Sentencing Bill
Michael Ellis Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Sir Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
I rise to support the Bill. If the House will indulge me, I will quote the great Sir Winston Churchill, who, when he was Home Secretary, said in this House in July 1910:
“I shall certainly be very glad to be able to announce…the first real principle which should guide anyone trying to establish a good system of prisons should be to prevent as many people as possible getting there at all.”—[Official Report, 20 July 1910; Vol. 19, c. 1344.]
Of course, we know that he also recognised the need for punishment in the criminal justice system. Notwithstanding that, he emphasised that the punishment should fit the crime, which is the direction in which this Bill goes.
In that famous speech in 1910, Churchill also said:
“A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the State, and even of convicted criminals against the State, a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts towards the discovery of curative and regenerating processes, and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man—these are the symbols which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it.”—[Official Report, 20 July 1910; Vol. 19, c. 1354.]
The language is rather Edwardian, but what he was saying, of course, was that how a nation treats its criminals—its prisoners—is indicative of the measure of that nation.
Those of us who have been in the criminal justice system for so many years want to ensure that punishment fits the crime, but also to ensure justice for all. The Bill puts public protection at the heart of sentencing: for the worst murderers, the only proper penalty is life imprisonment without the possibility of release by the Parole Board. I note that whole-life orders will be the default sentence for any murders involving sexual or sadistic conduct. When I was Attorney General, one of the cases in which I appeared personally before the Court of Appeal involved an application in part to see if a whole-life order was possible, even for something less than murder—it was a case of multiple rapes. That application turned out not to be successful, but I give that as an example of why I approve of the process in the Bill whereby those persons who commit heinous sexual or sadistic murders should receive whole-life sentences.
I note that under the suspension provisions of the Bill, judges will have the discretion to impose immediate custody in other types of cases under 12 months, and that those offenders who pose a risk of harm to a particular individual—for example, in domestic abuse and stalking cases—will rightly be excluded from the presumption. There may be further consideration of this matter in Committee. I cannot help but draw attention to the fact that at the moment, a very large number of racially aggravated offences are taking place around the country, antisemitic incidents in particular. That may be something that Ministers wish to consider further.
The reality is that the Bill can attract support across the board, although I am not sure about the position of many Opposition Members. After all, some 70 Labour MPs signed a letter to stop a deportation flight to Jamaica containing up to 50 foreign offenders. It is right that we bear in mind that the general public expect criminals to be punished according to the offences that they have committed. All sexual and serious violent offenders should be and will be excluded from the scheme—something of which we can all approve.
As a Government, we are currently overseeing the largest expansion to the prison estate for many years, building six new prisons. No one can say that we are not tough on crime. We have created 20,000 prison places, over 5,000 of which are already active, and we have provided £400 million for more prison places. It is right that we need more prison places, so I support that. It is worth noting in this context that crime is down 50% across the board and that there are 20,000 more police officers.
In short, Mr Deputy Speaker, the Bill has my support.
Oral Answers to Questions
Michael Ellis Excerpts(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Sir Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the judiciary must not make incendiary comments about Israel? At Walsall magistrates court, a district judge recently acquitted defendants who had vandalised a factory, believing it to be supplying Israel, and is reported to have told them their action was
“proportionate in comparison to the crimes against humanity which they were acting to stop.”
Does he agree that judges are supposed to uphold the law, not encourage its breach? This brings our legal system into ill-repute, so will he take this from me as a complaint to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office?
Mr Speaker
Order. We are not meant to criticise the courts, and I know that such a learned Gentleman will know better; I am sure we can avoid any criticism.
Violence Reduction, Policing and Criminal Justice
Michael Ellis Excerpts(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Sir Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
In a law and order context, there is a rich and sad irony in today’s amendments on a ceasefire: the UK Parliament is soon to vote on a ceasefire in a conflict over which the UK has no control, and a ceasefire that neither side in the conflict wants. Hamas openly say that they will fight on to kill as many Jews as possible—not Israelis, but Jews—and that they would do what they did on 7 October all over again if they could. They openly say that. Israel will destroy Hamas, and will be doing the world and, indeed, the Palestinian people a great service by doing so. A ceasefire would play into the hands of terrorists and terrorism. The Scottish nationalists, among others, have engineered an amendment to this debate to incommode and undermine the Labour leadership, but what they actually undermine is community cohesion and the Jewish community in this country.
If I may, I want to address the Jewish community in the United Kingdom. There is a great deal of fear in the Jewish community, who feel decidedly unsafe and abandoned, vulnerable and isolated, and who have effectively been banned from central London for several weekends now by the risible failure of police actions and the one-sided prejudicial reporting of the BBC and others. Those factors have an adverse effect on law and order as well as on diplomatic moves internationally. We hear of deep hatred for Israel from multiple quarters.
Why do we not see mass demonstrations and similar responses when hundreds of thousands of Muslims and others are killed in conflicts elsewhere? Some 600,000 civilians, including children, have been killed in the past year in Sudan and 300,000 in Yemen. There are countless dead in Ethiopia-Tigray and in Azerbaijan-Armenia. Then there are China’s hard-oppressed Uyghur Muslims, and the wonderful Kurds being attacked by Turkey, East Timor and so on. It is difficult not to come to the conclusion that the screaming about Israel is based on the ancient hatred of antisemitism. Why else ignore larger losses of life? We see hate. We see dissent and we see division.
I wish to appeal today, in the limited time available, to a different emotion, which is hope. I say to the Jewish community in the UK and to those of any faith or of none who yearn for peace and reconciliation to be of good hope. There is much to be hopeful about. Why? One of the prime reasons for the timing of the ISIS-style pogrom of 7 October was the blooming flower of a relationship between Israel and Saudi Arabia. It was apparently a few months away from fruition, and what a wonderful development that would have been. The Saudi position, as the keeper of the holy places, is such that perhaps a dozen Muslim majority countries would have soon followed suit and opened relations with Israel. However, all is not lost. The good news is that that will still happen, and the signs are that the Saudis will still pursue the project. For Jews and many others yearning for peace, it is something to look forward to. It would build on the historic Abraham accords of 2020, when Bahrain and the UAE bonded with Israel, and that arrangement has born rich fruit.
There are reasons to be hopeful even with Iran. Why there? The theocrats in Tehran are irredeemable; they support and fund terrorism in many areas and oppress and torture their own people, but, in due course, the evil designs of that clerical cabal will fail, just as the evil designs of so many others motivated by hatred have failed. The Iranian people are a wise and cultured people, and there is much to hope for there. Recently, the people of Iran have been encouraged by their regime to chant slogans against Israel, to trample on large Israeli flags, placed deliberately for that purpose at the exit of football stadiums, and to carry out other stunts, but the Persian football masses pointedly declined to do so. What bravery and what nobility—a good sign of hope for the future.
What hope can we look to here in the United Kingdom? I think a lot. We have seen gangs of proto-fascists, frankly, crowd around Marks & Spencer branches, for example, including one in Glasgow. I wonder why the SNP does not wish to mention that in debates.
Sir Michael Ellis
The reality of the matter is that Marks & Spencer, which was once a Jewish-owned company but since 1926 has been owned by thousands of shareholders, is now subject to antisemitic attacks, 130 years after its foundation. Mr Marks first came to the UK escaping, ironically, another pogrom, this one in the 1880s, but there is hope even there because I can tell the House that Marks & Spencer thrives like never before: its shares are up 66% this year.
There is even more hope elsewhere. We have a Prime Minister who has supported Israel; a Leader of the Opposition who has withstood the brickbats and those who wish to divide, and is defending the Jewish people from insult and prejudice; and a sovereign, a King, who is a global leader and who will be a source for peace. There is no better hope than that.
Police Federation Reform (Normington Report)
Michael Ellis Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr Blunt) and the excellent speeches of hon. Members on both sides of the House. It is clear that something is very wrong in the national Police Federation, and has been for some time. The continual drip-drip effect is reaching its zenith—or, should I say, its nadir—and is causing considerable embarrassment and distress to the rank and file officers of a noble and honourable profession that has brought, and continues to bring, great honour to this country.
Our police service is genuinely the best in the world. It deals with extremely severe threats and incidents. It deals daily with historic episodes and threats to the state and security of this nation, and it does so without being armed and by consent. I am very proud of the profession, and we all can be very proud of it, which is why the Police Federation’s dysfunction is a humiliation to rank and file officers throughout the country. Many officers have told me that if they did not feel that they needed the protection of an organisation such as the federation in case they should get into trouble, they would not choose to be members of it and to pay the exorbitant dues that have caused it to become bloated.
The Police Federation may have started nobly in 1919, but owing to several recent scandals and cover-ups, it has lost that nobility. An opinion poll released only today, which has been the subject of media attention, indicates that a third of people have lost confidence in the police. The lowest level of trust in the police ever now subsists in this country. In large measure, that is due to the disgraceful misconduct of previous leaderships of the federation.
I have had dealings with police officers and my local Northamptonshire federation. They do a good job, but we have to address the egregious examples about which we have heard in the debate before they cause even greater damage to this country and its reputation.
As for the incident at the gates of Downing street, if my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), then a Cabinet Minister, can be traduced in such a way, in such a location and in such circumstances, what hope is there for any of our constituents, without that authority and without the resources to defend themselves?
The review, chaired by Sir David Normington, has done a good job. It was set up to examine signal failures within the federation. Its report, which was delivered a couple of months ago, found fault with almost every aspect of the federation’s operations. I cannot recall a report that was quite so damning. Federation tactics have been a particular source of shame, and I am appalled that, despite the publication of the report in January, they are still going on.
The report states that
“many from outside have criticised its tactics particularly in responding to the Winsor review.”
That was about police pay. The federation
“has too often fallen back on its traditional tendency to attack and try to undermine those who are proposing the changes, rather than take on the issues…This constitutes a strategic failure; the politics of personal attack and shouting has proved to be a wrong-headed response.”
It goes on to say:
“The Federation should be a powerful voice for standards in British policing but at present it is badly placed to be that voice. Throughout our inquiry we have heard allegations that some Federation representatives who have personally targeted successive Home Secretaries, Andrew Mitchell, Tom Winsor and others, bringing the Federation into disrepute and risking the police reputation for impartiality and integrity. We have also been given evidence of bad behaviour within, including poor treatment of staff at HQ and the targeting of representatives in social media, at Conference and elsewhere simply because they hold a different point of view. If the Federation wants to be respected and listened to in the future, this has to stop.”
These are nothing more than bully-boy tactics from those who are in a position to be bullies, and who are hiding behind their position to intimidate others, including democratically elected representatives. It is intolerable that successive Home Secretaries should be subject to this level of personal attack and abuse. The federation is incapable of making the arguments. That is the only explanation for such personal attacks.
I agree with the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield has been entirely vindicated. I was a barrister in criminal practice for more than 15 years, but the police case was so undermined that no case could rest on it. I understand that my right hon. Friend has already received an apology, and rightly so, from several chief constables, and several police officers now face internal misconduct or gross misconduct charges and one has gone to prison. However, I am appalled, as I know the House will be, that the federation is even now funding litigation that seeks to keep this matter alive.
Keith Vaz
The hon. Gentleman will remember the evidence given to the Committee by the officers from West Mercia, Warwickshire and West Midlands police, whom he cross-examined extremely effectively. He will recall that they had the opportunity to draw a line. Does he not agree that that could be done, even at this late stage, to bring the whole sorry episode to a conclusion?
Michael Ellis
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who leads the way in putting Select Committees at the forefront of getting to the issues in this Parliament. An apology is still due, and he is right that those officers’ conduct and appearance before the Committee, on which we both have the honour to sit, was an embarrassment to the Police Federation. I have asked for an inquiry in the Home Affairs Committee, to which the right hon. Gentleman has already alluded, partly because of that, and partly because of the repeated episodes that we still hear and read about in the media. For example, the chairman of the Police Federation told the Committee that he did not know the exact figure, but he agreed with my suggestion that there were tens of millions of pounds in the No. 2 accounts. We do not have the answers. These are enormous sums, some of which have been funded by a huge 20% uplift in constables’ dues to the Police Federation. It is a shocking indictment. Meanwhile, £26 million has been spent on a luxurious headquarters that looks like something out of science fiction. Apparently, senior federation officials travelled to Italy to source the right slate for part of the edifice of that structure. Expense accounts have not been published and salaries are not fully disclosed. According to media reports that appear almost daily, Police Federation officials are misconducting themselves, embarrassing themselves, and behaving extremely improperly in regard to their conduct and expenses.
But it is the bully-boy tactics that most concern me, as they will concern hon. Members on both sides of the House. Ninety-one per cent. of members of the Police Federation—an extremely high figure; it is almost unprecedented in opinion polls to get 91% of people to agree with anything—of tens of thousands who apparently answered the questions, want change in their own federation. This change is not being driven by the House or by one political party; this is a cross-party issue and it is being driven by the members of the Police Federation, who want and need change. I do not think that I have ever agreed with the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) quite as much as I did when he spoke today.
Policing is an honourable and great profession. We owe the police a great deal, and that is why we want to see their leadership within the Police Federation changed, changed soon, and changed for the better.
Budget and Structure of the Ministry of Justice
Michael Ellis Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Jeremy Wright
I have made it clear that we do not believe that we have done all we need to do on that front. I think that it is important to link a number of things. We need to ensure that the prison regime is conducive to work and that prisoners are incentivised to work, rather than to be idle. We are looking at both things, but the prison system needs to deliver more hours and a more regularised working day, for reasons the hon. Lady will entirely appreciate. We want to ensure that we get prisoners as close to the normality of the outside world as we can while they serve their sentence so that they have a better chance of being employed after they leave.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a bit rich for the Opposition to talk about investment in the Prison Service? Throughout the Labour Government’s 13 years in office there was minimal investment and deep overcrowding, so we are having to rectify a lot of the damage done by that failure to invest.
Jeremy Wright
I was going to move on a little later to the damage that we are trying to undo, but my hon. Friend is right that we have not inherited a beneficial legacy. I am afraid that there is considerable work to be done with the prison estate, as in so many areas of Government, because of the mess left behind. I will return to that in a moment, because the hon. Member for Darlington made a few comments that I think need to be addressed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford was right to describe the potential of payment by results, which is at the heart of our proposals. We believe that payment by results has a place in the reforms we are making because we think that it is important to pay for outcomes, not simply for processes. He rightly described why we want to ensure that people are rewarded for getting the outcomes we need them to get, and in this context that is a simple outcome to describe, although perhaps not quite so simple to design in the system: a reduction in reoffending. That means fewer victims, less misery for communities and less cost to taxpayers, which are eminently desirable outcomes.
My hon. Friend was right to focus on the challenges we face in designing the system. We need to avoid cherry-picking and “creaming and parking”, which effectively means looking after only those whom it is easiest to turn away from offending. We are conscious of the need to design our system to avoid those perverse incentives and will do so. He is right that payment by results is the way to deliver those better outcomes.
Voting Eligibility (Prisoners)
Michael Ellis Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
Given the wide range of views expressed in the House today, it is clear that there will be an extensive and broad-ranging debate, and it would be entirely wrong to curtail the parliamentary process and prevent legitimate views from being heard.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that voting is a right, but it is also a responsibility? Prisoners are in prison precisely because they have shown a lack of responsibility, so they should not have the right to make decisions over other people by voting in elections.
Chris Grayling
My hon. Friend has articulated one of the clear views held in the House on this issue. The issue commands very strong opinions, and I believe that today I have offered Members such as my hon. Friend the opportunity not simply to express their view, but to vote to express it.
Defamation Bill
Michael Ellis Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Ian Paisley
I would like to see the definition of serious harm and think that we might do so in advance of the details in Committee or on Third Reading.
It was Oscar Wilde who said that the truth is rarely pure and never simple, and I think that is why we need a good, sensible and practical law in this field. It is not just a simple matter of something being a lie and someone therefore being able to sue and get a claim; it is the innuendo that the press often uses, the “nudge nudge, wink wink” interpretation that can ruin a person’s reputation and often does more damage than a blatant lie can do. Blatant lies, because they are normally so blatant, are not always believable, but the “nudge nudge, wink wink” innuendo, which is almost a lie but not quite, does more damage and is more reckless. We need to ensure that these laws properly address that type of abuse. As children we often sang the little chorus, “Be careful little tongue what you say,” but the fact of the matter is that the press are not careful in this regard.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is making powerful points, many of which I agree with, but does he also bear it in mind that there are limited forms of redress against “trolls”, as they are now colloquially described, who perhaps have 15 followers? The action taken against them for some scurrilous remarks they might have made could itself bring more attention to those remarks.
Ian Paisley
As with all these matters, it is a question of balance. Those 15 followers could be influential individuals who are hiding under their anonymity—perhaps they are journalists—and could use their standing and anonymity in different ways, so that has to be addressed. We must consider the balance of who the 15 individuals in the hon. Gentleman’s example are, because there could be abuse of other individuals through the internet system. Indeed, in the example I cited earlier only nine people saw the photograph, but it was so damaging for the person concerned that, in my view, the person responsible deserves to be severely punished. It is not necessarily the quantity that we need to look at, but the quality.
I want to look at the issue of anonymity in relation to clause 5. Currently, websites operate with impunity. I do not know whether the proposed change will prevent that abuse of the internet. If someone is able to hide away and become anonymous so that the internet operator is unable to find them, I do not believe that the operator should have an excuse. We need to be very careful about making sure that website operators take control of what is said on blogs and the other things that appear on websites. I should declare that I once sued the BBC for a comment that appeared on a blog—successfully, I might add. We need to ensure that someone operating a website recognises that the buck stops with them if they are going to mediate these comments. I am yet to be convinced that clause 5 will have a significant effect on the abuse that can follow.
Mr Buckland
Very much so. As I said, the Bill has been long in the making—some would say, generations. The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) reminded us that in the 160 years since the Common Law Procedure Act 1852 there have been only two subsequent pieces of legislation—pieces of legislation that have dealt with the law in a piecemeal way.
The Defamation Act 1996, as some who were Members when the measure was passed will recall, dealt with a particular context and a particular case. A former Member, Neil Hamilton, found that his case was stayed by the court because it was felt that the defendant newspaper could not prepare its defence adequately without infringing parliamentary privilege. That resulted in section 13 of the 1996 Act, allowing a Member of either this House or the other place to waive for the purposes of the defamation proceedings
“the protection of any enactment or rule of law which prevents proceedings in Parliament being impeached or questioned in any court or place”—
parliamentary privilege.
At the time, I was a little uncertain about the passage of that provision, which seemed to represent yet another piecemeal approach to a fundamental right that has been exercised ever since article 9 of the Bill of Rights of 1689—parliamentary privilege. Another Committee of this House has considered parliamentary privilege carefully, and there may well be legislation to deal with it. In doing so, I would urge the utmost caution. Reform and refinement of such a basic and well-understood principle could lead to further confusion and potential court interference. It is essential that all of us in this place and in the House of Lords understand that changes to parliamentary privilege, whether in the context of the 1996 Act or subsequent proposals, could lead to the erosion of that privilege, which would be a regrettable and undesirable outcome.
In my view, section 13 of the Act should be repealed, and we should consider instead a more general right of waiver that not only would apply to defamation but to a range of court actions in which Members of Parliament or Members of the House of Lords may become involved. This Bill could have taken that step, but I quite understand Ministers’ desire to get on with the job in hand and to avoid being potentially sidetracked by questions of privilege that may have to be returned to.
Michael Ellis
Does my hon. Friend recognise that Her Majesty’s Government intend to work on a Green Paper that will deal in a lot more detail with parliamentary privilege, and that by separating the issue and giving it the advanced status of its own Green Paper and potentially a separate Bill, they are showing that they are giving it a high priority?
Mr Buckland
My hon. Friend is right to outline, in a better way than I could, the intended progress of any reform to the law of privilege. However, I reiterate that we tamper with article 9 at our peril and should listen carefully to those who urge caution.
I raise this issue to illustrate the piecemeal way in which defamation law has been dealt with. We have let the courts, in their wisdom, develop common law, and that has happened in what many of us would regard as an acceptable way that reflects evolving views about reputational damage but is fundamentally not as directly accountable to the people we serve as it should be. That is why introducing primary legislation of this nature is the right and just thing to do. It shows the people of this country that Parliament is prepared to take a lead on an important issue such as defamation.
Mr Buckland
My hon. Friend is right, and one has to draw a distinction between matters of law, which are always the province of a judge irrespective of whether a jury is involved, and matters of fact. The Lord Chancellor made the point that there may well be cases in which there are classic conflicts of account between individual witnesses. Such cases may require the shrewd judgment of a randomly selected jury of members of the public, who use their experience of the world and their good sense to judge whether, on the balance of probabilities, the claimant’s case is made.
Michael Ellis
My hon. Friend is conscious of the fact that the Bill envisages not removing the right of jury trial in defamation actions but simply lessening the presumption that jury trials will take place. It will be for the judge to decide. Does he believe that judges are likely to decide on jury trials very frequently? What criteria does he think a judge might use, or what common law does he think might evolve, for deciding on the use of jury trials?
Mr Buckland
The Bill is silent on that. Clause 11 merely amends the relevant parts of the Senior Courts Act 1981 and the County Courts Act 1984, which allow a trial by jury unless the trial requires prolonged examination of documents and so on. The practice could develop in secondary legislation, but I doubt whether that would be seen as an appropriate mechanism to guide judges. I rather think that it will evolve as a matter of judicial discretion. I would be cautious about supporting secondary legislation that sought to prescribe the circumstances in which a jury trial ought to be ordered.
The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) made about streamlining procedures is important. As the Joint Committee on the draft Bill pointed out, whether or not there are jury trials, there has to be proper reference to alternative dispute resolution methods such as mediation and neutral evaluation by a third party—all the mechanisms that serve to deliver justice and the redress of grievance not just to the millionaire in his Belgravia townhouse but to Mrs Trellis of 22 Acacia grove, who does not have the means to spend a lot of money on expensive litigation but who has been the victim of a wrong that needs to be corrected.
Amber Rudd
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. That is a broader point about some books, but there are quite a lot of books that are not subject to such analysis. I am sure that the Minister will address that point later.
At the moment, internet hosting sites are obliged to remove allegedly defamatory material from their website when they receive a complaint, often without knowing whether the comments are defamatory. That is an attack on free speech and the Bill addresses that issue. The provision in clause 5, which offers website owners a new process governing the responsibility for publication on the internet, will undoubtedly give websites greater protection against a threat of legal action. I am sure that is welcomed by Members on both sides of the House.
Above all, I welcome, as I know my constituents in Hastings and Rye will, the clarity that the Bill will provide in an area that remains unsettled and unclear to many.
Let me mention clause 13, which repeals the Slander of Women Act 1891.
Michael Ellis
My hon. Friend is making some very powerful points. The Slander of Women Act 1891 will be repealed by clause 13, as she says, and that tallies well with the Government’s proposals to repeal a number of pieces of outdated and outmoded legislation. Does she feel that that rarely used piece of legislation should be repealed in such a way?
Amber Rudd
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intelligent question. The Act provided that slander imputing unchastity or adultery to a female is actionable per se. Although I naturally support adequate protection of women across the country, I think that goes a little too far. The Act does not apply to Scotland, so it is about time the rest of the UK followed suit.
I am confident that the Bill will redress the balance in the defamation rules towards freedom of speech in a way that is just and fair. The reforms are well overdue and, as we have heard this afternoon, widely supported by the public and the rest of the Members of this House. I therefore commend the Bill to the House.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert), who is a fellow member of the Home Affairs Committee. It will come as no surprise to Members that I support the Bill. I do so because it defends the sanctified right of freedom of speech that this House has sought to protect for generations and, I expect, will continue to seek to defend. But it is also a good Bill because it recognises that there are limitations to the right of freedom of speech—sadly, the courts have not always recognised in recent years that there are limitations to certain rights. With every right there is a responsibility, for example, and it would not go amiss to notify the human rights courts of that point occasionally. The right to freedom of speech has been recognised in the courts for many years but, to use the classic example, it does not extend to allowing a person to go into a crowded theatre and shout, “Fire.” We have to recognise that those rights must be curtailed.
The Bill will rebalance the law to ensure that people who have been defamed are able to protect their reputations, and it is right that they should be able to do so. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are not, and must not be, unjustifiably impeded by actual or even threatened defamation or libel actions. The reality is that sometimes even the threat of a defamation suit can prevent a person from making a fair comment on something, giving an opinion about a product, service or individual, or expressing a doubt about something. Many will take the view that it is simply not worth it and decide it is easier not to refer to a particular area of controversy because they do not want to risk getting a solicitor’s letter and the very expensive defamation actions that would follow. The Bill will ensure that the threat of libel proceedings is not used to frustrate scientific, medical or academic debate, for example. Sadly, there have been examples of the peer-reviewed work of academic experts and others and their freedom to speak freely on those subjects being endangered by threats or actual suits for defamation.
We need to reduce the potential for trivial claims and address the perception that has arisen in some parts of the world that this country is suitable for libel tourists, the people who come to this country, despite the fact that only one or two of their books or magazines have been sold here, to take an action for defamation because the law in their home country is in some way unsuitable for their purposes. We do not want this country to be seen as a libel tourism haven, and that is addressed in the Bill.
In my judgment, it is right that the test for determining that a statement is suitable for defamation proceedings is whether it has caused “serious harm”. Cases sometimes go before the courts in this country when even a reference to someone being ugly or in some way antisocial is enough to justify a libel action. It is a matter of fact and degree, but in my judgment it is right that serious harm should be proven before a statement can really be considered defamatory.
The Bill also deals with the new statutory defence of responsible publication on matters of public interest, to which I have already alluded. Such things as peer-reviewed academic, medical and scientific analysis, which sometimes necessarily has the effect of rubbishing someone else’s academic work, should be appropriately open to debate, so long as there is no clear malice, and not subject to over-sensitive legal actions. The Bill updates and extends the circumstances in which the defences of absolute and qualified privilege are available, including extending qualified privilege to peer-reviewed material.
I am also impressed by the way the Bill goes some way towards addressing the issues that have arisen in recent years concerning the publication of defamatory material on the internet. The single publication rule that the Bill introduces will prevent an action from being brought in relation to the publication of the same material by the same publisher after the one-year limitation period. It has been quite easy for people to take defamation actions against newspaper websites, for example, and others if they repeat the libel that was originally the subject of an action. It is very easy for those websites to be insufficiently monitored so that they repeat the libel and a further and new action can then be taken. It is right that a limitation of one year be put on that, because the nature of the internet is such that it is very easy to draw down the material that was the subject of the libel and repeat it.
Another feature of the Bill that has been referred to in the Chamber is that it will remove the presumption of a jury trial in defamation actions. I would passionately seek to defend the right to a jury trial in almost every case, and certainly criminal cases. There are now very few civil cases that would be subject to jury trial—I can think of malicious prosecution, false arrest and false imprisonment, but very few others.
This Bill will not remove the right to a jury trial in defamation proceedings, but it will remove the presumption that a jury trial should be the forum that is utilised. We should of course trust our judges to exercise their lawful discretion to order a jury trial when they think it appropriate, and there will be some cases in which a jury trial will be appropriate, especially one involving one person’s word against another when there is very little other ancillary evidence, because juries are equipped to make a judgment on witnesses when they hear them from the witness box.
Guy Opperman
On jury trials, does my hon. Friend not accept, however, that in civil liability trials and in all number of other pieces of litigation, the judge is taken out of the assessment of the truth of individual witnesses, and that credit is something judges are well used to judging on a regular basis? Does he not also accept that there is a possibility of our merely returning to a situation in which we have endless jury trials, instead of trusting the judges to get on with the decision?
Michael Ellis
I recognise my hon. Friend’s point, and the common law will no doubt develop in this area, but I hope that, if this Bill becomes law and removes the presumption in favour of jury trials, judges will recognise that jury trials will be less frequent than heretofore. I will be corrected if I am wrong, but I seem to recall that until relatively recently juries in defamation cases had a part to play in deciding the quantum of damages after successful defamation proceedings, and I recall also some rather large figures for damages awarded against various periodicals. I am a great fan of Private Eye, possibly because I have not featured in it—[Interruption.] I am not inviting it, and I emphasise that!
Michael Ellis
The less said about that, the better. I remain a fan of that periodical, and as far as such proceedings are concerned we have to move with the times, because defamation law has not tended to move with them sufficiently.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend says that we should move with the times. Surely we are Conservatives and should be turning the clock back.
Michael Ellis
Notwithstanding my hon. Friend’s pertinent observation about our party of support and care, I think it is right—I know my hon. Friend will agree—that the Conservative party has moved with the times. It is the longest-serving political party anywhere in the democratic world because it has tended to move effectively with the times over the generations.
Few colleagues have made the point that the Bill will rightly provide a power for the court, under the existing summary disposal procedure, to order publication of a summary of its judgment, which will be available in defamation proceedings generally. It is my understanding that the courts will be able, in certain circumstances, to order the offending publication to reprint some or all of its judgment. That will be quite useful if a judge feels that there has been an egregious failure by the periodical which is not going to be met other than by his or her intervention to ensure that proper redress is made in terms of the court’s ruling. The hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) referred some time ago in this debate to a page 1 splash, which a few months later results in a postage-stamp-sized apology on page 52. A judge will be able to order, if he or she wishes, that a transcript of the judgment be reprinted in full in the newspaper. That will be quite powerful for the courts, and an effective measure.
The secondary publishers to which hon. Members have referred, namely the vendors, bookstores and booksellers, need greater protection from civil suit in any defamation action that may be brought against them. There may be certain circumstances in which it is appropriate to take punitive action against a bookseller or a company that disseminates libellous material, but it ought to be a secondary measure. The primary purpose—the primary avenue—should be to take an action against the author and publisher of the offending work, and the disseminator should be involved only if necessary, appropriate and reasonably practicable. I therefore approve of all those measures, which will be rather effective.
We need to remove the trivial and unfounded cases and raise the bar for bringing a claim. I am conscious that it is sometimes prohibitively expensive to take an action for defamation, and colleagues have referred repeatedly to the chilling effect of the costs involved. That can itself be limiting, and a principal concern of mine is that individuals who are without means or even of “middle” means—if I can put it that way—are not able to take the same action as a wealthy individual or a news company that has a greater ability to fight and to defend actions in what can be very expensive defamation proceedings.
In short, this Bill has my support for all those reasons. It is clearly a necessary measure in order to modernise the law of defamation, and in those circumstances I expect it to have considerable support on both sides of the Chamber.
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I, too, support the Bill, and on defamation I fundamentally believe, as Shakespeare wrote:
“The purest pleasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation: that away,
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.”
That was said in “Richard II”, a king who sadly did not last long enough as a Yorkist to enjoy much of his spotless reputation, as he was shortly killed thereafter, but his reputation, spotless as it was, went with him to the grave.
The world is clearly changing. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) and I shared an illustrious, or non-illustrious, career as barristers in a former life, and my old copy of “Carter-Ruck on Libel and Slander”, the definitive edition from 1997, features not a single paragraph about libel and slander on the internet, because of course such a thing did not exist in those days.
We now face the dreaded heretic that is the internet troll. Many of us would not have known, until a couple of years ago when we took public office, what an internet troll was, nor would we have been subjected to the great delights of annihilation in print or prose, such that we all now have to face the slings and arrows of outrageous internet fortune on a regular basis, but the development of the law requires this Defamation Bill, which we are considering, and it can only be a good thing.
My hon. Friend said that we must move with the times, but sadly the reason why we have Lord Leveson’s inquiry is that too many political parties moved with The Times for far too long, and Mr Murdoch and his empire have been far too close to too many people on a repeated basis—such that I am beginning to distance myself from The Times.
Guy Opperman
I accept the possibility that my hon. Friend was not referring to that, but was referring to the development of events over the past few years.
It is absolutely vital to ensure that we have a free press and an ability to speak out without fear or favour—that is fundamental—but justice must be accessible to the people who receive comments from such a press. The Bill definitely increases that accessibility, and I welcome that wholeheartedly. Any interpretation of such legislation must take account of the countless stories told throughout this debate of people whose reputations have been annihilated on the internet and elsewhere.
Guy Opperman
I apologise to my hon. Friend. It is possible that he dines in larger and more salubrious establishments than the rest of us, who are more Little Chef and Happy Eater people. I am sure that those days of the Ritz are sadly gone.
As lawyers practising in this field, we know that it is important to have accessibility, because without that there is no justice. There is a long history of those who have been defamed, from Oscar Wilde to Winston Churchill to Marie Stopes to W. E. Gladstone. It is good to see the Liberal home affairs spokesman, the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), in his place. Of course, Gladstone was the last man to be libelled from the grave. His son took an action on behalf of the reputation of W. E. Gladstone and his family, who he felt had been maligned and libelled, and was successful before a jury trial.
That brings me nicely, with a slightly Radio 2 link, to jury trials. That issue must be addressed with robust guidance. It is not sufficient to say to the courts that the presumption should be against jury trials. The Secretary of State said that in matters where there is a genuine test of credibility, there would be a jury trial. I entirely accept that, but it would be extraordinarily rare to have a libel case without a genuine test of credibility. The whole purpose of libel law is to test the meaning and intent of certain words.
Michael Ellis
Does my hon. Friend accept that in many cases it will not only be about the word of one person, the plaintiff, against that of the other, the defendant, because there might be supportive material that backs up one against the other, such as e-mails, an exchange of letters, other documentary or ancillary evidence, or supportive or corroborative evidence from other witnesses?
Guy Opperman
I regret that my hon. Friend—eminent lawyer, lion of Northampton and feared throughout the west midlands legal circles though he is—has identified the fundamental problem with his own argument in a sort of self-defeating prophesy. There will surely be an assessment of the individual merit of these e-mails and of whether they have been written by an individual who can be accounted for. All those matters will come under the test of credibility that he has espoused and that was put forward by the Secretary of State.
That all goes back to the issue of a jury trial. I have no problem with jury trials. I conducted nine murder trials and umpteen Crown court trials. The short point is this: if we are to reform the libel system so that defamation is no longer tried by a jury, save in the most exceptional circumstances, the test cannot be, “Who do we believe?” As I attempted to explain earlier, that question is assessed by district judges, county court judges, circuit judges and every other judge in the country on a daily basis. We do not need a jury trial to assess that. One could argue that 99% of all trials in this country are conducted in the absence of a jury, when judges assess the merits of an individual’s credibility. With respect, I urge the Secretary of State and the Committee to address this issue so that there is proper guidance on it.
This matter has rightly been dealt with on a cross-party basis. I support the idea of having a draft Bill. It is patently clear to those of us who have endured the delights of guiding such wonderful Bills as the Health and Social Care Bill through this House, drafted as well as they were, that we are now debating a Bill that has been considered by sane and intelligent persons on a cross-party basis, and that we are therefore fine-tuning rather than redrafting. That, I assure the House, is something that we should all welcome.
Heather Wheeler
Indeed, not learned at all.
What is fascinating to me is that the Bill is drafted so clearly that the person on the Clapham omnibus will be able to understand it. Two years into this glorious coalition Government, is it not something that we are finally getting a Bill about which the person on the Clapham omnibus will be able to say, “That protects me. I understand that.”? It can be understood not only by lawyers, but by MPs and ordinary people who do not earn their money by standing before people with wigs—you are not wearing a wig tonight, Mr Deputy Speaker, so I can genuinely say that. We have found a Bill that the people will rejoice at. There should be greater publicity about the process by which this Bill has come about. It should be held up as a burning light to demonstrate what Parliament can do when it does the right thing and gets behind something.
It is an even better Bill because it fits with the great coalition pledge of one-in, one-out. We are getting rid of a horrendous piece of law that has been in force since goodness knows when.
Heather Wheeler
Since 1891—what an amazing piece of legislation to be getting rid of! Again, that is something of which this House should be eminently proud.
Ministers have been asked a few questions and for a few clarifications. I will sit here to the bitter end, because I want to see the Bill through. To repeat myself, it is interesting that we finally have a Bill that lay people can genuinely understand and say, “Well done.” I thank everybody who has been part of the process of putting it together. I look forward to hearing the winding-up speeches from the Front Benchers in due course and I commend the Bill to everybody.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I have been listening for the last five hours to how amazingly important the Bill is and to the view that it is short but perfectly formed. It seems to me, therefore, that the power of the Bill and the effect it will have should not be underestimated when we look at the scales of coalition balance. At the moment, they are weighing down heavily on the Lib Dem side and I think that we might need a little counterweight for the Conservatives later in the Session.
I want to consider the merits of the Bill and the whole idea of what we are trying to achieve. We have heard from other Members about freedom of speech, which is something of the utmost importance—the cliché of the evening, but it is a true cliché. Freedom of speech is under attack from the Leveson inquiry, which wishes to bind down journalists to rules of good behaviour, and sometimes from libel lawyers.
However, we should also consider the question of reputation, defamation and how we should protect people when they feel they have been hard done by. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) quoted Shakespeare. Two can play at that game, so I though I would too:
“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls.
Who steals my purse steals trash—”
in my case butterflies and moths, and things like that—
“‘tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.”
So it is right that there is some protection in our legal system for people’s good name, even though that impinges on freedom of speech.
There are already many protections in the law for freedom of speech. We are fortunate to enjoy under the Bill of Rights an absolute privilege for anything that we say in this Chamber. It can never be used in any court of law. We can be as rude about people as we like—not that I am going to use that privilege this evening, but it is a privilege of absolute free speech.
It is to be welcomed that the Bill maintains that truth should be a defence in a defamation action. That seems perfectly sensible and wise, although I know Pontius Pilate questioned what truth was, and there is always that issue to consider. Truth is not necessarily as absolute as it can sometimes be thought to be off the cuff, so to speak. There are elements and forms of truth, and of course in the oath that people take in courts there is “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”, indicating different levels of truth.
Fair comment, which has been allowed in the past, is now being made clearly part of the law, which is absolutely splendid. If people wish to air their disagreements and phrase themselves strongly, that is all to the good and to be encouraged, and it should be protected as part of free speech. However, what if the defamation is serious? What penalties should there be then? Who should decide, and who should be charged?
I am concerned about the liberties that we are giving to internet service providers and to people who are responsible for websites but deny any responsibility for their content. They become more and more powerful as time goes on. There are two or three firms that dominate the world in that sense, but they are not necessarily on the side of the individual who is defamed.
I had my own little issue with somebody who set up a highly amusing Twitter account in my name. It was not done by me—it was much funnier than I could ever have been—but there was nothing that I could do to stop it. It went on churning out comments that some journalists thought I had made. I always thought I could say my own silly things without anybody saying them on my behalf. There needs to be some recourse for people who are impersonated and defamed through that impersonation. The responsibility ought to lie with the internet companies, which ought not to have a great exemption that allows them to tarnish people’s reputations without any great difficulty.
I have some specific concerns about the Bill and the argument that has been developed today. The first is about jury trials. We heard from the Lord Chancellor and others very good arguments for getting rid of juries—that they are expensive, that they are inconvenient, that they make the process more difficult for m’learned friends. However, that requires that we should have absolute faith in the wisdom of judges, and personally I do not. They are broadly good and wise eggs and do their best under difficult circumstances, but they are not omniscient. I feel that if my reputation were on the line, it would be safer in the hands of 12 good and true men and women of this country—ideally, of course, of Somerset. That would be the best way to protect one’s reputation. I accept that it is expensive, but it is more just.
That is particularly important in any libel case that has a political tint about it, because judges are part of the establishment. They are there, in some ways, to uphold the establishment, and we see from some of what they come up with when commissioned by the Government to write learned reports that they often fall on the side of the establishment. Lord Hutton was the supreme example of that a few years ago when he produced a most extraordinary whitewash of all that had gone on over the Iraq affair. I therefore do not believe it is right or wise to use the argument of convenience, which could be used to abolish juries in every trial in the land for all time.
Michael Ellis
Does my hon. Friend accept that the Bill simply removes the presumption in favour of a jury trial? Does he also acknowledge that part of the difficulty with jury trials in defamation actions is that the fact of a jury trial being so much more expensive can and has been used by those who have substantial means who are seeking to put off putative plaintiffs from taking defamation action in the first place?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend makes the point that the Bill takes away the presumption in favour of juries, which is fair enough. I would put that presumption back. I would trust juries to make the decision, because they are better at doing so than judges, and because a jury decision is more just. The presumption in favour of a jury is less likely to leave one under the hammer of the establishment if one falls on the wrong side of it. It is true that establishment views are sometimes hard to break through, and judges are establishment creatures, so I would always trust juries against judges.
Oral Answers to Questions
Michael Ellis Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Kenneth Clarke
I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General has ensured that, in making changes to the budget and staffing of the Crown Prosecution Service, he is not reducing the quality of service that it provides. These things are not best measured by whether a body has ever-expanding payrolls or budgets; that tended to be the approach of the former Government, in which the hon. Gentleman served. We are trying to produce better value for money, in order to cope with the appalling financial crisis that we inherited from our predecessors.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
T8. The trade unions directly benefit from current no win, no fee arrangements, earning huge amounts via their legal arms through inflated success fees. What assessment has the Minister made of the amount of success fees paid to trade unions, particularly in personal injury cases?
Mr Djanogly
Unfortunately, the trade unions did not provide their lawyers’ success fee details, or their referral fee income details, to the consultation. However, given that they have received more than £550,000 in donations from personal injury lawyers, it seems that the unions’ lawyers are not entirely disinterested in the outcome of our attempt to rein in the compensation culture.
Victims and Witnesses Strategy
Michael Ellis Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Clarke
As my hon. Friend says, the problem is often one of obtaining a proper diagnosis, in order that the consequences of crime can be recognised. In order to concentrate on the most serious offences that have lasting and sometimes permanent consequences, we had to draw the line somewhere. Below that line, the amount of compensation starts steadily to be reduced under the tariffs, with the very lowest tariffs receiving no compensation at all. Mental illness occurs at various levels in the tariffs, according to the lasting consequences that are being suffered, and to their severity. We will therefore still have the problem of assessing and diagnosing each case accurately, to ensure that it is the serious, lasting problems that are compensated, as they quite properly are now.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
I commend the Lord Chancellor for his statement, which any right-minded person would regard as sensible and forward thinking. Does he agree that support services are as important as compensation for many victims? Does he think it right and proper that the taxpayer should not be asked to pay for those support services when the offender can do so?
Mr Clarke
Support services are sometimes more important. The trauma suffered by a victim is not always proportionate to the seriousness of a crime. Some people, for example, are hardy and can get over a nasty experience fairly rapidly, while some frail, vulnerable people can be severely affected for many years by a comparatively minor incident. We are trying to ensure that the support services are better targeted so that we can concentrate on those who really need the help, and that local priorities are determined more locally. It is obviously sensible to say—no one has disagreed with the view today—that those who commit crimes, including those who go to prison and those who receive a community sentence, should contribute to the cost of the support given to the victims of crime in general.
Sentencing
Michael Ellis Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Sadiq Khan
I think that I have dealt with the hon. Gentleman’s point on more than one occasion and I want to make some progress.
We also know that the Government had originally scheduled tomorrow—the last day before recess—to be the day on which they published their response to the Green Paper. So when the Prime Minister says at Prime Minister’s questions that this is only a consultation, when No. 10 says that the Ministry of Justice is merely “flying a kite” and when we are told that this is not an across the board reduction in sentence, we know that that is not the case.
I wish to spend some time talking about why Labour Members believe that the whole House should support our motion and reject this policy. The Green Paper, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Reigate, in last week’s Justice questions, and the Lord Chancellor, on BBC’s “Question Time”, have all said that the maximum 50% discount would apply to all crimes. So it will apply to grievous bodily harm, attempted murder, rape, burglary, muggings, death by dangerous driving and all the other crimes that we can all think of that have such a miserable impact on communities up and down the country. Let us consider the impact of the proposals on some sentences. A convicted rape offender could be back on the streets after only 15 months. Someone convicted of causing actual bodily harm where the assault is premeditated and it results in relatively serious injury could end up serving three months in prison. Criminals convicted of burglary when the occupier is at home could serve as little as 10 weeks in prison. In the case of very serious crimes, where sentences are longer, the additional 17% rise in the discount might have the greatest impact. In such circumstances, an additional 17% translates into reductions of years.
Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman is talking about figures, but does he accept, as regards the figures already mentioned by Government Members—the 80,000 prisoners and the 16,000 prisoners who committed violent crimes who were released early under the Labour Government over 13 years—that 181 of those released early committed violent offences including three murders and six sexual offences? Does he accept those figures?
Sadiq Khan
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) commented on the efficiency of the Conservative Whips and I can see that the Lord Chancellor’s Parliamentary Private Secretary is also very effective. I have not seen the note that the hon. Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis) has been passed by the Lord Chancellor’s PPS, but if he will discuss it with me afterwards I can check whether it is accurate.
It is not just us who think this policy is wrong. The Sentencing Council, the body charged with offering expert advice on such issues, states that
“in other common law jurisdictions the largest discount on offer is around a third, with some offering up to 35%. To date no jurisdictions have been identified where the discount is significantly higher than this”.
It goes on to point out:
“The Council has not identified any research to date that indicates that an increase in the level of the discount would be likely to increase the volume of early guilty pleas.”
The only evidence we have seen shows how much money will be saved, and cost is once again being put above good justice.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I begin by saying that the Lord Chancellor should not have used words that led people to believe that he did not treat all rapes as serious crimes. However, when I set that against his attempt to create a rational debate on criminal justice policy, I know on whose side my sympathies, in general, lie. In addition, it was a tactical mistake of the Opposition to turn that into a resignation issue, and a further demonstration that we need such a rational debate.
Furthermore, the debate on extending the discount for early guilty pleas should not have become focused on rape, because it might be more appropriate for other crimes. I remain to be convinced that the enhanced discount will produce the full intended savings in the prison population. It is worth pursuing for some crimes and would be inappropriate for others. The current one third discount needs the careful exercise of the judge’s discretion, which is in some ways circumscribed too much, because distinctions must be drawn between cases in which a guilty verdict is almost inevitable, and those in which a guilty plea avoids lengthy proceedings with an uncertain outcome.
The aim of getting guilty pleas earlier is sensible, but many court-door pleas are based on the lack of early knowledge of the prosecution case, or a belief that witnesses will be intimidated into not turning up. Greater discounts will not of themselves change that. If the policy succeeds, it will enable other cases to be brought to trial more quickly, which would be a very welcome development, even if it might not assist in making financial savings because it could lead to more custodial sentences.
The public continue to see length of sentence as the only way of asserting society’s abhorrence of serious crimes, regardless of whether the long sentence has any deterrent effect, which it clearly does not in some cases, and regardless of whether the offender considers the sentence to be particularly punitive. Some offenders regard community punishments as more exacting than prison, which means bed and breakfast, and three meals a day. For many offenders, life outside is disorganised, dysfunctional and not particularly comfortable.
We must ask, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Justice Secretary is asking, whether we are spending the vast resources that we commit to the criminal justice system in a way that is effective in reducing the crime and victimisation that result from reoffending. Resources are not unlimited, and it is our responsibility to use them to protect our constituents from becoming victims of crime. That requires a transfer of some resources from custody to community punishment, and from custody to preventing people, particularly young people, from getting involved in crime in the first place.
If we had only ever treated the symptoms of illness and devoted minimal effort to prevention and public health, we would have made very little progress in eradicating diseases and increasing life expectancy. We must apply some of that philosophy to preventing crime and reoffending. Every crime and instance of reoffending that is not prevented makes victims of our constituents. We need a rational debate on how we organise policy so that we prevent people from becoming involved in crime and from returning to it.
Michael Ellis
Further to the right hon. Gentleman’s medical analogy, does he agree that it is highly likely that people would stop prescribing a medicine if it did not work 70% or 80% of the time?
Sir Alan Beith
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. What is more, we would be better to prevent people from getting the condition in the first place than to give them medicine late in the day.
Successive reports of the Select Committee on Justice have tried to launch, support and encourage a rational debate on our criminal justice policy. That, I believe, is what the Lord Chancellor has been trying to do, and I encourage him to continue in that endeavour.