large private companies tied to a scheme of payment that will pay largely on results.

Is it impossible that, to protect or maximise payment, the person on probation who could be a difficulty and a danger to that payment might necessarily be passed back to the probation officer? The probation officer would then have to pick up the relationship and process the matter through court.

If the Minister does not accept that argument, he should at least consider the divisions of the responsibilities proposed. A more distinct role for the private sector is needed, but one that allows distinct accountability, which is paramount in this sector. Every day, there is the possibility of something going wrong, and any ambiguity in responsibility is unwelcome.

Another reason to suggest that privatisation is uppermost in the Secretary of State’s mind is the winding up of the 35 trusts. Why are they being wound up? They have just been praised as excellent; they have been doing the job for 10 years; they have built themselves into the area and built up their relationships; but now they are being converted into 16 or perhaps six geographical areas, with all the dangers to the relationships that lie with that. Can the Minister spell out the reasons for cutting the trusts and the agreed criteria for the number of replacements?

[Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend touched on the benefits of having longevity in a service, so that the contacts are built up over time. Longevity should never be unchallenged by those of us who are public scrutineers, but it builds up valuable expertise, as his own service has shown. One of my concerns is that the reducing offending and supervision hubs—in the emerging jargon, ROSHs—could be open to competition every three or five years. Surely, different organisations will therefore run the hubs every few years and the connections locally will be broken when they have to start again. Is that a good thing for local public safety?

[Mr Mudie]

It is a very harmful thing. My hon. Friend makes a valuable point and allows me to take further chunks out of my speech. I will not go further into the relationships, but I worry about how the contracts will be procured and the effect on the existing small companies and voluntary organisations that work with the probation service. I warn them that small companies and voluntary organisations often cry out for privatisation or for procurement or break-up of public services, in the belief that they will get the work, but they are dreaming. The Minister has provided some arrangements and money to assist small companies to bid, but the reality is that the big international and national companies will get the contracts, while small companies will be pressed to the margin.

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[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) on securing this debate. I come to it from a slightly different perspective. There is no doubt that the probation service plays an important role in our criminal justice system, and particularly reoffending. I have already said that we all agree that reoffending levels are far too high. I believe the Government deserve great credit for focusing on reducing reoffending. It is extraordinary that 58% of criminals who are sentenced to less than one year in prison are convicted of further offences within 12 months of their release. That says something about all Governments, whether red, blue or coalition. The issue has not been given sufficient focus and emphasis.

[Meg Hillier]

We all agree that the reoffending rate overall is too high, but the 58% of short-sentence prisoners who reoffend are not under the supervision of the probation service. The figure for those within the probation service has fallen. Any reoffending is too much, but it has fallen. Will the hon. Lady acknowledge that?

[Priti Patel]

I do not, because at the end of the day we must also think about the other side in the criminal justice system: victims. The point is that all the figures are far too high and not enough has been done historically to tackle reoffending. Victims are hit hard and they suffer most from reoffending. They never feel satisfied if they are hit again and again by serial criminals who reoffend.

Reoffending creates significant financial cost. The National Audit Office has estimated that the cost to the economy could be as high as £13 billion, and as much as three quarters of that could be attributed to the cost of short-sentence prisoners who served less than a year in prison.

Reoffending is a serious problem. We have heard from the two speakers thus far that there is concern about the future of the probation service and its structure. It needs improvement, because if reoffending rates are too high we must look at what has not been working in the service. There are serious concerns, and we should look at previous reports. In November 2009, inspectors looked into failings in the probation service in London in the aftermath of the Sonnex killings, and found that barely half of its cases were being handled at a level to ensure that the public were protected.

Only 20% of offenders are in employment at any stage during the 13 weeks following their release, and 40% claim out-of-work benefits in that period. We must look to the future and the structural improvements that the Government are introducing to reduce reoffending.

[Meg Hillier]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Priti Patel]

I am about to close. We must bring others into the system to add value. We have heard about so-called privatisation, but it is right that the Government are encouraging new providers not just from the private sector, but from the third sector, to deliver services under the payment-by-results model.

Charities have a role to play, with small and medium-sized enterprises. We should not speak disparagingly of the role that SMEs can play. The sweeping generalisation is that corporate players will automatically obtain contracts, but I believe that SMEs and the third sector, including charities, can provide innovative support to help offenders. We should not exclude opportunities for them to improve services. The Prince’s Trust, the Apex Trust and other trusts are doing great work, and I urge the Government not to be put off by some of the comments thus far. We should not generalise at this stage. Consultation is taking place and I urge the Government to encourage all participants and players to come to the table and to be part of the solution.

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Crausby, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Mr Mudie) on securing this important debate. I have spoken several times in the Chamber to raise concerns about the Government’s latest reform proposals, and I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak further about them.

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) who made some incredibly important points, and highlighted the performance of her probation trust. We are discussing a high-performing part of the public sector and the criminal justice system. We are not saying that the probation service could not be better, and we all agree with the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) that we want it to be better, but the core of my argument, which my hon. Friends are also making, is that we should build on what is good and successful in the service and not disrupt it as the Government’s proposals will.

[Meg Hillier]

The hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) talked about not making assumptions, and not dissing the idea that the voluntary sector and others might play a part. The Opposition are not doing that. In fact, changes made over the years introduced other players to work alongside the probation service. My concern is that there will be a wholesale sloughing off of people with talent and of local co-ordination. Nothing in the hon. Lady’s speech identified what the future would look like under the new model; it was about hope, rather than evidence. Would my hon. Friend like to comment?

[Andy Sawford]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I want to talk about how such local organisations are working to good effect in Northamptonshire and about my concern that that will be disrupted. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East made clear, our concern is that payment by results in the criminal justice system is untested. The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), was responsible for the Work programme, which is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central has said, a contradiction in terms. Will the Minister explain why the Government are rushing headlong into the changes and ignoring the pilots, rather than learning from them and developing reforms from them?

Our probation service does a good job in difficult circumstances and on stretched budgets, and the Government rated the performance of every probation trust as good or exceptional in 2011. After the proposed changes, probation will deal with an extra 60,000 offenders a year. Will there be additional funding or will the current money be spread even more thinly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East suggested? Poorly resourced support for rehabilitation will not effectively help to reform offenders, and that poses a serious risk to our constituents’ safety.

The proposals have been strongly and widely criticised. The National Association of Probation Officers said that they were

“being rushed through without proper thought to the consequences.”

NAPO pointed out:

“Although these offenders are deemed medium and low risk of harm, they include…offenders at high risk of reoffending, such as prolific burglars, chaotic drug users and gang members…who require professional expertise in their management.”

In Northamptonshire, such offenders currently receive that professional expertise. The Howard League for Penal Reform calls the proposals “untested and opaque.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is right to point out the important role of the blue plaque scheme. The chairman of English Heritage made it clear yesterday that the scheme is continuing, but I am sure that my hon. Friend, in his many roles in the House, would want us to look carefully at how it is run in future, because at the moment we are spending some £250,000 a year, employing four people putting up six plaques a year. I am sure there are different ways that we could run the scheme; and I am sure that consideration will be given in the future to him having his own plaque.

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

In Hackney there are more than 70 betting shops and last year £167 million was spent gambling on fixed-odds betting machines. What further evidence does the Minister need to take action on reducing either the number of machines or the frequency of bets that can be laid, which are taking money from my poorest constituents?

[Hugh Robertson]

As I have said on a number of occasions today, I recognise the issue that the hon. Lady raises. I assure her that once we have sufficient evidence, if action needs to be taken, it will be, but it has to be taken on the basis of national evidence, not just evidence from individual constituencies.

Criminal Justice System

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan. I welcome this debate and congratulate the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Tony Lloyd) on securing it. I feel strongly about the victims of crime. I am delighted that the debate is taking place, because for far too long the victims of crime have not had their voices heard as they should have done. I appreciate there may be many reasons for that. However, this is an opportune debate at a time when the public are quite animated about the elections of police and crime commissioners. There is an opportunity to bring greater focus on victims of crime.

I pay tribute to the excellent work of Victim Support, particularly for taking the initiative to engage the police and crime commissioner candidates of all political persuasions, to bring them on board regarding victims’ services and support and to get them to sign up to the Victim Support five promises to victims and witnesses pledge.

Those elected as police and crime commissioners, regardless of their political persuasion, must champion the rights of victims and put victims first. Once they have a mandate, it would be ridiculous not to do so. I hope that the Minister, along with police and crime commissioners, can give a commitment to the work of Victim Support and other victims’ organisations, to which I will refer later, to ensure that victims get the first-class treatment that they deserve and have not had previously.

The Minister will know that, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Manchester Central, last December I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill to call for a robust and enforceable code of practice to deliver new rights and better services for the victims of crime and their families. There have been far too many gaps and inconsistencies in the provision of services for victims and their families. Following my Bill, I was delighted to see the Government take some positive steps forward and introduce the consultation, “Getting it right for victims and witnesses”, which proposed new measures to improve services.

I look to the Minister for an update on when those measures will be implemented and when the details of the recommendations proposed by the former Victims’ Commissioner, Louise Casey, in her review into the needs of families bereaved by homicides will be put into effect.

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

Ten years ago, my constituents, Pat and Ian Levy, lost their son, then 16, who was stabbed by a 15-year-old in Hackney. They are very keen to present their victims’ personal statement in person at his parole hearing. They do not have control over that; it is at the whim of the chair. Even then, they do not get the chance to talk more about it; they simply read out a statement. I share their concern that that is not a balance. Will the hon. Lady comment on that?

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[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Tony Lloyd) on securing this debate. I declare a similar interest; I have been nominated to stand for election as police and crime commissioner in south Wales.

I am proud to say that the needs of victims will be at the heart of my approach if I am elected. I want to be precise that a genuine focus on the needs and interests of victims must involve putting the victim at the heart of the behaviour and performance of the court system and of every agency in the criminal justice system, as well as of the police and the rest of our systems of local and national government. We must bear in mind that there is an enormous variety of victims, ranging from nurses, shopkeepers and police officers to ordinary members of the public. Our response must be right in every set of circumstances. Victims’ experiences are often very personal and different.

In my view, four major steps are required to bring about the radical change needed in how we deal with victims. The first is to act on the wise words given in evidence to the Justice Committee by the then chief executive of Victim Support, who essentially said that what victims want more than anything else, other than not to have become a victim in the first place, is the certainty that it will not happen again. Preventing crime—cutting offending and reoffending—is absolutely central to meeting the needs of victims.

That is clear enough in relation to the police. Sir Robert Peel said in terms, when he established the first police force, that the central purpose of the police was to cut crime—to prevent offending and reoffending. He also said that the police were the public and the public were the police, which must surely mean more than an identification in general terms between the police and the wider community; it must involve a conscious seeking-out of the experience of victims, especially those whose voices are not easily heard and whose suffering is hidden.

Such victims might be abused children or the victims of violence against women and girls and other forms of domestic violence that remain under-reported. They might be those suffering in silence who are exploited in a variety of ways, those victimised within specific communities by things such as female genital mutilation or those who suffer the ongoing victimisation of antisocial behaviour. The police and the public surely have a common interest and a common responsibility in taking the victims’ side.

That also ought to be the clear purpose of the court system. In my view, it was a missed opportunity when the purposes of the Sentencing Council were spelled out in legislation. I urge Ministers to put that right now. At the heart of the work of the Sentencing Council should be the answer to the question, “What works?” It is not, but it should be.

In the Justice Committee report on the role of the prison officer, we concluded that that role could not be clear unless the role and the purpose of prison was clear. The Prison Service, like many other agencies within the criminal justice system, ends up chasing specific targets that have nothing to do with their overall aim or purpose or the expectations of the public, which should be to hold prisoners securely and return them to the community less likely to offend, or at the very least likely to offend less seriously. That must be built into the granular detail of what we expect.

The second step is to ensure that the needs and voices of victims are heard clearly in the court system. Both this Government and the last have clearly wished victims to be listened to and treated better within the court system, but that is mostly dealt with through additional requirements, such as victim impact statements and witness support, which are welcome but do not touch the central purpose of the whole system. I was the first Minister to serve on a jury after the legislation changed, and it did not enhance my respect for the court system, which seems to be run mainly for lawyers and judges.

[Meg Hillier]

To return to the situation of the Levy family, what does my right hon. Friend think could be done to improve the rights of victims at parole stage as well? The victims are still suffering. My constituents rightly say, “The perpetrator has a lot of people arguing on his behalf, but the victims have nobody to argue on their behalf.” They might not even be able to be present at the parole hearing. Does he have any thoughts on that?

[Alun Michael]

My hon. Friend is right. The needs and interests of victims should be present at every stage throughout the court system. I also think that greater use of restorative justice is needed. I was interested to hear a sergeant in the South Wales police say recently that giving victims the chance to tell the offender in no uncertain terms how damaging the experience of the offence had been was, in his words, genuinely life-changing for the offender. It is not a soft option; it is a hard option, as long as it is done properly, professionally and with the interests of the victims in mind.

The third step is to provide proper support for victims at every stage. We have built up a powerful victim support network across the UK. I was involved in the establishment of one of the first support schemes in Cardiff, after the very first had been established in Bristol. I pay tribute to how Victim Support, as a national organisation, has promoted professionalism in recent years among both staff and volunteers in a superb service.

As we see in other fields such as education and health, there is a necessary tension between the national dimension, in which standards are established, and local service, which is sensitive to local needs and realities. Now the Government are putting a significant amount of commissioning in the hands of the new police and crime commissioners. That has introduced an unwelcome element of uncertainty, but it might work in practice. My commitment, if elected, is to ensure that service to victims is enhanced rather than reduced.

In a reply to my recent question, the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, the right hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), promised that more money rather than less would reach the commissioners in carrying out their duties, but there is a worry that support to victims might be fragmented from the other service. A sentence on the Home Office website states that

“the Government will retain responsibility for commissioning services where there are either proven economies of scale or they are genuinely specialist in nature. This includes support for those bereaved through homicide, victims of trafficking, rape support centres and the witness service”.

That makes sense for the other specialist services, but it is essential that the victim as witness is given a seamless service before, during and after the court experience. I hope that the Minister can clarify that and guarantee that the witness service will be delegated to the police and crime commissioners. Given that the worst experience for the victim sometimes occurs within the court system—victims in some cases describe their experience in court as being even worse than the original incident or as compounding their suffering—it would be wrong for it to appear that central Government or the court system were unwilling for support to witnesses to be provided through local and independent services.

Ministers have made it clear, as we saw at Home Office questions this week, that the police and crime commissioners should challenge other parts of the criminal justice system about their work and performance. Being in close contact with support for witnesses surely makes sense in that regard.

The fourth necessary step is to listen and learn from the experience of witnesses. In relation to violence in Cardiff, we stopped measuring reports to the police and started measuring the experience of victims who had to go to hospital for treatment. As a result, we found that many cases were not being reported and that that needed to change.

The purpose of establishing the crime and disorder reduction partnerships in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 was to bring in every aspect of the public service to support the objective of reducing offending and reoffending. That surely has to become the central responsibility of Government, to enable the whole of the criminal justice system to operate much more effectively and in the interests of victims, and to make it a clear priority for the whole of the criminal justice system and every agency.

Changing the focus of the Sentencing Council to make “what works” its clear priority would be part of that. The work of the police and crime commissions will be extremely challenging, but in the House this week Ministers set very high expectations of how commissioners might add value in pursuing the “and crime” part of their role. I am pleased they did so, but if that is to be turned into reality, the direction of the whole criminal justice system needs to support that ambition.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan.

On 16 September 2004, Robert Levy was stabbed and killed near Hackney town hall when he went to help a younger boy who was being threatened by a schoolboy with a knife. Robert was only 16 years old when he lost his life. His murderer was 15 years old.

Robert’s murderer is due to have his parole hearing in September 2013. I have received correspondence from the former Justice Minister, the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt), saying that Mr and Mrs Levy can apply to their local parole board to attend the parole hearing and read out their victim personal statement. However, Mr and Mrs Levy believe—I have a lot of sympathy with their position—that the victims of crime should have the right to speak, or to have a lawyer speak for them, at the parole hearings of the people who have harmed them or members of their immediate family. As I said, I have a lot of sympathy with that position. The Levys feel strongly that although articulate people can present their case well—in fact, I would think the Levys fall into that category—some people might not be able to do that and others might not even be able to write their victim personal statement very well. There is, therefore, an issue about parity in the law.

Mr and Mrs Levy are concerned that at the moment, the decision on whether victims of crime can speak or have a lawyer speak for them at a parole hearing is up to the discretion of the chair of the relevant parole board. They feel that reading out a statement is not adequate—I support them on this—and does not allow family members to respond to points made during the hearing. They would like to be able to have some comeback. The perpetrator has the chance to have other people speak for him, but they do not have anyone to speak on their behalf.

I wrote to the Justice Secretary, the Minister’s boss, on 4 October. We have not had a response yet. That is not a criticism. I expect that he has to consider the matter, and we have had a good dialogue with Ministers. However, could this Minister say specifically in her summing-up of the debate whether the Department might consider what has been proposed and look into whether there could be better rights for victims, particularly at parole hearings?

This is not about retribution. It is about balance and ensuring that the perpetrator accepts responsibility for their actions at each stage of the process. For someone who has served a sentence, the crime becomes more distant. For the family who have to live without their family member—in this case, their son, Robert—the pain never goes away. It is important that perpetrators understand that the impact of their crime does not lessen with time.

I sincerely apologise, Mrs Riordan, because I may have to leave a little before the end of the debate. Perhaps I can correspond with the Minister, and if she would be willing to meet my constituents, I would be very happy to facilitate it.

[Mrs Linda Riordan (in the Chair)]

I am now imposing a time limit on Back-Bench speeches of three minutes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

I will write to my hon. Friend, to make sure that I get the precise details correct in respect of her centre.

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

In 2004 Robert Levy, aged 16, was killed in Hackney. His parents, Ian and Pat Levy, will be receiving support from the probation trust to help them give a victim statement at the parole hearing, which is due next year, but their rights are limited. There is no guarantee that they will appear in person and there will be no cross-examination of them about the impact on their lives. Will the Minister look again at this element of victim impact and tell us what he is doing?

[Mr Blunt]

We have done so in the course of our consideration of our policy for victims and witnesses, and I hope the hon. Lady will be able to look forward to the conclusions that we take from that, in particular on the future rule of the victim personal statement. I agree with her about its importance. It is another vehicle for getting victims properly engaged in the exercise of justice.