Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill Debate

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Department: Ministry of Justice
Friday 4th December 2015

(8 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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William Wragg Portrait William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
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I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I thank colleagues from across the House who have been able to join me today in support of this, my first private Member’s Bill. I am very pleased the House has been able to give a significant portion of time to debate this Bill this afternoon. At one point I feared that may not come to pass when I was allocated the third slot in today’s proceedings. I have discussed with colleagues outside the Chamber how that would have been a disappointment, as not only do I believe this is an important and valuable Bill, but I also believe it is right that it should be given proper debate in the Chamber this afternoon.

Its subject is miscarriages of justice and the gathering of evidence and information to assist in such cases. We have already had two Second Reading debates today, led by my hon. Friends the Members for Dudley South (Mike Wood) and for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), and although their Bills had different fates, we have had two excellent debates, and like an actor waiting in the wings, I watched with a mixture of enjoyment and trepid anticipation.

So I present to the House the Criminal Cases Review Commission (Information) Bill. If enacted, it would extend the powers of the CCRC to obtain information and evidence, testimony, documents and other material which would assist in its proceedings of appeal and review cases where a miscarriage of justice is believed to have taken place. In essence, it would allow the CCRC to obtain such information from a person other than one serving in a public body, as it is currently restricted to doing. This new measure would apply to private-sector organisations, persons employed by, or serving in, private companies, and private individuals. If passed, it would strengthen the CCRC’s ability to overturn wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice, and improve further our system of law and order, which is rightly the envy of the world.

I intend to lay out my proposal of support for the Bill in three sections: first, to set out the context of the Bill, what it seeks to achieve, and the workings of the CCRC at present; secondly, to detail what the Bill does and how the amended law would work in practice; and, lastly, to explain why I believe this Bill is necessary, and how it would improve justice in our country. May I also say at the outset that I hope to encourage a strong debate, and although our time is limited, colleagues are more than welcome to make the odd intervention?

I shall lay out for context the background to the Bill and the journey I have been on to get here today, and the current working of the CCRC. I was very fortunate to be drawn in the ballot of private Member’s Bills in my first year as an MP. I never imagined when I was elected to this place just seven months ago that I would be standing here leading my own debate on a piece of primary legislation.

Following my selection in the ballot, while discussing with colleagues potential topics for my Bill, I decided I wanted to be involved in securing a piece of legislation that would do some good, make a real difference in people’s lives, and improve the justice system.

Edward Argar Portrait Edward Argar (Charnwood) (Con)
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I commend my hon. Friend on his choice of Bill. Is he aware of the words of Richard Foster, chairman of the CCRC, to the Justice Committee, who said:

“you can be confident that there are miscarriages of justice that have gone unremedied because of the lack of that power”?

Does my hon. Friend agree?

William Wragg Portrait William Wragg
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I entirely agree. This is a vital amendment to the law, allowing the gaining of private evidence to assist in those cases of miscarriage of justice. My hon. Friend is right to raise that.

The CCRC was set up in 1997, following the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, to investigate possible miscarriages of justice. It was the world’s first publicly funded body to review alleged miscarriages of justice, set up in the wake of notorious mishandled cases such as the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six—two high-profile cases of two groups of men, both convicted and imprisoned for connections to bombings carried out by the IRA in the 1970s.

Both sets of convictions were found, after repeated appeals, to have had serious breaches in the due process, irregularities in police evidence and, in the case of the Six, serious accusations of police brutality. All the men spent between 10 and 20 years behind bars before their convictions were eventually quashed after being ruled “unsafe”.

The royal commission reported in 1993, which led to the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, which established the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 1997. Although none of those may be a household name, as anyone who has ever been subject to a miscarriage of justice will attest, it is a deeply damaging experience and the CCRC is often victims’ only opportunity of salvation.

Before turning to the new powers, I must first explain how the CCRC operates under its current powers. The CCRC currently has the power to investigate alleged miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and to refer convictions and sentences to the relevant appeal court for a new appeal. Its jurisdiction was extended to the armed forces by the Armed Forces Act 2006 to cover courts martial and the service civilian court.

Parliament established the CCRC specifically to be a body independent of Government, and although sponsored by, and funded through, the Ministry of Justice, it carries out its operations completely independently. The commission investigates convictions on application by the offender or, in a case where the offender has died, at the request of relatives. It has special powers to investigate cases, and to obtain information which it believes is necessary to review a case. If the CCRC concludes that there is a “realistic prospect” that the Court of Appeal will overturn the conviction, it can make what is termed a “referral” and send cases back to court so that an appeal can be heard.

Applications are free to make to the CCRC and defendants cannot have their sentences increased on account of having made an application for review. In principle, cases should only be examined by the CCRC where all other routes of appeal have failed. Only in “exceptional circumstances” may the commission consider cases which have not previously been appealed. However, as the commission usually deals with cases which have already been appealed once, if the commissioners are to be able to send cases for review it is usually on account of some new evidence or legal argument that has come to light.

Julian Knight Portrait Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
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I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this important Bill. As I understand it, the Bill would bring the private evidence position of the Criminal Cases Review Commission in England and Wales into line with the position in Scotland. Would he like to reflect on that?

William Wragg Portrait William Wragg
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My hon. Friend is correct. The equivalent body in Scotland has the full powers to subpoena private evidence, whereas the CCRC does not have those powers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. That might have been an oversight in the 1995 Act, but he is right to make that point at this juncture.

The subject of the Bill hinges on what are commonly referred to as section 17 powers. Currently, section 17 of the 1995 Act gives the CCRC the power to require public bodies and those serving in them to give the commission documents or other material that may assist it in discharging its functions. That includes police, local councils, the NHS, the Prison Service and so on. It should be clear how all such bodies could and do serve as vital sources of evidence in such appeal cases. As I said to my hon. Friend, the CCRC currently does not have equivalent powers to get those materials from private organisations and individuals. The Bill contains provisions that would allow the CCRC to do so.

The House should be aware that the current working arrangements and effectiveness of the CCRC were the subject of a dedicated inquiry by the Justice Committee in the previous Session, as my hon. Friend mentioned. The impetus behind the legislation comes directly from recommendations of the Committee’s report from the inquiry, which was published in March 2015. I am grateful to have the support of several current and previous members of the Justice Committee. The Committee’s thorough inquiry ran for two months and collected evidence from legal academics and others.

Julian Knight Portrait Julian Knight
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My hon. Friend mentions the Justice Committee. Is he aware of comments of the former Chair of the Committee, Sir Alan Beith, who said:

“There has been a failure by successive Governments to grant the CCRC an obvious and much-needed power to require private bodies to disclose documents to it…We could see no good reason as to why it has not been introduced, considering it has universal support”?

William Wragg Portrait William Wragg
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My hon. Friend anticipates a remark I was about to make and is absolutely right to quote the then Chairman of the Select Committee. To answer what Sir Alan said, I stand here today with such a new criminal justice Bill. I hope to put right the failure of successive Governments to which he rightly referred.

I am delighted that the Bill has such widespread support from both sides of the House, including from experts in the fields of law, justice and home affairs. The co-signatories and supporters of the Bill may in themselves have grabbed the attention of fellow Members, given that they are drawn from diverse corners of the House, spanning a chasm of political and ideological opinion. They include solid figures of the traditional right such as my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady) and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), as well as the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition and the shadow Chancellor. Supporters of the Bill are hardly the most natural political allies.

As well as having supporters of diverse political colours, the Bill has the support of those who have a wide range of experience, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry), who is a criminal law barrister, and the long-standing Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). The Bill enjoys the support of both current and past members of the Justice Committee, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) and the aforementioned hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), whose names are listed as contributors to the Justice Committee’s excellent report. As hon. Members will observe, the report is slightly larger than the shadow Chancellor’s more recent preferred reading material, but I will not be tempted to throw it towards the Minister.

The reason for the wide basis of support is not that, in my first six months in this place, I have become an adept and charming schmoozer of parliamentary colleagues and someone who is able to win over a diverse range of unlikely comrades to my cause—far from it. I hope the reason for the wide basis of support is that its merits are clear. What the Bill seeks to achieve is good and necessary. The motivations for legislative change were endorsed unanimously by the all-party Justice Committee from the previous Parliament.

It will be of benefit to the House if I outline what the Bill does and how its implementation would work in practice. The Bill would insert new section 18A into the 1995 Act so that the CCRC can obtain a court order requiring a private organisation or individual to disclose a document or other material in their possession or control. The court will be able to make an order only if it thinks that the document or other material might assist the CCRC in the exercise of its functions and investigations into miscarriages of justice when there is

“a realistic chance of a conviction being overturned by the Court of Appeal”.

As with the current power to require material held by public bodies, the new disclosure requirements will apply notwithstanding any obligations of secrecy or other limitation disclosure. That will mean that companies will not be able to use excuses such as the Data Protection Act to deny the CCRC information, as the CCRC has previously experienced. It will also mean that when information carries security classification, including restricted and secret information, that will also not be able to cited as a reason for non-disclosure. That could be particularly important in cases of court martial, with which the CCRC has been involved since the Armed Forces Act 2006.

Even after the Bill is enacted, the CCRC should always attempt first to obtain information voluntarily before reverting to court order.

Mike Wood Portrait Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
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Will my hon. Friend clarify what safeguards will be in place to prevent abuse of these new powers?

William Wragg Portrait William Wragg
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The key safeguard is the fact that there must be a court order, with that judicial oversight. That should give assurance to all Members of this House that the appropriate safeguards are in place in the Bill.

James Davies Portrait Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
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I congratulate my hon. Friend on his Bill. In seeking to ensure that the provisions of the Bill apply to England and Wales and, potentially, Northern Ireland, does he agree that the very similar provisions that have been in place in Scotland for 18 years have not resulted in any record of abused power or privacy invasion?

William Wragg Portrait William Wragg
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I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, which is very helpful. We can use Scotland as a case study. Similar powers have been in force, as he says, for nearly two decades and there has been no recorded abuse of them.

I should state for clarity that the provisions of the Bill will extend to England and Wales and Northern Ireland, as, as we have discussed, Scotland has its own measures in place. The Bill does not contain any provision that gives rise to the need for a legislative consent motion in the Scottish Parliament or the National Assembly for Wales.

I want to elaborate now on why this change in the law is necessary. When I visited the CCRC’s headquarters in Birmingham, I saw how the section 17 powers were used. They are an essential tool in the commission’s work. Provided that the power is exercised reasonably, the CCRC’s ability to obtain public sector information is not restricted by any obligation of secrecy or limitation on disclosure. The power extends, for example, to information relevant to national security and to personal information held by the police, by the Crown Prosecution Service, in previous court material, by the NHS, by Government Departments and so on.

The commissioners have also explained to me that the absence of a power to obtain material from the private sector has often hampered their efforts. When material relevant to the CCRC’s work is held outside the public sector, the commission relies on requesting voluntary disclosure by the individuals or organisations with control of the material. Although voluntary disclosure is not uncommon, increasingly organisations regard themselves as unable to assist the CCRC as a result of statutory restrictions on the disclosure of information. Even where voluntary disclosure is made, that will often be after protracted negotiations have caused lengthy and expensive delays in the case review process.

One such example is with solicitors firms, which one would have thought would be among the most co-operative of sources. However, that is not always so. In the past the commission has seen a good level of co-operation in respect of its requests for case files from solicitors who represented applicants at trial and/or on appeal. In part, that co-operation has been thanks to the relevant professional codes of conduct. In more recent times, however, and perhaps owing to increasing pressures on legally aided defence firms, the commission has faced greater difficulties. It is often readily apparent that requests from the commission are placed at the bottom of a solicitor’s list of priorities. On occasion the commission has also been forced to enter protracted negotiations about who bears the cost of transferring the materials in question. The commission tends to encounter four typical situations that, as a result of its lack of power in relation to the private sector, operate to the applicant’s disadvantage. These are, first, the inability to obtain information from a private individual; secondly, the inability to obtain information from a private sector organisation; thirdly, partial information is provided, or a summary of information, which the commission is not in a position to scrutinise or verify; and fourthly, the information sought is obtained, but protracted negotiations with the private sector create lengthy delays in the case review process.

In the brief time remaining to me this afternoon, I shall deal with concerns expressed to me by Members and offer them reassurance. On privacy, I want to address up front one of the principal concerns that Members may have about the extension of the powers—the concern that the proposed power will be an intrusion into the lives of private individuals. Although consent and privacy are to be valued, where information, even of a personal or distressing nature, could make the difference between a person’s incarceration or freedom, it is right that the information should be requested, subject to due process and provision of strict safeguards.

Members should know that there are significant safeguards in place, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South when he intervened. The Bill provides for judicial oversight of the process. The CCRC could compel a private individual or organisation to provide material only by order of the court. All the same safeguards that currently operate in relation to section 17 disclosures would also apply, and the commission agrees that such a process would be appropriate. The main safeguard against improper intrusion is judicial oversight. As specified in clause 1(1), a person will only be obliged to provide the CCRC with that information subject to the order of a Crown Court judge.

A second area of foreseeable objection is cost. Although the Bill has no financial implications, and will not impose any financial costs or charges directly on the CCRC or private bodies, Members may be asking themselves whether the new power could place an unjustified financial burden on private companies—for example, will the power be damaging for small businesses? The best answer to this question is to look at the equivalent power as it operates in Scotland. The Scottish commission advises that there has been only one case in 15 years where a request to inspect material had led to contested proceedings in court.

Let me recap the main reasons why I believe the Bill deserves the support of the House today. First, this important power to request privately held information is currently lacking and hampering the important work of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The limits placed on the CCR by its governing statute can hinder its working practices and limit its ability to help victims who may be factually innocent. The chairman of the CCRC, Richard Foster, has said on the record that he is confident that there have been miscarriages of justice that have gone unremedied because of the lack of this power. It is impossible to tell in retrospect whether the outcomes of any cases would have been different had additional information been made available, but I hope I have made it clear how that gap is a problem that should be fixed going forward.

In addition, this power has been lacking and wanted for a long time. The CCRC has long complained of this weakness and, as I said earlier, the Justice Committee, after a thorough inquiry, said that there has been a failure by successive Governments to right the situation. The time to right it has come. The Bill is the direct implementation of an unambiguous recommendation of the Justice Committee in the previous Parliament. The proposed new powers are supported across the board, as evidenced by the list of sponsors of the Bill.

Finally, we must consider the human aspect in this debate. Although the British system works well for the vast majority of cases, mistakes do occasionally happen. Prisons are not nice places. They are not supposed to be, which is why we use them as a criminal deterrent. However, imagine the compounding of that experience when someone has been convicted of a crime and sent to prison, when they know that they are innocent of that crime. They are victims themselves, and there are countless cases of people wrongly convicted who, due to the psychological pressures of their miscarriages of justice, end up taking their own lives, after protesting their innocence, and sometimes while still locked up in prison.

Members who have heard me speak in the Chamber before will know that, as I am a former teacher with a history degree, they are unlikely to escape without at least one reference to history. It was the great British legal thinker Sir William Blackstone—considered the pre-eminent English scholar of and most authoritative speaker on common law in his day—who said on the matter of miscarriages of justice:

“It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.”

I do not quite agree with that sentiment, because I believe that it would be better if both numbers were closer to zero, and the role of our justice system, and the place of the CCRC within it, is to shrink those numbers. However, I think that it is apt to quote US President Jimmy Carter:

“The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens.”

Who is more helpless than those who have been wrongly convicted and failed by our justice system?

--- Later in debate ---
William Wragg Portrait William Wragg
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I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House, my hon. Friend the Minister and the Opposition Front Benchers for their support this afternoon. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).