Justice
The Secretary of State was asked—
Probation Services
Probation funding has increased since 1997 by 70 per cent. in real terms, a faster rate than the increase in case load and almost twice the growth rate of the Prison Service. Staff numbers have increased by 50 per cent., with a 54 per cent. increase in front-line staff.
The budget for this year is £894 million. Taking account of a £17 million underspend in 2008-09, the required efficiency savings will be less than half of 1 per cent. No final decisions have been made about the budgets for 2010-11.
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but does he accept that in the past three years more than 300 people on probation have been charged with murder, and 130 with attempted murder? What has caused that, if not a lack of resources?
I wish it was that simple. The hon. Gentleman must take account of the comments of Her Majesty’s chief inspector of probation, who has pointed out a simple truth that would apply even were there ever to be a Liberal Democrat Government: some people who go on to commit the most serious offences have already committed less serious offences and will therefore be on probation at an earlier stage. That is a matter of great regret, but it happens to be a truth. There is no point in misleading the public that there is some promised land where doubling the amount of money available would mean that no one who committed a murder had ever committed previous offences for which they had been punished.
The Justice Secretary seems to be in denial. He keeps harking back to what has happened since 1997, but people involved in the probation service are worried about what is happening this year and next. The budgets for next year and the year after that were set out in the comprehensive spending review have now been withdrawn, and probation trusts do not know what they are dealing with. In my area, West Mercia probation trust, 30 out of 390 posts are being lost. None of the trainees due to complete their training period this year, or of those expected to do so next year, can be sure that there will be a job to go to. What sort of service is the right hon. Gentleman running?
I shall tell the hon. Gentleman what sort of service we are running. In his area, funding has increased by 70 per cent. in cash terms, whereas prices have gone up by less than 25 per cent. The probation service across the country is worried not about stable funding under Labour, but about a 10 per cent. cut under the Conservatives. Moreover, I have heard the shadow Chancellor say time and again that spending would have been much less this year and in previous years. There would have been a lower platform, and lower spending now.
Although funding for the probation service has gone up in recent years, the case load has gone up by even more. In the past four years, the average case load per qualified probation officer has risen by a third. The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies has said:
“With budgets set to shrink in the coming years, the capacity of the Service to respond effectively to the demands”
placed on it
“must be in…question.”
I know that staff at Derbyshire probation service would heartily concur with that.
I wholly disagree. In the hon. Gentleman’s area, Derbyshire, probation funding has gone up by an even greater proportion than it has in West Mercia. It has gone up by 78 per cent., and that is since 2001, not 1997. There has been an astonishing increase in resources that exceeds the case load, and there is every reason to believe that Derbyshire probation service, which is well run, can meet its responsibilities. I hope it gets some backing from the hon. Gentleman in that.
When confronted with the realities of probation overstretch in the case of Daniel Sonnex last week, the Secretary of State claimed that there had been a net increase in the number of probation officers over the previous five years. Will he admit, however, that that figure relies largely on the massive increase in the numbers of probation service officers, who are qualified to a lesser degree and cannot supervise high-risk offenders? Will he confirm that the number of qualified probation officers actually fell over the same period?
The hon. Lady reads too much of the briefing from the National Association of Probation Officers. I shall give her a health warning—it is often inaccurate, as it is in this respect. I can give her the figures since 1997. In 1997, there were 6,827 probation officers and senior probation officers, the latter being, by definition, more qualified than probation officers. By 2007, 10 years later, there were more than 7,000 probation officers. Probation service officers fulfil a very important function and their numbers have gone up. They take loads away from probation officers, and their numbers have gone up from under 2,000 to over 6,400.
May I ask my right hon. Friend whether the good, hard work of probation needs much wider back-up and support, particularly in relation to people who are released from prisons such as Armley prison in my constituency, where 50 people a day come in, and 50 a day come out? The main issues are drugs, alcohol and mental health. Would it not be better if his Department was backed up a bit more substantially by other Departments in providing skills and training, and drug and alcohol rehabilitation services in the community, so that all the burden was not on probation services?
I very strongly agree with my right hon. Friend, and my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Health, and for Children, Schools and Families increasingly recognise that their services, particularly mental health, drug and alcohol treatment services, have an important role to play in diverting offenders from crime.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that part of the problem in assessing the effectiveness or otherwise of the probation service is that there is not a settled view as to what works, in terms of alternatives to custody? Does he agree that there is a case for holding an inquiry along the lines of the Carter review into sentencing, looking specifically at alternatives to custody, and including the probation service, so that we can arrive at a clearer picture of what needs to be done?
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. At one level, it is much easier to assess the effectiveness of prison—provided prisoners are kept locked up—than the effectiveness of probation and other non-custodial sentences, but I agree with him that we need the most rigorous analysis of all methods that are used by probation services and others, so that we can arrive at the best approach for dealing in the community with those offenders who do not need to go to jail.
I hear what my right hon. Friend says about the increase in resources, but I am told that in Northumbria, for example, of the 24 probation officers currently in training, at a cost of £90,000 per course, only half will be offered temporary contracts at the end; the other half will be offered nothing at all. How does he explain the gap between the figures he has quoted, and what we are hearing on the ground?
The budget for Northumbria has increased dramatically in recent years, as has the budget for other services. Last year, there was a £600,000 underspend in Northumbria. The major problem is a mismatch between trainees and vacancies; that has to do with the overall economic downturn, but we are now dealing with it—I agree that this cannot deal with the historical problem of that mismatch—through profound changes in the training system, on which we are consulting. Those changes will mean that trainees will not be offered a traineeship unless there is a guaranteed job for them to go to.
My right hon. Friend will know that in Huddersfield and Kirklees we have an excellent probation service, and its members are very grateful for the Government’s investment over a number of years, but there is a communication problem. They are not happy at the moment, and from Huddersfield to Harry Fletcher, there are feelings of neglect. Can we make communication with the probation service a bit better?
Yes, I think that we do have to improve it. One of the things that I have been doing is holding very regular meetings, at least once a month, with senior officials from Unison and the National Association of Probation Officers to work through a range of issues, not least budgetary problems, where they arise, in an effort to resolve them before they cause serious difficulties locally, and I think that that process is working.
The right hon. Gentleman quoted some global figures, and mentioned increases. What he did not say is that we expect far more from probation officers today than we did 10 years ago. He will know that the young woman who is unfortunately ill now, having tried to do her best to supervise Sonnex, had 127 cases on her work load, whereas 40 would have been more than adequate. She is not unique, and the right hon. Gentleman must realise that if we are pushing for community penalties, and for probation officers to do all the other things that we expect them to do, we need resourcing, and we need officers on the ground.
There has been a significant increase in the number of officers. As became clear in the various reviews of the Sonnex case, all of which I published, the Greenwich and Lewisham division of London Probation was grossly mismanaged. The fact that there was a sickness level of 27.5 days—five and a half weeks’ sickness, on average, for every person working in the Greenwich and Lewisham area—compared with the average across London of about 13 days, which is too many, indicates the outrageously low level of management of that probation area. The senior management of London Probation should have noticed that. That is one of the reasons I agreed the suspension of the then chief officer of London Probation. I have every sympathy with the young woman who was in direct line supervision of Sonnex, which is why I have gone out of my way never to criticise her or her line colleagues; she and her colleagues, on the front line, were not to blame.
On the point that my right hon. Friend just made, sickness levels often reflect staff morale. Virtually every year since 1999, I have met Ministers about London Probation, and although we have received global figures for increases in budgets, they do not seem to be reflected in the front-line staff increases that the staff report. To gain an accurate assessment, the justice unions parliamentary group is holding an evidence session on 15 July, inviting London probation officers to explain what is happening on the ground. I would welcome the Minister’s attendance at that session.
I shall do my best to come. There has been an increase of 63 probation officers in London. Sickness levels are principally a symptom of poor management. If one looks at levels of sickness in schools or local authorities or, for example, police stations in the Metropolitan police area, one sees that similar police divisions have very different levels of sickness. Of course that is a reflection of morale, but fundamentally of management. With decent management at divisional level, levels of sickness almost always go down.
The Justice Secretary might know that there are proposals in relation to Staffordshire, some details of which we received as a result of a meeting today with senior management. In Staffordshire, we believe strongly in local identity and the local community, and we pay tribute to the probation service. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that there are those of us who are seriously worried about the idea of a merger into a west midlands probation service? What is the rationale behind that, and will he review it?
I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman, as is my hon. Friend the Minister of State, to discuss the matter. We have—I think there is general approbation for this—established the process of probation trusts. The first initiative on the boundaries to be followed is a matter for local decision, although there is a further decision level.
In the past five years the budget in the west midlands has gone up a lot more than the case load. The number of probation officers has gone up, the number of probation service officers has gone up markedly and the percentage spent on administration has fallen, yet there are redundancies and there are great concerns among probation officers and probation service officers. That seems to be the case around the country. May I suggest that my right hon. Friend consider some inquiry into why there is a mismatch between the figures that he has been given and what seems to be happening on the ground around the country?
I accept, against a background of rising budgets for the past seven years, that budgets this year and next are tight. I established the process with the trade unions and with the Probation Association, which represents probation employers, to ensure that they are helped better to manage their budgets without the need for panic cuts, which are not justified by budgets this year or next year and are not likely to be justified the year after.
Does not the whole debate about the resources available to probation illustrate the point that resources should be targeted ruthlessly on what works to reduce crime? One can go further than the right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) and say that we know what works in many circumstances—restorative justice, drug and alcohol treatment and mental health treatment. Does not the debate also illustrate the point that we should not waste money on what does not work or on programmes such as bibs, which are aimed more at manipulating public opinion than reducing crime? One can make the same accusation about the vast prison building system, which is based more on penal populism than on a genuine desire to get the crime rate even lower.
I gleaned from that when the hon. Gentleman talks about bibs, he means high-visibility jackets for offenders. If he wants—there is now overwhelming evidence of this—greater public confidence in the less expensive and often more effective community punishments of unpaid work, he must support measures to increase public confidence in those disposals. One of the best means that we have used recently to increase public confidence in those disposals at very low cost has been the introduction of high-visibility jackets. It has worked.
Teesside probation services received significant increases in funding over the years, but I am receiving letters from trainee probation officers who tell me that their chief probation officer has stated that indicative budgets for 2010-13 indicate clearly that they will not be employed after March 2010. Does my right hon. Friend accept that the concern of the young women who have written to me makes it clear that they believe that grass-roots officers are being penalised because there is a financial shortfall?
As I said earlier, all those concerns must be set against a very high base of spending by the probation service, and the service itself will recognise that, I am sure. I have some information detailing that, of a cohort of 42 probation trainees, 18 will be offered probation officer contracts, 12 will be offered probation service officer contracts and 12 will be considered for other junior roles. I have already referred to the problem that has arisen, which is principally to do with the shortage of vacancies due to the economic downturn and the fact that we are changing the whole system. However, a probation service career is still a very good career, and it will remain so as long as there is a Labour Administration who are not going in for blanket 10 per cent. cuts in spending.
The Justice Secretary has told the House that the system cannot be made perfect, and I agree, but he has had an opportunity to hear comments from all parts of the House about the state of the probation service. It is clearly untenable to maintain—I am sure he would not seek to do so—that, in the light of those comments, the Sonnex case is a one-off. Indeed, the statistic that one in seven homicides charged is to a person on probation is appalling. The Justice Secretary has told us about figures, but what is he doing to try to remedy the situation?
We have worked very significantly over the past 12 years to improve the effectiveness of the probation service. The hon. and learned Gentleman’s Government abandoned or abolished the training of probation officers, and we brought it back. We have increased resources by 70 per cent. and increased the effectiveness of the service, so, for example, getting on for 90 per cent. of offenders who breach their probation are recalled quickly to prison, compared with 30 per cent. when his Conservative party was in power. On the issue of funding, let him return to the Dispatch Box and admit that the 10 per cent. cut that the Conservative shadow Chancellor is talking about would mean an £80 million cut in probation funding immediately.
Will the Justice Secretary please confirm that he has given a direction to probation trusts to cut supervision reports on offenders sentenced to life but released on licence from once every three months to once every six? Will halving those reporting requirements strengthen or weaken public protection?
We are clear that, overall, the measures we are putting in place will strengthen public protection, as they have done. We will not take lectures from the Conservative party, which made probation enforcement voluntary when it was in power and would cut probation budgets by at least 10 per cent. over the next two years.
Unless the Front Bench opposite is prepared today to commit to an X per cent. increase in funding for that area, it is so much hypocritical hot air that we are hearing from it. In my constituency, the number of burglaries has reduced from more than 5,000 in 2001 to a little over 3,000 last year. That is through police work and probation officer work, and we should congratulate them. However, will my right hon. Friend write to me to set out the broader picture in south Yorkshire and Rotherham? There are genuine concerns and we must address them, but there are no lessons—no lessons at all—to take from the tax-cutting hypocrites of the party opposite.
Order. Please withdraw the term “hypocrite”. There are no hypocrites in this House.
I thought that I referred to the party as hypocritical. If we cannot say that in the House—
Order. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Members opposite. It is to be withdrawn.
I am very happy to withdraw that, Sir.
Order. That is fine.
Phew! I shall of course write to my right hon. Friend, pointing out that, although we are profoundly concerned about any failures, overall, in his constituency of Rotherham and throughout the country, including Beaconsfield, there has been a dramatic reduction in crime. We are the first Government since the war to see crime going down significantly rather than up.
Family Division
There has not been a recent assessment and there are not any plans for one. However, the family procedure rule committee has invited the family justice council to consider producing good practice guidance for those cases in which parties lack capacity to give instructions. That is currently being considered by the relevant sub-committee.
I thank the Minister for that answer. More than 100 times a year, mothers are prevented from opposing the adoption or the taking into care of their children as a result of a single expert opinion part-paid for by the local authority. Will the Minister meet me so that I can reveal to her the details of the dossier behind that and demonstrate how many mothers have their right to oppose removed because of mental capacity when in fact they do have the capacity to instruct a solicitor? I hope that a further assessment can be made and that these miscarriages of justice can be stopped.
I will be more than happy to have a meeting with the hon. Gentleman about that, but I should say that the expert witnesses called to court to decide on capacity are not in the pockets of the local authorities. They are appointed with the agreement of both parties and they are there to answer the questions that the courts ask of them. It would be scurrilous to suggest anything other than that. I remind the hon. Gentleman of what Lord Justice Wall said after the hon. Gentleman attacked such an expert recently. He referred to the hon. Gentleman’s allegations as untenable and said that the way in which the hon. Gentleman described the expert psychologist was an abuse of position. I ask the hon. Gentleman to think very carefully about what the Lord Justices have said about his own behaviour in some of these cases.
I fundamentally disagree with the Minister. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) is doing a great service to justice and the families whose children are unnecessarily, unjustly and wrongly taken from them. I also have such cases, and have liaised with the hon. Gentleman on the subject. Will the Minister accept his request for a meeting so that the dossier that he, I and others have produced can be discussed with her? In that way, she will see the injustice, secrecy and behind-the-door dealing involved in the current situation.
I will be more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss individual cases—as long as they are not in the middle of court proceedings, in which case such a discussion would be impossible. I shall be happy to discuss these things in general terms. The hon. Gentleman talks about the secrecy of the family courts, but my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State has only recently addressed those very points in giving the media more opportunity to scrutinise the substance of what happens in the family courts. He has done that for a number of reasons—not least to give back to the public the confidence that the family courts are acting in the best interests of the child. That is what everyone in the House and in the Court Service would want.
Does the Minister agree that since the abolition of the death penalty, the most drastic action that a court can take is the permanent removal of a child against the wishes of the parents? The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) referred to various cases involving mothers with low IQs who have their children put up for adoption; even though they wanted to contest the cases, the Official Solicitor refused to do so. Does she accept that the Official Solicitor’s inaction could be contrary to section 4(6) of the Mental Capacity Act 2005? Will she confirm that from now onwards, the Official Solicitor will contest all cases involving mothers with low IQs who wish to keep their children? Surely anything less would be heartless and wrong.
These are very sensitive cases, and we should be very careful about the way we address them. The Official Solicitor’s job is to act on behalf of someone who lacks capacity. Their job is not to act on behalf of the child or the local authority, but, usually, on behalf of the adult—although occasionally it could be on behalf of the child—who lacks capacity. The Official Solicitor will so act only if there is evidence before the court suggesting that the adult lacks capacity to understand the court proceedings. The Official Solicitor would be acting outwith their responsibility as an officer of the court in doing anything other than acting on behalf of the person who lacks capacity.
Probation Services
Decisions on the size and scope of staffing rest with the 42 areas and trusts that are responsible for managing probation business at a local level. Between 1997 and 2007, the total number of staff was increased from 14,000 to 21,000—an increase of almost 50 per cent.
I thank the Minister for that answer. Following on from what my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) said, Ministers are telling us one thing about the probation service but we get told another when we talk to people employed there. How do the Government intend to improve the probation service, and, more importantly, what has its staff turnover been?
Between 2001-02 and 2008-09, there has been a 57 per cent. increase in resources received by my hon. Friend’s local probation area in the west midlands. I know that in his area there is an issue—a number of other Members have raised it in previous questions—about whether trainees who are due to finish their training will be taken on full time. My understanding is that only a small number in the west midlands know that they will be taken on at this time. The regional training consortiums are there to help, as they have done in previous years, in matching up those who finish their training with jobs available in other parts of the country, and some of the trainees who have not yet been offered jobs may find employment in that way. However, I am more than happy to meet any Member of this House—I may regret saying this—about issues that they have regarding their own probation areas.
It surely must be a factor in probation service staffing levels that a large number of criminals are not reaching the probation service because they are not going to court but are being dealt with as out-of-court disposals. In Berkshire last year, 791 cases of actual bodily harm, 686 cases of common assault, 56 cases of sexual offences and eight cases of grievous bodily harm never even reached the courts. Will the Minister confirm that this is not some cost-cutting exercise that transfers justice to the police instead of taking it through established judicial processes of the courts and the probation service?
It is for the prosecutors and the police who investigate individual instances of crime to decide how best to proceed in any individual case. It is certainly true that some cases are dealt with by disposals instead of being brought to court, but many are brought to court.
I think that my hon. Friend would agree that staffing levels are very important, as this is about keeping the right number of staff in the probation service. However, it is also about ensuring that they have time to deliver properly, because we have seen that a lot of the work has been done through computers rather than face to face. What can we do to ensure that we keep the right numbers of staff, especially in the north-west, and that casework is done better than it is at the moment because of the time scales that are being put on the people who work there?
My hon. Friend has hit on an important point. We want our skilled probation staff to spend as much time as possible supervising those whom they have to deal with to prevent reoffending. We think that too much time is spent in front of computers ticking boxes. We would hope to see improvements over the next couple of years of tougher financial settlements partly through increased efficiencies—for example, streamlining and simplifying processes, reducing overheads, and freeing our skilled probation staff to do what they do best, which is dealing face to face with those they are supervising.
I begin by congratulating the hon. Lady on her promotion within the Department. Despite what she and the Secretary of State have said this afternoon, although the number of probation officers fell between 2001 and 2008, the number of managerial staff increased over the same period by 70 per cent. There was also a 77 per cent. rise in the number of less qualified probation service officers. Work loads have risen by more than a third in the past four years, yet 60 per cent. of all newly qualified and expensively trained people are not becoming probation officers.
If I may say so, the Sonnex case tells us all that we need to know about this Government’s leadership of the probation service. Instead of fiddling the figures, why do they not spend the money on the front line rather than on fattening up NOMS HQ and on constant, morale-sapping administrative changes?
I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for his welcome before I try swiftly to refute one or two of his points. I do not accept that NOMS HQ is being fattened up. It costs £74 million, which is 1.8 per cent. of the total spend on NOMS. Much of what is listed as spending on NOMS HQ is actually on front-line services, such as private prisons, prisoner escort contracts, electronic monitoring and administering the inspectorates and the Parole Board. That is not, by any definition, fattening up the HQ, so he is wrong about that.
The hon. and learned Gentleman is right to say that case loads have increased by about a third since 2001. A number of Members have referred to that. However, staffing has increased by 35 per cent.—a higher percentage increase than for case loads. Of course, it is for each local area to make the best use of its resourcing to balance the qualifications and types of staff that it has locally. There is therefore bound to be some geographical variation. We need the worst-performing to come up to the standards of the best, and encouraging that is part of what we can do from the centre. I would be more than happy to speak to any Member about how we intend to do that and how it will affect their local probation board.
Electoral Reform
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister confirmed last week that the Government would shortly be launching a debate on electoral reform.
Having been a supporter of a fair voting system for more than 20 years, I obviously welcome any moves in that direction, and I look forward to that debate reaching a conclusion at a relatively early date. However, does my right hon. Friend accept that the alternative vote system, which appears to have support in some quarters of the Government, can be even more disproportionate in its effects than the first-past-the-post system? Will he ensure that any proposals brought forward provide a genuinely fairer voting system?
I would like very much to recommend to my hon. Friend the review of voting systems that this Department produced last year. It assessed different voting systems, and he will be well aware that we now have a whole range of voting systems in this country—a cornucopia of them—so we can assess the evidence of how they all work. The review assessed them against a number of criteria, including proportionality, voter participation, ease of voting and so on. It found that no system of voting is inherently fairer than any other, and it is certainly not the case that a proportional system is necessarily fairer than any other system.
I emphasise that proportional systems tend inherently to produce coalition Governments. That may be a good thing for some parties, but it might not be a good thing for the country. First-past-the-post systems tend to produce clear majority winners and stable government. Although they tend to hand power to the biggest minority, the practice of forming coalition Governments often tends to hand power to the smallest minority. There is nothing inherently fair about that.
In endorsing that outstandingly good answer from the Minister, may I also remind him that there is no way that the British National party or other poisonous extremists could ever get elected to a democratic Parliament, other than by proportional representation?
I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I commend to him, too, the review of voting systems, which made precisely that point about extreme minority parties.
Does my right hon. Friend recognise that much of the debate is driven by the chattering classes? I can describe some of them no more politely. Parties that introduce sensible policies in the interests of the nation are best served by the voters, who know exactly what they want the outcome of a general election to be. First past the post is the only sensible system—we should do away with the flim-flam of proportional representation, which seems to take up an inordinate amount of time compared with other important matters.
As so often, my hon. Friend makes an important point. In the end, the voting system does not matter—the voters tend to get the sort of Government they want. The issues should therefore be addressed, not on the ground of partisan advantage, but on what provides a legitimate system. The voters of this country will decide that, not party politicians.
It is a great pleasure to agree with every word that the Minister—and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mr. Purchase) and my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis)—said. I am delighted that the Government are delaying reform, but their latest diversionary tactic, of which I approve for the sake of diversion, seems to be setting up the National Council for Democratic Renewal. It sounds grand and full of promise, but what exactly is it? Is it just a bunch of Ministers sitting around, talking about things? To whom is it accountable? How much does it cost the taxpayer and when will it report?
Again, I am grateful for that support. I hope that the hon. Lady agrees that events in recent months have driven home the need for the House urgently to address constitutional reform across the piece. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made it one of his three priorities, and the National Council for Democratic Renewal, as the hon. Lady called it, will ensure that those matters are given the prominence in Government that they deserve, and that they are driven forward to deliver the constitutional reform that the country so urgently needs.
As a supporter of a fairer voting system, I welcome the debate that will take place. What assessment has the Minister made of the systems that are already in place in the devolved bodies? How will that inform the debate?
Again, I am grateful for the welcome for the debate, which is important. For the reasons that I have outlined, it is important that we hold it now. Again, I refer to the excellent review of voting systems, which the Ministry of Justice published in January last year. It clearly sets out an analysis of the way in which the voting systems in the devolved Administrations deliver on the various criteria against which all voting systems are assessed in the document. I think that my hon. Friend will find that it is a mixed picture.
End of Custody Licence Scheme
As I have made clear to the House, I will withdraw the end of custody licence scheme as soon as we have sufficient headroom in the prison system to do that.
Having given 10,102 violent offenders early release, I am sure that it comes as no surprise to the Secretary of State that 1,000 offences, including three murders and two rapes, were committed by end of custody licensees who were released and should have been in prison. Does he need any more evidence to show that the scheme is a shambles, out of date and should be brought to an end as soon as possible?
As it happens, the reoffending rate on the scheme is very low. Of course, I regret any offending by prisoners, but the scheme is much more effective for dealing with the pressure on prison places than the scheme that the previous Conservative Administration adopted. One day—I was in the House when it happened—they let out 3,500 prisoners just like that, without any sort of effective supervision. Prisoners who, among other things, have committed offences of serious violence, are excluded from the scheme. If there were a Conservative Administration, who would cut the prison budget by £200 million, they would have to introduce a grand ECL scheme to cut the number of available prison places. That is what their policy means—they have not excluded Home Office or Ministry of Justice services from their 10 per cent. cuts.
Does my right hon. Friend have an estimate of the number of additional prison places that would be required if the end of custody licence scheme came to an end and what the cost of providing them would be?
We are committed to ending the end of custody licence scheme, because it was a temporary measure, and we are working hard to do that. We have greatly increased capacity, with one of the fastest-ever building programmes, particularly over the past three to four years, and thousands of new places are coming on stream. The average number of prisoners on ECL at any one point is between 1,200 and 1,450, so that is the headroom that we need before we can abolish it, but I am determined to do so.
Secure Accommodation
At 30 April 2009, there were 3,527 places in the under-18 secure estate. Of those, 2,895 places are currently in use.
I thank the Minister for that answer. The young offender programme led by National Grid has done an extremely good job, with young offenders grouped together. One of the problems in my constituency, however, is that the offender substance abuse programme, for people with drug problems, does not segregate on an age basis, so young offenders who have mild drug abuse problems are put with older people who have problems with heroin. That can lead to ruin—and, in one case, it has led to death—so can the Minister look at the programme again and see whether we can segregate on an age basis?
I am certainly happy to look at that issue. With the introduction of youth offender rehabilitation, there will be an opportunity for courts to take into account a number of those issues and look at them as an opportunity not to put young people in custody, but to provide a range of measures that may assist them through drug rehabilitation.
Given that the Government are cutting the number of Youth Justice Board places, which could lead to the closure of four homes, including one that covers London and the south-east, are they backing off from their commitment to children who need secure children’s home places?
On the contrary: what the Youth Justice Board has done is review the number of places and look at demand. As we have already indicated, custody is the Government’s last resort for young people. The Youth Justice Board has looked across all places, and determined that the demand is not there for the number places that exist currently, in order to ensure that contracts are awarded to those establishments that provide the best quality and type of accommodation for young people, as well as taking into account the cost. However, it is certainly not the Youth Justice Board’s intention to deny places that are appropriate for the needs of those young people.
Closing secure care homes will remove the smaller homes from the system that often have better trained staff and are the places where local services can be provided. What will happen is that young offenders will go into custody far away from their families and the communities from which they spring. Is that a great idea as far as rehabilitation is concerned?
I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree, as would many hon. Members, from across the House, that the most appropriate thing is to ensure that we have as few young people in custody as possible. The most appropriate thing is to try to treat those offenders in the community. That is why the number of places has been reduced—because the demand has been reduced, as we look at other alternatives and as we consider the issue that my hon. Friend has raised to ensure that younger people are moved to the most suitable places for their needs. That is what the Youth Justice Board will keep foremost in its mind when it assesses those young people.
Topical Questions
As this is the last Justice questions under your speakership, Mr. Speaker, I should like to express my personal appreciation and that of my colleagues for your years of service and for the many personal kindnesses that you have shown me over the years.
The House will be aware that there has been considerable concern about the starting point for the minimum term for murder involving the use of a firearm, which is 30 years, compared with that for murder involving the use of a knife, which is 15 years. In the light of those concerns, I intend to review the provisions in schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003, with a view to deciding whether to amend it, as I can do by order. I will of course consult the senior judiciary and the Sentencing Guidelines Council, and I would be very happy to receive wider representations, including from hon. Members on both sides of the House.
Given that an inquiry into Iraq, however inadequate, has finally been announced, will the Secretary of State tell us whether there will be measures in the Constitutional Renewal Bill to require parliamentary consent for war? If so, will he explain why that could not also be achieved by resolution?
In the consultation document that was published on 3 July 2007, and in documents published alongside the publication of the draft Constitutional Reform Bill, we proposed two alternatives: one involving statute, the other using a resolution. In the event, we now judge that the consensus in both Houses is to proceed by resolution, and a draft of such a resolution has already been published. I hope that it will be approved by both Houses.
My hon. Friend will appreciate that, although I have some responsibilities in respect of the judiciary, it is the Lord Chief Justice, the noble Lord Judge, who is head of the judiciary and has direct responsibility for it. As my hon. Friend will have seen from the press reports, however, there are clear indications that the senior judiciary wishes to ensure that better guidance is made available to trial judges on how to direct juries dealing with rape cases.
Yes, I will confirm that. I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. There is a general sentiment across the House that we should encourage the courts to use non-custodial disposals, particularly for younger offenders. That is why, as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Claire Ward) has explained, the number of young offenders in custody has gone down by 8 per cent. over the past couple of years. We are seeking all the time to get the most effective disposals from the courts while ensuring the imperative of protecting the public.
Is my right hon. Friend aware that the minimum 19-year sentences passed on the three heartless thugs who murdered Ben Kinsella are not sufficient, and that his family are rightly concerned about that? Can that case be reconsidered by the Appeal Court? Longer minimum sentences of 25 or 30 years would be far more appropriate.
Any reference to the Court of Appeal in respect of those sentences is a matter for my right hon. and noble Friend the Attorney-General, exercising her quasi-judicial discretion on a reference to the Court of Appeal in respect of what she might judge to be an unduly lenient sentence. I will of course ensure that my hon. Friend’s views are passed on to her. That case has raised the wider issue of the starting points for minimum terms provided by section 269 and schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and, as I have already said, there is a power in section 269 to amend schedule 21 by order. As I have just announced to the House, I intend to review the provisions of that schedule in the light of general concerns, to see whether they still command public approbation or whether they ought to be amended, as I suspect they will need to be.
What will be the Secretary of State’s response to the Government’s resounding defeat yesterday in the House of Lords over political donations by tax exiles? Is he not now regretting that he did not go ahead with the balanced package of proposals put forward by the Constitutional Affairs Committee and developed by Hayden Phillips?
As with any decision by the other place, we will of course consider it and consult other parties. I sometimes invite this House to take an opposite view and at other times recommend the same view. Some significant practical issues are raised by the right hon. Gentleman’s question, and they require consideration. As for Hayden Phillips’s proposal, unless my memory has totally failed me, there was never any intention for the scheme approved in the other place yesterday to become law.
My right hon. Friend will be aware that the Scottish Assembly recently introduced legislation to make pleural plaques a compensatable condition. Now that the consultation process is completed, when will he make his statement and will he follow the Scottish route?
I understand my hon. Friend’s frustration about the time it has taken to come to a view on this subject, but he will also appreciate that we have to deal with a decision—a unanimous decision—taken by the Law Lords in October 2007 and with subsequent medical evidence. We hope to reach a decision and to announce it as quickly as possible, although I obviously cannot anticipate what it will be.
When I made my statement at the end of April, I announced two sites, neither of which was the Basford marshalling yard, just south of Crewe. I am looking carefully at better ways of involving local communities at an earlier stage when it comes to the siting of prisons. It is a difficult issue of balance because many communities, although not all, are inherently opposed to having a new prison—until they have got it, when they often want to hang on to it. I accept the burden of the hon. Gentleman’s point, which is that there are better ways of involving communities at an earlier stage.
The Calman commission yesterday published its far-reaching proposals for devolution. Given that they have all-party support—from Labour, Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives—will my right hon. Friend introduce proposals to implement the commission’s recommendations as soon as possible?
I will certainly pass on my hon. Friend’s helpful suggestion to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
I welcome the hon. Lady’s support for dedicated drugs courts. We started off with two pilots; we have now extended them to another four, and we are receiving very positive indications from them. We want to evaluate all the models on the six different sites before taking any decision on further implementation. Like her, I believe that what we have seen so far of dedicated drugs courts augurs well for the future in our battle against drug addiction.
The issue of recall is being discussed by the cross-party group which is considering the idea of a parliamentary standards authority and related matters. I have been chairing the group, and it is holding its second meeting this week. As for the wider issue of recall, the hon. Gentleman may be aware that we included in the second Green Paper on Lords reform proposals—which had been broadly agreed with all the parties—for recall for the second and subsequent terms that it is envisaged that the new Members of the second Chamber would serve.
The law itself does not really need to be changed. There are clear prisoner transfer agreements. However, the agreement of the receiving state as well as that of the sentencing state is required.
The proportion of our prisoners who are foreign nationals is low compared with those elsewhere in Europe. It is about 14 per cent., which compares extremely well with 60 per cent. in Austria and well over 30 per cent. in most other major European countries.
First, those figures are inaccurate. Secondly, I do not anticipate but am completely certain that if there were a Conservative Government, there would be a 10 per cent. cut in probation services over the next two years. There would also be a 10 per cent. cut in the prison programme, with £200 million slashed from it, and hundreds of millions of pounds would be slashed from the police service. That is because the Conservative party has not exempted either Home Office or Ministry of Justice services from its cuts, which would undoubtedly lead to an increase in both crime and reoffending.
I shall ignore the hon. Gentleman’s slightly loaded adjectives. I think it entirely appropriate for a fine, upstanding Government, full of vigour, to present these proposals. Let me make a further, even more serious point. It was the House of Commons—including Members in all parts of the House—which allowed this mess on expenses to develop, and it is our responsibility, not that of the next Parliament, to sort it out before the election rather than afterwards.