Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2016-05-24
Topic: Law and Crime
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, some 20 years ago the noble Lord, Lord Howard, then Home Secretary, proclaimed that, "Prison works". Last week’s televised revelations about Wandsworth prison exposed the hollowness of that claim. To watch and listen to prisoners and prison warders struggling to cope with dreadful conditions in an overcrowded, run-down, understaffed Victorian jail was to be confronted with the shameful reality. What is, if anything, even more disturbing than the evident impact of drugs being freely available and the palpable fear of some of those interviewed has been the revelation that 70% of the inmates of Wandsworth are on remand—not serving custodial sentences but still part of our bloated prison population of 85,000. My noble and learned friend Lord Falconer rightly referred to this anomaly concerning remand prisoners By chance a friend who is a visitor at Wandsworth told me last Wednesday of the squalor visible in the exercise yard, of the broken windows and the sheets connecting them along which drugs are passed. Another friend told me that her son, working in another London prison, is exhausted by having to work excessive hours, without extra payment, and is likely to leave his job The Government’s welcome proposals may help and, if implemented, should be carefully evaluated, but the most important changes that should be made would be to reduce the size of the prison population, including remand prisoners, and improve the number of properly trained staff, as clearly advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf Turning to an area not touched on by the gracious Speech, the future of the magistracy, I draw the Government’s attention to two recent reports by Transform Justice, an organisation whose director, the redoubtable Penelope Gibbs, was herself a magistrate. I do not expect an answer from the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, tonight, but perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, who is in the Chamber, will write to me and possibly put his reply in the Library. The first report, The Role of the Magistrate?, published in January, draws attention to the one-third reduction in the number of magistrates in recent years—in part reflecting the reduction in cases—and the increase in the number of district judges as a proportion of the whole magistracy. This has led to few new magistrates being appointed, with less diversity in age Reducing the number of two-member Benches, so that more are constituted with three lay justices, and freezing the appointment of district judges would help halt this trend, although I understand renewed efforts are being made to recruit district judges at this time. Evening out the number of sitting days by individual magistrates, 210 of whom sat for more than 50 days last year, would also help. Are the Government able to say how much it costs to have courts manned by salaried judges rather than lay justices? That is quite apart from the fact that the appointment of professionals rather diminishes the concept of local justice, which has already been somewhat diluted by the size of magistrates’ Benches as they are now constituted. What is the policy in relation to the number and proportion of district judges, many more of whom, as I say, are being recruited? The report states that district judges themselves seek a closer relationship with magistrates. Will the Government look at ways of promoting this, for example through joint training on new legislation and processes, through district judges helping in training magistrates and through magistrates sitting alongside them in complex trials and youth courts, as they do now on Crown Court appeals In relation to diversity, although gender balance within the magistracy is good, since my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer’s efforts 10 years ago to promote it, nothing has been done in relation to other issues affecting the composition of the Bench. The age, class and ethnicity of magistrates do not reflect the position in society. If we are to have lay magistrates, they ought to be fully representative of their communities Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service is regarded as remote, with no magistrate sitting on its board and, following the amalgamation of Benches, the burden on Bench chairs is so heavy that only those not in employment can undertake the role. Furthermore, magistrates are inexplicably barred from sitting on restorative justice panels or youth referral panels, even in a different court from that in which they sit. The essential link between magistrates and their community is weakened by the reduction in funding for the Magistrates in the Community project, the only official programme to promote awareness of and confidence in the local justice system, which has helped to promote recruitment I turn briefly to legal aid. Transform Justice published a report on unrepresented defendants in the criminal courts, which is becoming as serious an issue as the higher judiciary identified it was in relation to civil courts. Legal aid in criminal cases involving imprisonable offences is available, but only to defendants with incomes less than £22,300—well below the threshold for pay to stay under the Housing and Planning Act. Surveys by Transform Justice and the Magistrates’ Association reveal increases in the number of unrepresented defendants across all criminal hearings except remands and traffic cases. This cannot be a healthy trend. Will the Government look into this issue? Incidentally, when will they publish a review of the impact of the wider cuts in civil legal aid inflicted four years ago by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act Finally and briefly, although I understand the motivation and purpose of the Prevent programme, I suggest that its aims could be better expressed and its objectives perhaps better attained by adopting a more positive approach and title. I suggest that "Promote", with its implicit objective of advocating the values we seek to encourage rather than just seeming to target what is unacceptable, would be a better brand name and a better way of promoting what we all desire, which is people participating fully in our society and sharing its values, rather than seeing it as something which is to be used against particular groups of people.