Police and Justice Bill |
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Hazel Blears: Given the lobbying that goes on and the various representations that are made, it is understandable that debates tend to look at these matters from the point of view of the offender or the legal system. However, it is important also to look at them from the point of view of victims and the wider community. The proposal to introduce conditional cautions was referred to in our respect action plan and is about ensuring that our system takes seriously offences that really affect people’s quality of life, such as graffiti, shoplifting, vandalism and low-level antisocial behaviour. It is about having sanctions, punishments, reparation, rehabilitation and restorative justice to deal with what is sometimes referred to as low-level crime, even though its impact on communities can be enormous. The legal system is complicated, time consuming and sometimes bureaucratic, so offences and acts that cause people a lot of damage have not always been taken seriously. Sometimes, because of the time involved in processing a case, people have got away with such acts. The whole point of introducing measures such as conditional cautions is to ensure that we address these issues speedily and effectively, so that the victims and the community have a real sense that the system is working. Column Number: 166 Let me give hon. Members one example, which relates to shoplifting, although not specifically to conditional cautions. In many cases, shoplifting has not been seen as a serious offence, but it is serious to the people involved. When we introduced a fixed penalty notice provision last year, there was an outcry because people thought that we were downgrading the offence; they thought that it was no longer a criminal offence because it was subject to a fixed penalty notice. In practice, however, shoplifting now has a sanction attached to it in far more cases and is easier to dispose of. Instead of the offender simply getting away with it, there is now a punishment, and I think that everybody recognises that that is a good development. Similarly, in the case before us, we are talking about ensuring that the justice system takes antisocial behaviour extremely seriously. I make a plea to the Committee, and particularly to the Opposition, to look at the issue from the other end of the kaleidoscope for a change—from the point of view of the public and the victim, not the offender. Michael Fabricant: I think that it is a little unfair of the Minister to accuse the Opposition of not taking account of the view of the victim. I agree with everything that she has said, other than her last remark, which was a little cheap and party political. Incidentally, the John Lewis Partnership—a company with which I have certain connections—very much welcomes the legislation to which the Minister referred. Will she, however, address the issue of using secondary legislation to deal with more serious issues? Although we must take the side of the victim, must we not also take the side of justice? The victim will not thank the Government if the wrong person is found guilty. The measures are wholly appropriate in the instances that the Minister gave, but we are asking about other crimes, which could come under the ambit of the clause as a result of secondary legislation. Hazel Blears: I think that I have been very generous in allowing the hon. Gentleman to make his point yet again. He has made it previously, and I will come to it, if he will just have a little patience—[Interruption.] I think that I have been very generous to hon. Members in seeking to have a proper debate on these serious matters. It is important that we look at them properly. Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con): Will the Minister give way? Hazel Blears: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment. A conditional caution is not a court sentence or a criminal conviction, but an admission of guilt. The person who accepts the caution must accept the conditions, so it is a voluntary process. That deals with the point made by the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs about there being a two-tier justice system in which a person who can afford to pay a fine will take a different kind of caution. The person has to agree to the conditions, whether they are punitive,
The financial and unpaid work penalties are significantly lower than the fines that magistrates courts would be likely to impose. That is an incentive to get matters dealt with as speedily, effectively and efficiently as possible. It is important to ensure that our courts system works properly. If it does not and there is inordinate delay, it is brought into disrepute. The maxim that justice delayed is justice denied is as appropriate in criminal matters as in civil matters. As the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) said, making the connection between the relevant behaviour and the punishment and rehabilitation as quickly as possible helps to change behaviour. If the sanction or penalty comes three or six months after the relevant low-level antisocial behaviour, it is difficult to make that connection. I agree with the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs that the proposals are radical, but they will be significant in making a connection between the behaviour and the sanction, and showing the public that the criminal justice system works. I envisage that, if someone commits criminal damage on a Wednesday evening, within a couple of weeks they might be out in the local park at the weekend putting right some other damage. I hope that such punishments will be carried out in a visible way, so that the community can see that such work is being carried out, and we can start to get some public confidence in the criminal justice system. This is not about wandering into areas of serious crime; the hon. Member for Lichfield makes a fair point. There is clear guidance from the Director of Public Prosecutions about the kind of offences that should be subject to conditional cautions. Because the conditions are set lower than the fines and punishments that magistrates courts can impose, it clearly is not appropriate to stray into that serious crime area. The proposal is an innovative and radical departure to try to ensure that, at long last, we deal with some of the issues that have gone unnoticed, unpunished and untackled in the past, which has led to a diminution in public confidence in the criminal justice system that these matters are to be addressed. Mark Pritchard: On that point about public confidence, whilst I do not doubt the motivation of the Minister and the Government with these new proposals, does she agree that there is public concern about the lack of fine money being collected under existing legislation, never mind under the proposed legislation? The public are also concerned that many people do not turn up to do the work required by their community service orders, and that they are never tracked down and never serve them. If we are to extend the use of fines and community service orders—albeit under a new name—surely there is an issue regarding the continuing lack of public confidence. Column Number: 168 Hazel Blears: I am pleased to tell the hon. Gentleman that fine collection has improved dramatically in the past few years. We have had a number of high profile operations, such as operation payback, in which the Court Service and the national enforcement service stepped up the recovery rate of fines. He is right to say that the fines system fell into disrepute because fines were not being paid, but that has been tackled. I cannot give the current figures off the top of my head, but I think that collection rates are up to almost 80 per cent., which is a significant improvement. I am sure that we can do more on that. The same notion applies to community service orders. I am absolutely convinced that, if we are to get the public to have confidence in community penalties, we must ensure that they are rigorous, that people complete them, that they are hard work and that they are properly enforced. We have a big programme to ensure that that happens. Community payback operates across the country, and there is more visible community punishment. My experience is that, when the public do not have a sense that community punishments are working, they do not have confidence that the system is on their side, so it is imperative that we ensure that the whole system works. We are determined to do that, and we are making significant progress in making that happen. Opposition Members talked about the possibility of 1 million offences being diverted from the justice system into more forms of summary justice. We estimate that the number of conditional cautions will be around 30,000 a year, which is a small proportion of the figure mentioned in the reports. It is dangerous to take information from reports in The Daily Telegraph. 9.45 amThe Government are looking at ways to process cases through the magistrates court system more effectively. Magistrates courts deal with a huge number of offences and when the custody plus provisions are introduced later in the year they will take on significant extra responsibility. Cases involving things such as TV licence fines, motoring offences, council tax arrears, can be batched together and dealt with more efficiently and effectively. Work is still in the fairly early stages, but we are considering how we might make that happen. I hope that that will have the support of all hon. Members: if we can free up magistrates’ time to deal with the cases that are contentious and have significant judicial impact, so much the better. Dealing with many cases is very much an administrative process, and if we can make the system work better we will do so. We will take a staged approach, however, because I am conscious of the need to ensure that the justice system is properly balanced between protecting the rights of the accused—until a person is found guilty he is not an offender—and the rights of the decent, law-abiding majority of people in this country. Rebalancing the criminal justice system in favour of victims and law-abiding people is something that we need to do and be seen to do. Column Number: 169 I emphasise that throughout the process, the person who has admitted their guilt has the right of access to free legal advice, so we are not talking about vulnerable people being coerced into accepting a caution against their will. We are talking about speedy, common-sense disposal of a case and making sure that bad behaviour does not go unpunished. I hope that that has the support of the whole of the Committee. We are taking a radical step, but the Government and the people involved should be congratulated on having the courage to deal with the issue. When cautions were introduced they were very useful. The proposed changes are the result of our experiences and of recommendations from the police, prosecutors and people involved in administering the schemes. We need to ensure that we have a variety of conditions that we can attach. There are safeguards in the fact that it will be the Crown Prosecution Service, not the police, exercising jurisdiction. There is proper guidance in place—the conditional cautioning code of practice was agreed by the House in 2004. The guidance sets out clearly the role of the Crown prosecutor in the process and the role of the police officers. Para 2.4 makes it absolutely clear that it is for the prosecutor to decide that a conditional caution is the right disposal and what conditions would be suitable. That has already been debated by the House. With those safeguards, the proposed arrangement should be a welcome, imaginative and creative addition to the way in which we can use our criminal justice system to protect both victims and the wider public. Nick Herbert: The Minister’s suggestion that we should consider not just the offenders or the courts, but the victims, is of course right—we must be mindful of the victims throughout our discussions on this Bill and others. The statement that there are victims suffering from antisocial behaviour and that the courts are too bureaucratic to deal with that serious problem could be used to justify any measure to try to shut the courts out, but it is not a sufficient argument in itself to justify any measure and it does not justify the measure that we are debating now. The question is whether the proposed measure strikes the right balance. It is never acceptable for Ministers to use such arguments, but they used precisely the same arguments in relation to the 90-day proposals for the detention of terrorists. The House rightly took a different view: we had to debate what number of days was right and not just accept the general principle that, because it was necessary to deal with terrorism, an extension was bound to be justified. The question is whether the measure is proportionate and whether there are sufficient safeguards in it. The Minister did not address my point people who can afford to pay will have the option of paying a lower fine, by way of the fixed penalty, than they might have received had they gone to court. The Minister conceded that by saying that the fines would be set at a lower level than if the matter were dealt with in court.
James Brokenshire: Does my hon. Friend agree that the system should be monitored continually and carefully to ensure that we do not end up in a situation where, for the sake of expediency, offenders are given a caution rather than taken through the full judicial process even where a tougher sentence might be more appropriate? The caution must not be overused. To ensure that justice and that the victims of crimes are properly served, offenders must continue be taken to court rather than handed conditional cautions. Nick Herbert: That is precisely my point. Justice will not be served if an offender can get away with a lower level of fine by way of a fixed penalty when that is not merited. Magistrates are no longer to make those decisions—they will not be able to exercise their judgment on the proper level of fine for such offenders because they are not to be involved in the process. The decisions are to be taken only by the police with prosecutors. The Minister said that the measure will free up magistrates’ time. One might, therefore, have expected the Magistrates Association to be terribly grateful for a measure to deal with the bureaucracy that confronts them, but they have not said that. Instead, they have expressed great concern about the fact that they are to be removed from the process altogether. That is a fundamental shift in the basis on which justice has been exercised in this country. I am grateful for the Minister’s clarification that the press report that I mentioned referred not to the introduction of punitive conditions in relation to cautions, but to potential future changes through which there may be a further extension of summary justice. We look forward to hearing those proposals. The Minister said that she expected us to welcome them, but we cannot know that until we have sight of them. It confirms—and we know this from the Prime Minister’s statements during news conferences and in the House—that a large change is under way which involves the appropriate level of punishment being decided, not by magistrates who are trained and qualified to make such decisions, but by prosecutors and the police. The only safeguard lies in the fact that the measure is voluntary—the offender can choose not to accept the fixed penalty and can opt to go to court. However, we must be concerned about those offenders who are less able to afford the possible fine or who find themselves coerced. By coerced, I mean that there is a serious danger that the police might overuse the measure to dispense summary justice and to deal with people they find troublesome, meaning that cases never reach court or, indeed, public attention. It may be true that this measure will make it easier to deal with antisocial behaviour, and we should take it seriously. However, it will also change the balance of
Mark Pritchard: The issue of coercion and confusion is most pertinent. Is my hon. Friend aware that some people, rather than go to court, have accepted cautions, which are then revealed by a Criminal Records Bureau check when they go for a teaching post, for example, although they were not told at the time that the caution would form part of a CRB check? At least six or seven people have told me that because they believed they were innocent they would have gone to court, but they did not want to go through that process and therefore settled for a caution; however, they would not have done so if they had known that it would have an impact on their livelihoods every day of the week. Nick Herbert: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that very good example of a situation in which people will settle for cautions that they might not otherwise have been willing to accept. If, as the Minister suggests, the processes that involve bringing people to court are over-bureaucratic, it behoves us to examine those process and to decide how cases can be speeded up. However, to shut magistrates courts out altogether is a much more radical option. I am grateful that we have had this opportunity to discuss the matter. Lynne Featherstone: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we are to accept the proposed shift in the way of dealing with some antisocial behaviour to admit the possibility of a swift reaction, there should be very strict auditing of the cases involved and the cautions and conditions that are applied? We would then be able to analyse those cases retrospectively to see whether what the Minister says will be applied is actually applied, and ensure that summary justice does not overstep the mark and apply in cases that should really go through the courts. Nick Herbert: The hon. Lady raises an interesting question: the extent to which it will be possible to scrutinise publicly how the cautions are exercised, because these cases will be almost private matters between the prosecutors, the police and the offender, whereas when a case is heard before a magistrates court it is a public matter. That is an interesting example of an element of scrutiny that we have not really discussed and to which the Minister might like to respond. There may be ways in which the exercise of the conditional cautions can be scrutinised. I am grateful for the opportunity to make wider points about the exercise of the conditional cautions. The whole House should watch the results of this measure and the process very carefully as the extension of summary justice is developed in the years ahead. Question put and agreed to. Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Column Number: 172 Clause 13 Arrest for failing to comply with conditional caution Nick Herbert: I beg to move amendment No. 147, in clause 13, page 9, line 28, leave out subsection (6). I tabled the amendment in response to a point made by the Magistrates Association about the operation of conditional cautions relating to the ability of the police to arrest someone without warrant and then to detain them while they are investigating a breach of the conditional caution, which is a power given in subsection (6). The Magistrates Association says that it gives the police greater power in dealing with a breach of the caution than the courts have in dealing with the breach of an order that they impose. It is questionable whether the police should be given such powers of detention and I wonder what safeguards there are in relation to the exercise of the power. For how long will the police be permitted to detain someone for a possible breach while they investigate the possibility—only the possibility—that a breach has occurred? That is an important question. 10 amWe must remember that the police will be able to exercise those powers of detention without any supervision by the courts. The courts will not have been involved at all. A conditional caution with a punitive element to it will have been imposed with the agreement of the offender. Once it is in operation, if the police believe that it has been breached, they can detain the offender for a period—I am waiting for the Minister to tell us how long that period might be—while they investigate it. I should be grateful if the Minister told us what safeguards will operate in the exercise of the power in question. Is the Magistrates Association’s concern a proper one? Is it right that the police should have greater powers in relation to breaches in such cases than magistrates do in relation to breaches of court orders? Michael Fabricant: I listened to the Minister speak on clause 12 and I understand and sympathise with her argument, because a considerable amount of poor behaviour, which needs to be controlled, goes on. I can imagine that clause 13(6) might apply in a case of someone with a can of paint for writing graffiti: the policeman holding that person might want to find out whether he was in breach of a conditional caution. However, I repeat the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs: surely there must be a time limit. I am sure that in practice it will be very quick. I imagine that the police officer will find out the name of the chap, or sometimes the lady, concerned, he will use his mobile phone and get a response within two or three minutes, and go on from there. However, things can go wrong. Let us suppose that for some reason the records are not accessible—say, the computer is down.
I seek reassurance from the Minister about how long detention would be in practice and what she would regard as an unreasonable time for which to detain a person in that way. If she makes that clear in Committee, we shall be reassured; we can be pretty clear in our minds that if the provisions are abused, lawyers will be able to quote from the Minister’s remarks in Committee Hansard and show that the spirit of the Act—if the Bill is enacted—has been broken. Hazel Blears: I hope that I can give hon. Members some reassurance. It is a matter of practicality, as the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) has outlined. The provision will often be used for a quick inquiry to ascertain whether conditions have been breached, so that the process can go ahead. It would be illogical if someone who had been arrested had to be released and rearrested so that the breach of the original condition could be dealt with. We are trying to get the balance right between a proper system with safeguards, checks and balances, and getting matters dealt with as quickly as possible. That is the imperative throughout the system. Subsection (6) specifies
When the detention becomes unnecessary for the purpose of those investigations it becomes unlawful. It is lawful only for as long as it is necessary for the carrying out of the inquiries. It would be unreasonable of me arbitrarily to suggest what I would regard as reasonable or necessary in any one of 100 different circumstances that could arise when the police had to carry out inquiries to establish whether a condition had been breached. The essence of the matter is that it relates to the specific case that a police officer is dealing with. As long as the detention is necessary to allow the inquiries to be carried out, the officer will be within the legal framework set out in the clause. Once the matter strays into an area where detention is no longer necessary, the detention will be unlawful, and open to challenge in a range of ways. Michael Fabricant: What the Minister says is reassuring, up to a point, but what about the scenario that I mentioned earlier, where a computer goes wrong, or the battery goes flat on the police officer’s wireless or radio control system? I can think of a series of scenarios in which things go wrong. It is right and proper that someone with a paint aerosol—the example that I gave earlier—should be held, but only up to a limit. How long will it be for—half a day, a day, two days? Surely some safeguard has to be built in. Column Number: 174 Hazel Blears: It would be difficult to put an arbitrary limit in the Bill because, as the hon. Gentleman knows, circumstances could vary enormously. We envisage a person being held for a relatively short period, to allow the police to carry out quick inquiries into whether the conditions had been breached. It would be a ridiculous state of affairs if the police had to release someone automatically and then rearrest them, when a quick phone call or a quick inquiry could ascertain whether the conditions had been breached in order for the original prosecution to be brought. It is a matter of practicality. I would not want the police to detain people for inordinately long periods in order to carry out inquiries. The safeguard is that the police must always be aware of this question: “Am I detaining this person for as long as necessary in order to carry out my inquiries?” That should act as a proper check and balance in the circumstances. I genuinely do not feel that putting one hour or two hours in the Bill would make it a good provision. Mark Pritchard: What, in the Minister’s view, is an unnecessary or inordinate period for which a person could be detained? Hazel Blears: If the inquiries have been carried out and the person is still detained, but not for the purpose of carrying out inquiries, that would not fall within the clause. The police have the authority to detain someone only for the period necessary for them to carry out their inquiries. It is inappropriate for me to speculate about the circumstances in which that might occur. The people making that judgment will be those involved at the time, in the context of the relevant circumstances. |
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