Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill

Public Bill Committee, 13 October 2011.

Clause 103 - Employment in prisons: deductions etc from payments to prisoners

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I beg to move amendment 412, in clause 103, page 81, line 1, leave out ‘may’ and insert ‘shall’.

Jim Sheridan (Labour, Paisley and Renfrewshire North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 413, in clause 103, page 81, line 4, at end insert—

‘(aa) for making payments for the benefit of any dependants of the offender;’.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

What a pleasure it is to see you in the Chair, Mr Sheridan, on what will be the last day of our consideration of the Bill in Committee—and what an interesting consideration it has been. We have had some good debates; we have had some bad-tempered debates. We have had the whole gamut of parliamentary behaviour in our proceedings. Opposition Members have certainly tried to scrutinise the Bill as well as they can within the time available.

The purpose of amendment 412 is to require the Government to clarify the regulations relating to prisoners’ earnings, as we believe that the policy needs clarification. Amendment 413 would ensure that prisoners’ earnings can be used for the benefit of their dependants, as well as for the other purposes set out under the Bill. Since prisoner work is a flagship policy of the Secretary of State, it is worth pointing out that 24,000 prisoners in England and Wales out of a population of 85,000 are already working—[Interruption.] Does the Minister want to intervene and tell me that that is the wrong figure? Does he want to tell me the right figure?

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The Minister will reply to the hon. Lady with a very precise figure, which is some way different from the figure that she has just given to the Committee.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Well, thousands of prisoners are working in prisons in England and Wales. Actually, I thought that the number that I gave was rather high; it comes from Policy Exchange—I know that Government Members are interested in and involved with that think tank.

Many prisoners already work on matters to enable prisons to function, including cleaning and working in waste disposal areas, but they also work on outside contracts. I have seen such work at Frankland, which has a good workshop in which furniture is made for Government contracts. Wormwood Scrubs has contracts with the private sector. It has a good scheme for learning how to mend shoes, as well as catering work. Although such work is a flagship policy of the Government, and we support them in their aim to increase the amount of work for prisoners, I do not want Government Members to deceive themselves by thinking that it is a new policy or a particular innovation.

Kate Green (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Does my hon. Friend agree that, given that the measure was presented, at least by the Government, as a flagship policy, it is regrettable that there has been little sign of specific attention being paid to the employment of women offenders, who are under-represented in accessing suitable employment while in custody?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In fact, I have not heard Ministers say anything about the employment of women offenders. I hope that they will correct that omission this morning, given that it is obviously just as important that women have the same working opportunities as men.

I have also noticed that the Secretary of State has rowed back somewhat from his ambitious claims about the extent to which the number of working prisoners can be increased in a short time. We now have more realistic and meaningful targets. However, we have several questions about how the system will work in practice and we believe that a number of issues are unresolved, some of which I hope the Minister can clarify.

Is there space and equipment in prisons for such a policy to be undertaken? Many prisons are on inner-city sites and are extremely crowded already. Space that has been used for exercise or gardens has now been built on, so there is less of it. The Government have restricted their room for manoeuvre by cutting the prison building programme, which will make the policy more difficult to handle. Moreover, if they are serious about prisoners working a 40-hour week, there is an issue about whether we need more staff in prisons to manage the policy as it will not fit in with the current shift patterns of prison officers. We need information about such matters.

Where the work comes from will raise several problems. Will it be unfair competition to companies outside? I shall give a particular example that bothers me: prisoners often undertake work such as packing plastic kit things for aeroplanes.

Andrew Slaughter (Labour, Hammersmith)

Headphones.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Such work is often done in Remploy factories throughout the country. The Government have renewed their attack on Remploy. Is it fair that people with disabilities who have not committed crimes and who work in Remploy factories find the economics of their work undermined because work is being diverted into prisons? That is the sort of hard moral dilemma that the Minister needs to address. We also want to know how the money will be used.

I have received an interesting set of detailed questions from the Prison Officers Association, which—like the Opposition—has no objection to the introduction of a 40-hour week, and I hope that the Minister can enlighten the Committee about such issues. Which categories of prisoners will have access to work? From where will the capital investment come? How will the scheme be financed? What will be the implications for the safety, security and decency agenda in prisons? The association is worried that that might be put at risk.

I should also be grateful if the Minister would explain in detail whether prisoners will be required to do such work or whether they will they be given a choice, because there is a human rights issue about the use of enforced labour, which is an obvious problem. We want prisoners to work and we want some discipline in the system, but we do not want a Soviet gulag system. That issue is not straightforward, so I hope that the Minister will say something about it.

How will the proposal fit with the changes to the benefits system and the requirement for the unemployed to find work or lose benefits? How will it fit with the Work programme, which the Department for Work and Pensions is introducing? What level of wage will prisoners be paid? The clause states that prisoners’ money can be used

“for the benefit of victims or communities”

or for their own rehabilitation, but it is unclear whether the money may also be used for prisoners’ upkeep. What will the policy mean for their entitlements to, for example, free prescriptions and free dental care?

Will the policy create unfair competition for factories in the external world? How much of the work do Ministers envisage will be done inside the prison and how much will be done by category C prisoners, for example, outside the prison?

How will the policy affect education, rehabilitation and attendance at offending behaviour courses? That question is particularly significant for younger prisoners. It is good to have the discipline of work, but it is also important that people should learn. If people in prison cannot read, they need to learn to read and should be given such an opportunity because, even though they might get into a good pattern of working, if they cannot read they will not be able to obtain a job once they go outside again. Nowadays, people need to be able to read to get a job. The issue of skills is therefore important, as is that of attendance at offending behaviour courses, because people must address whatever caused them to offend in the first place.

We should try to get the balance right. We have heard many statements, designed—not entirely successfully—to promote a tough image of the Justice team, about how so many prisoners will be working, slaving away for 40 hours a week, which is probably not what Ministers really expect and is anyway unrealistic. It would be helpful if the Minister addressed those issues. We have tabled the may/shall amendment because we should be clearer at the outset about how the policy will work, rather than there being massive discretion.

Amendment 413 would insert the phrase,

“for making payments for the benefit of any dependants of the offender”.

I tabled it because there is a genuine dilemma; thinking about how the money should be used is not straightforward. As we all agreed when we discussed the clauses about compensation in September, prisoners owe a duty to the community and to their victim and they must make recompense for that, but we also want them to accept their family responsibilities, because if they have such responsibilities they should carry them out. Furthermore, in practice, family relationships are particularly important to people’s realisation that they need to change their behaviour. Therefore, if we can strengthen people’s relationships with their families, that may be a more powerful way to motivate them to improve their behaviour.

There is no straightforward answer. I do not think one can say, “Families are always the priority” or “Victims are always the priority”. It is genuinely tricky, but I am a little concerned that families and dependants do not get a look in. That is a mistake and the Bill should be amended so that that is taken on board.

The voluntary sector has raised concerns about how the Government propose to allocate money for victims. I understand that 100% of the new levy on net earnings of prisoners will go to the Victim Support charity. Can the Minister confirm whether that is the case? If so, can he justify it, because there are many other organisations that do good work in supporting victims? They cover particular classes of victims for whom Victim Support does not currently have specialist experience. For example, Support after Murder and Manslaughter, Rape Crisis and Action after Fatal Domestic Abuse.

If all the money goes to Victim Support, it raises another question, which is whether this falls foul of the EU commissioning regulations on contracts with the Government. If money is simply allocated to Victim Support, it raises the question of fair competition.

Finally, can the Minister confirm whether the Secretary of State told Victim Support that it could have the money provided it stopped all campaigning work? If true, it is very concerning and it comes back to the discussion that we had in September. We want to have partnerships with the voluntary sector. We all know that the voluntary sector is good at some things, but we do not want to put it into a box where it works silently. We need to hear from it and to learn from its experience. If what I have been told is true, I will be alarmed, so I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us this morning that it is not the case.

Kate Green (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Good morning, Mr Sheridan. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair.

I support the Government’s wish to increase the amount of work in prison, which is a hugely important aspect of the rehabilitative approach. It can contribute significantly to reducing reoffending if it is followed through outside the prison when the prisoner is released. I also support the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland. I agree that we already have a degree of working in prisons. Many thousands of prisoners are already involved, although many of them work relatively short hours in the week, and I am sure that is one of the concerns that the Minister seeks to address with the ambitions that the Government now have. However, as my hon. Friend says, it is difficult to accommodate full-time or near full-time working for the majority of prisoners within our prison estate.

I visited Manchester prison in the summer. It is a very large prison serving the north of England and has some excellent programmes for prisoner employment. It runs a print shop that has a number of substantial print contracts, including one for the Ministry of Justice. It may have printed the Bill for all I know. If so, it did a very good job. The prison also runs a commercial laundry and a substantial and expanding waste disposal business. Even so, it is able to give employment experience and activity to only a very small proportion of prisoners. I understand that is not full-time employment or, if it is, only in a small minority of cases. The Minister must offer a sense of direction of travel towards a 40-hour week for serving prisoners. Over what time scale do the Government intend to achieve that objective, and what proportion of prisoners do they aim to have ultimately engaged in such work?

Secondly, in an intervention on my hon. Friend, I raised my concern about suitable programmes of employment for women in prison. There is very little provision for women to undertake meaningful employment in our prisons. In the women’s prisons I have visited I observed a low level of ambition and energy for preparing women for release. It is regrettable that the Government have decided not to continue with the role of a champion for women in prisons. This is exactly the kind of thing that a champion for women in prisons could have looked at: identifying how work opportunities suited to the needs and circumstances of women in custody could be created. If we cannot look to that role to develop those opportunities, I would be interested to hear the Government’s thinking on the employment of women in prison. I have repeatedly asked the question in every possible forum, including Justice questions, but I have never had a specific answer.

My third question relates to another point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland: the Government’s intentions regarding the obligation on prisoners to participate in work where it is available. Is it intended to have a different conditionality regime? Obviously the sanctions will have to be different, as we will not be able to sanction benefits. Will there be a different conditionality regime regarding the obligation to work for those obviously not serving custodial sentences, given that Ministers now intend to manage prisoner employment in the context of the Work programme?

I also echo my hon. Friend’s questions about the application of prisoners’ earnings. How much does the Minister intend prisoners to earn? Will it be at the currently relatively low level of hardly a living wage? Or, if this is to be meaningful, realistic, real-life employment, is there an aspiration to offer real-life wages—national minimum wage rates—in future? Is it intended that prisoners should become liable for tax and national insurance? They would have to be working extensive hours and have a private income, I suspect, to fall within the tax bracket, but I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s views.

My hon. Friend asked whether running costs for the prison are to be met to a degree from the profits of prisoner labour. In Manchester, due to the commercial success of the industries run in the prison, the governor is able to reinvest the derived income in other prison programmes and activities. That is a hugely important benefit for Manchester prison. If many more prisoners work and generate income within the prison estate, is it intended that some earnings will be reinvested in more and better programmes for prisoners?

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

On the point about how the money is distributed, it looks as though it will have to go a long way. Does my hon. Friend agree that the proportion supposed to be allocated to victims ought to be distributed across the different organisations that assist victims, rather than just Victim Support?

Kate Green (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I am certainly not going to decry the excellent work of Victim Support. Ministers must run a proper process for procuring, commissioning and inviting grant applications. Whatever the distribution mechanism, it must be fair and transparent. Like my hon. Friends the Members for Bishop Auckland and for Stockton North, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s proposed process for distributing money to organisations that work with victims.

In addition to money for victims, there is the opportunity, as the amendment would provide, to direct some of the money to family members, to dependants. I echo the thoughts of my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland: that could be incredibly valuable in preparing the prisoner for reintegration and resettlement. We know that a prisoner released to a stable family environment faces a greater chance of not being involved in further offending. Cementing that family relationship by directing money to family members outside the prison, perhaps the mother of the prisoner’s children, could be an important way of strengthening that link.

Finally, I want to ask the Minister about the fact that the Work programme is to be knitted into the development of prisoner working. I have asked questions about that over the past few months and I am glad that we are beginning to get more certainty from Ministers that they want to follow that route. Will there be seamlessness so that Work programme providers working within prisons are the same providers who meet and deal with the prisoners on release? It may be difficult if prisoners are released quite far from the prison—if their home is many miles away—and the Work programme providers in their home location are different. How will the handover happen? I would be grateful if the Minister told us what thinking has gone into that.

Will the same kind of careful planning on long-term employability prospects be carried out for individual prisoners by Work programme providers in prisons? They might say that the right thing for a prisoner was not necessarily work, or not full-time work, but spending time gaining qualifications that could improve their employment prospects on release. There is a very significant difference in future earning potential between a basic level qualification and a level 2 or 3 qualification. Prisoners who are less worried about their material circumstances are less likely to reoffend. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland asked, what is the Minister’s intention on access to the ability to obtain work-related qualifications as part of the development of the Work programme in our prison estate?

Do the Government intend Work programme providers to be able to choose to subcontract to the probation service or the Prison Service? The probation service in Greater Manchester subcontracts work, but it runs excellent employment programmes itself for prisoners following release, or for those on community programmes. In my constituency, I have seen some terrific programmes that the Prison Service arranges in collaboration with partners such as the local housing trust. They give prisoners on release full-time, real-life work experience for up to six months, but sadly at the end of six months many of those men lose that employment and there is nothing else for them in the current jobs market. None the less, if the probation service is already running good programmes of real-life work experience, as it is in Greater Manchester, will Work programme providers be able to subcontract to the probation service so that that good provision can continue?

I warn the Minister that I have looked at the Work programme carefully over the months since its introduction—I would describe myself as something of a Work programme junkie. The mainstream—outside prisons—Work programme contracting process has left gaps and difficulties for subcontracting providers while the prime contractors sort out how and to whom they will subcontract and when the contracts will be in place. It would be regrettable if we went through a similar experience in subcontracting Work programme provision in prison and as prisoners leave prison. Can the Minister reassure me that the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Work and Pensions will undertake detailed work to learn the lessons from the original round of Work programme contracting and apply them appropriately in the penal system?

My colleagues and I are very interested in the direction of travel that the Government are taking. We support it. We want more prisoners undertaking good quality, meaningful work, but there is a great deal of detail to work through and there is no point in setting off on the path in a half-baked way. I would welcome hearing where the Government’s thinking is on the detailed plans for delivery of a laudable objective. I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the debate this morning.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The entire issue of work in prison has been raised rather than the specific details of the amendments, so I will speak to the whole agenda, as the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston has done. I am delighted to have the opportunity to do so. I welcome her enthusiasm and the commitment of the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland to our objectives. Getting more effective work for more prisoners is an objective that everybody shares.

The hon. Members for Bishop Auckland and for Stretford and Urmston have raised a significant number of practical challenges, so it may take me some time to address all their points. One of my personal priorities as prisons Minister is to get this agenda under way in precisely the manner expressed by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston. She made it clear that the agenda cannot be implemented in a half-baked fashion; all the problems have to be properly thought through. I am happy to go on the record by telling the Committee where we are on delivering work in prisons to scale. My answers to the questions asked by the two hon. Ladies will make that clear.

The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland said that the Secretary of State is rowing back from the initial claims about where we will get to on work in prisons. The Secretary of State has done no such thing, and neither have I. We are both extremely conscious of how difficult it will be to get the agenda to scale, and of how important it is to do so, which is why we have to get it right.

The hon. Lady raised a number of questions, some her own and some from the Prison Officers Association, but I will start by painting the picture that we face. At the beginning of her remarks, the hon. Lady referred to 24,000 working prisoners. The actual number working in our prisons today is some 9,000, but I understand that the figure excludes prisoners engaged in maintenance and cleaning. Very few of those 9,000 prisoners are actually engaged in something that might be described as commercial or economic work. Work in our prisons is usually one of the more effective programmes available to prisoners, but, in most cases, it is a cost centre for the Prison Service, rather than a profit centre.

People who tour prison workshops, as I have over the past 18 months, will be shown what is called work, but, to my recollection, I have seen only one workshop in which workers were clearly engaged in a proper commercial operation, in which the workers’ interests were tied to the success of the business and where the workers were cutting around the workshop in a fashion that showed that, frankly, the visit of the Minister for prisons was a diversion they could well do without because there would be some effect on productivity if the interruption continued for too long. That workshop is in Kirkham prison, and the reason why it is managed in that way, and has such a commercial focus, is that an outside investor has invested hundreds of thousands of pounds in a production line in a reused factory building or aircraft hangar within the grounds of Kirkham, which is an open prison. The business repackages food, which is imported in pallets from overseas, so that it is suitable to be resold in shops and small stores, principally in the north-west. The business is highly successful, and the prisoners are incentivised to work, so they are highly committed to the process. But that is an all too rare example of an actual business in our prisons that produces not only a return for the business owner, but an income stream for the institution.

That is where we need to take prison work. We have to take it in that direction because we have no choice; we cannot fund prison work as a programme. It cannot be a cost centre in the current circumstances because we will not be able to take it to scale. That presents us with a challenge because to move from 9,000 of our 85,000 prisoners employed to some degree to many more tens of thousands effectively employed in our prisons, and to reach the scale where they generate a commercial return, requires a profound change in the approach to the organisation of our prison estate. All the hon. Lady’s questions flow from that point.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Of course, if we exclude people working on maintenance, upkeep and cleaning, the number is 9,000. Will the Minister confirm a report in the Financial Times that the Secretary of State’s aim is to increase the number to 10,000 by 2015 and to 20,000 by 2020? If that is the case, between the last general election in 2010 and the next, there will be an increase of 1,000. It may be an improvement, but it is not impressive and not at all commensurate with the rhetoric we have heard.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

That argument assumes that we have 9,000 people employed in commercial work now, which we do not. I have probably seen the one example of serious commercial work in prisons. As the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said, there are examples from Manchester and elsewhere, but I have not seen all of them, nor do I know how many are commercial. I would have thought, however, that rather fewer than 500 of that 9,000 are actually engaged in something commercial. About 500 category D prisoners work outside prisons on temporary licence, and they go back to prison each night. The requirements of the Prisoners’ Earnings Act 1996 now apply to them, but I will come back to that point later. The hon. Lady should see the target in terms of getting 10,000 prisoners working in a rather different way.

The target is only an indication, frankly. At this stage, it can only be a set of aspirations. We face significant challenges to get this to scale and I want to take it as far as possible. First, we need to get society as a whole signed up to the fact that it is a good idea for prisoners to work usefully in our prisons. The Secretary of State announced that approach in October last year. It received a warm welcome, and I am delighted that the Opposition have made clear their support for the scale of our ambition. Now, we have to engage the CBI, the TUC, and everyone else involved in issues relating to unfair competition coming out of prisons. We need to make sure that, in the first instance, the CBI thinks it is a good idea that its businesses on the outside can be competed against by businesses and prisoners working on the inside. Its position appears to be that yes, it is.

Then, we have to address the issue of what fair competition from people working in a prison is. Let me be clear that prisoners will not be employed in prison by a business in the same way as people outside. If prisoners were employed on the inside subject to employment regulation, minimum wage and everything else, employers could kiss goodbye to any prospect of running a business inside a jail almost from the start. No business would be able to carry the cost of running itself inside a prison, with all the additional costs that that implies, and then be subject to such things as minimum wage, or producing a wage for prisoners.

On a recent visit to the United States I saw some examples where it is insisted that prisoners are paid. Deductions towards the cost of running the prison and towards the prisoners’ upkeep are then made from the wages, until eventually prisoners end up with 10% or 20% of the notional money that they would receive in the 90th percentile of the average pay in that industry. There is also a complicated agreement with trade unions, and so on, about the average pay for the particular business that is being carried out in the jails. I do not want to go there, however, because it is far too complicated and regulatory, and has resulted in the scale of work in the federal prison system in the United States being now only about 15,000 prisoners out of, I think, 250,000. When that system was set up in the 1930s, the federal Government was mandated to buy anything produced by the federal prison system. If the federal prison produced something, the federal Government was supposed to purchase it, but that has not worked to the scale that was designed when the scheme was set up. I have been to the United States specifically to look at work in prisons, and to identify what does not work and the policy obstacles that prevent putting such a system in place and bringing it to scale.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I agree that it is good for prisoners to have useful work while doing their time. The Howard League is very much in favour of that, too, subject to some of the qualifications already discussed. During visits to various prisons with the Justice Committee, I have seen good work going on in workshops that teach young people skills. Do I detect from the Minister that such workshops will be expanded, because that is part and parcel of the approach, too?

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Let me give the right hon. Gentleman and the Committee my vision. We want tens of thousands of prisoners to be working productively in our prisons. For that to happen, they must want to get to the working part of the prison or prison estate. If the scheme is to work properly, prisoners must wish to engage in it and must regard it as something that will make their time in prison more productive and useful to them. Putting the question of money to one side, prisoners will spend their time in prison being taught skills and being trained in some form of service or production. Such training will provide them with a good CV, and they will be skilled up, with experience of working in a particular business.

On that basis alone, prisoners should want to get to that place, and it will be a much more interesting way for them to spend their time in prison than is the experience of most prisoners at present. Everything I have seen from round the world demonstrates that if such a system existed, it would act as a magnet to attract prisoners to that part of the estate.

That brings us to the matter of learning—basic literacy and numeracy—offending behaviour programmes and the addiction issues that the system must address. Prisoners must attend to those matters before they can get to the part of the prison estate where there is work. People must complete their offending behaviour programmes and must deal with the lack of basic literacy and numeracy skills that results in their being unable to be effective members of society—let alone effective members of a production team in a prison. They must also address their health problems, principally those relating to addiction, so that they are clean before they reach the working part of the prison estate. That is the broad concept.

The measure would apply to all categories of prisoner; there is no reason why any particular category should be exempt. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland has visited Frankland, which is a category A prison. It carries out some of the most effective work in prisons, producing furniture for the Government. Indeed, the new headquarters of the National Offender Management Service has been decked out in furniture made in Her Majesty’s Prison Frankland, as one would expect.

How do we set up such businesses? No capital expenditure budget is at Her Majesty’s disposal because all the money has gone, so we must find a new source to invest in prison workshop capacity to enable prisoners to work. That will come in two ways. Our intention is to turn the current prison industries directorate in NOMS into a trading fund. It could be similar to the system in the United States, where Federal Prison Industries is run as a trading fund, which turns a profit. It might not have turned a profit in the past year or two, but it has funds at its disposal and it is meant to generate a return.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

That is fine as far as it goes, but I want to caution the Minister. It would be acceptable as long as he can ensure that the trading fund is subject to freedom of information, proper accountability and National Audit Office scrutiny. We are beginning to develop areas of work within the public sector that are not properly accountable. I hope that this proposal will not turn out to be another one.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. If there are issues about fair and unfair competition in that area, the finances of those businesses must be transparent.

Kate Green (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I am very interested in the trading fund. Can the Minister give us any sense of the likely scale of the fund, and whether it will have access to borrowing?

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

All those points are being considered and addressed. There are difficult questions to do with the fund being within the public sector and the National Offender Management Service, such as the level of independence it can be given, and they are being worked through. Our seriousness about the proposals is reinforced by those who came out in support of the Justice Secretary’s statement; there happened to be a letter in the Financial Times on the Tuesday during the party conference, which was clearly designed to co-ordinate properly with a further statement of our determination to deliver the proposed changes. The letter was signed by people such as the chief executives of Marks and Spencer, Virgin, Compass Group, Reed, Iceland Foods, Timpson—

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

And National Grid.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Indeed. National Grid is giving its support. I am also pleased to have my own advisory group working on the plans with me. It includes people such as the chairman of Ford, the director of human resources at Unilever, the chairman of the Prison Officers Association and the chairman of the Prison Governors Association, the managing director of Amaryllis, which currently does this business in prisons, James Timpson, who runs training programmes in prisons, a couple of social investors and social entrepreneurs and the appropriate policy lead in the CBI. If that group cannot assist me and the Department in constructing a proposal that works, I do not think that there is another group in the country who can. That gives the Committee an example of our determination.

We have engaged Deloitte to give advice to the prison industries directorate within NOMS on the detail of the kind of questions that the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston asked, such as how the trading fund will work. Even in the current climate, when consultancy is much more difficult to obtain, we have identified that as a sufficient priority for us to get outside help. At one level business will be secured by a prison industries training fund, and whatever industrial capacity is available in current prisons will be used. Major contracts will be delivered across a number of different prisons.

I also want to work from the bottom up. I want to put in place a framework, or a code of practice, so that individual institutions and individual prison governors will know what arrangements they can make with individual businesses to come into their prison to create the capital investment—the workshop—where prisoners will work, and so that they know how much return they will be entitled to on the investment they make inside the prison. How will the commercials function? As long as we do not burden the system at the beginning with demands for the minimum wage or a full notional return on the prisoner labour, we shall have serious flexibility to enable the businesses to function. A key thing is that the businesses will have to carry the cost of the additional staff and the extra costs of running the regime in prisons.

As the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland and other hon. Members who are familiar with the core prison week will know, it is tricky to run a business if the prisoners come off the landings at 8.30 in the morning, are taken to what they now do as work and then at 11 o’clock are taken back from their work site to the landings to have their lunch. Then the prison officers have their lunch. Then the prisoners are released from their cells in the afternoon and taken back to their place of work. At 4.30 they go back to the landings. That is how the core week works. With that arrangement there are five hours of work, if we are lucky, as a maximum. If one was running a business on that basis, most people would see that there was a bit of a handicap even before they began.

The regime will have to change. There will almost certainly need to be additional staff or a different way of running the regime, however it happens. We cannot lose the aspect that the hon. Lady asked about on behalf of the Prisoner Officers Association: the safety, security and decency agenda. All those things have to be sustained, but instead of the current system, with work levered into the prison system so that it does not interfere with the security arrangements, we would be better off building the security around the work. We obviously have to achieve the same level of security, but if the investment is there and the businesses are generating the resources, it creates the opportunity to have a slightly more expensive security regime, to enable prisoners’ time to be used more productively.

Kate Green (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

I am following what the Minister is saying with great interest. I hope that he will consider—I am sure he will—where some of those flexibilities are already being applied successfully. In Manchester prison, which is a public sector prison where the businesses are being run by prison industries, not by external companies—although I may be wrong about that—they have managed to adapt the prison regime so that prisoners can spend the day in the work setting. I hope that the Minister will assure me that he will look at examples that are working already. Does he intend that the expansion of prison working will come only from commercial businesses? There is still potential to expand some of our successful inside-prison industries too.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The hon. Lady is right. We want to expand the scheme in every way. There is no reason why the existing prison industry cannot do that, run through the prison industries directorate, although there needs to be a minor change of direction so that it is far more commercial about running those businesses. The focus needs to be less on them being a highly effective programme in the prison, and more on them being commercial. It would not be much of a change in direction for the businesses if there was much more focus on marketing and the markets they serve, thereby affecting their return. I agree with the hon. Lady. There is no reason why that should not happen.

Of course, all this stuff happens in bits, particularly in prisons where good governors have forced the issue within their institutions and used the flexibilities available to them. I sometimes find that there are particularly good governors in the prison system who are going beyond; they are taking themselves into a slightly difficult area. They are not quite sure of the rules, but they will push the boundaries to achieve objectives. I want to support them by giving them a much clearer code of practice, so that individual governors know exactly what deal they can offer. However, if we are going into commercial relationships with businesses making a proper return, the arrangements will have to be transparent and clear to everyone—not least if that leads to challenges about what is fair or unfair competition from a business run in a prison.

Of course, we can require prisoners to work under the law as it stands, but such businesses will not function well as commercial entities if the prisoners do not want to be engaged and are not committed to their success. In the construction of the scheme, prisoners must want to get to those places and work there if the concept is to succeed. There will be plenty of other things that we can require prisoners to do, such as wing cleaning, maintenance and everything else, which are not related to the commercial viability of the enterprises that I have been discussing.

Ben Gummer (Conservative, Ipswich)

It is gratifying to see harmony breaking out on the last day of the Committee. I have a question to which I do not particularly want to know the answer. It made me wince, but it will be brought up at some point.

Many of us are conscious of a problem that faces prisoners who have completed their licence. They have reformed and they want to work, but it is difficult for them to find a job because there is a gap in their CV. It is not that they do not have to explain it, but when they turn up before an employer and there is a gap in their CV it suggests either long-term unemployment or a prison sentence. If that gap is now filled with work for the majority of the sentence, will the prisoner be required to declare their imprisonment during that period of work?

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Not that I am aware of, but when prisoners undertake education programmes, either under the auspices of the probation service or the Prison Service, the certificates do not make clear that they were obtained in prison. One of the big benefits is the creation of a functioning CV with a set of skills and work experience, and to say that that was acquired in HMP Manchester or anywhere else would probably negate its benefits. My hon. Friend is quite right to draw attention to that issue.

Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat, Carshalton and Wallington)

First, on competition, if the Government are not going down the route of, for example, paying someone an industry-comparable salary, they will have to use other measures. Can the Minister give us more detail about how we could ensure true competition?

Secondly, will we ever be in a situation where a decision will have to be made about whether we want to ensure that such businesses are truly competitive or whether they should provide employment for the full number of prisoners that we want to provide full employment for?

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The latter option is precluded because we do not have any money. The businesses have to make a return, so if we say that the objective is a full programme of employment, it will end up as a cost centre for us, and there are no additional funds. Therefore, we must find creative ways of getting investment into the programme so that it works. If it is commercial and economic, it is sustainable. There is then a proper business, and—guess what?—the prisoners taking part in it will have a real interest in that business continuing to succeed.

We are obviously now wrestling with the issues, and this is where we need advice from corporate United Kingdom as to what is fair competition for a business coming out of a prison. That is why engagement with the CBI and the TUC will be extremely important, so that corporate Britain signs up to the concept and there is a basic set of rules as to the definition of fair competition. Rather than us setting a notional rate of pay, we will need to get a point where each business can generate extra funds once there is a proper return on the business owner’s investment. Once the extra costs of managing the prison are taken into account, the profit that the business makes is the return on the prisoner labour.

That return will go in three directions. The first is to the prisoner, as now. There is no change to the overall scope of the prisoner allowance as it is paid now. I do not want as a matter of policy to start inflating the amount of money kicking around inside prisons. So the prisoner allowance will be paid, as now, £10 to £20 a week for the kind of work that is going on. That is what I envisage, but again, we are in the policy development phase. The rest of the funds will go in two directions. One is to victims. It is an absolute priority that prisoners’ work is seen to service the victims of crime. It will not be possible to establish a relationship between individual prisoners and their victims, so this will be to help fund the victim services that are funded by the Ministry of Justice. That is a critical component. There has to be a return to victims in this, otherwise, quite understandably, the public will have questions about its acceptability.

The third element will go towards the rehabilitation of the prisoner. We are some way off coming to the detail of that, which is why I am not in a position to accept the hon. Lady’s amendments. This is probably more difficult to construct than the other elements of the return. It would be perfectly proper to say that it could be money for dependants outside. It could also go into a fund that prisoners could draw on when they are released. If they were going on a skills programme, for example, they could immediately draw on those funds to pay for their own education and training. It could be put aside as a fund that they would receive if they did not reoffend for two years. It would be their money, as they had earned it, but it would be held out against their good behaviour on release from prison.

There are several different ways that we could do this and I am in the market for good ideas. Obviously the hon. Lady’s amendment is one good idea. This is the kind of detail that needs to be brought forward in secondary legislation and that is what we will do. We are at the policy-making phase. We are examining how it will work and exactly what the right framework would be. I have dealt with the wage level, unfair competition and whether this is inside or outside prison. I hope that we can expand the scope of category D prisoners working outside prisons. One of the interesting things I saw in the United States was a construction team based in what was effectively an open prison going out to work in particular villages and communities in Georgia. It worked rather well as a concept.

Those who work outside prisons are currently employed by someone outside and return to prison every day. The Prisoners’ Earnings Act now applies to them and we are going to take 40% of the income they earn. Currently, they have lucked out. They have a job outside and their board and lodgings are provided by Her Majesty. We will now take some of the money they earn and put it towards victims. One of the statutory requirements of the Prisoners Earnings’ Act is that we nominate the organisation to which the money goes. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland asked me why it was Victim Support. I thought that, because it is the first time we have done this, it was probably appropriate to give it to an organisation that is generic for victims. It happens to be the largest victim services organisation and it provides the widest range of services. There was a temptation to use the sum of money involved—about £1 million—for one particular cause. It could be Support after Murder and Manslaughter, or Rape Crisis. It would obviously make a substantial difference to organisations of that size, but I thought that was the wrong approach. This is first of class. Hopefully, the Prisoners Earnings’ Act will be overtaken by the Bill if the Committee and other Members of Parliament so decide. It will mean that the current operation of the Act is temporary, which is why I decided that Victim Support had made the clearest statement about the policy. It is about victims. The biggest victim support organisation will be involved, and we are absolutely confident that our decision complies completely with the appropriate EU regulations.

I have argued that people have to undertake education training programmes before they are involved in prison work, and I come now to the extremely important question about women in prisons and whether there should be a women’s champion. Frankly, I see myself as the champion for women prisoners in exactly the same way as I have to be the champion for all my responsibilities. It is important that women in prisons have the same access to the programme as men in prisons.

I hope that there will be opportunities for industries that are particularly suitable for women’s prisons. Women will have the same priority as men. It will be a big bonus if we can get the programme away to scale for women as it is for men. I cannot say to the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland that women will be a bigger priority than men. They will have the same priority as male prisoners under the policy for work in prisons, not least because the work is not designed to be a programme. It will be commercial and have rehabilitative effects for men and women, and give them the free good that comes off the back of such work.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

The Minister’s comments are reasonable. I am not criticising him, but, of necessity, the work done by prisoners will have to be work that can be done without client contact. In the modern economy, many jobs and more especially women’s jobs in the service sector involve such contact. I am making a constructive point: people must learn skills that can be used in the economy as it is now, not as it was 15 years ago.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The hon. Lady is right. I shall have to look at client contact, and whether prisoners can help market the business with narrowly controlled access to internet sites. We shall have to deal with all such issues, possibly case by case and as the business develops. It is plainly good for prisoners to be involved in the whole of the business, from its management to the production of services, because that will make it easier for the business to function. If discrete functions have to be carried on outside prison on a commercial basis, that will be another on-cost to running a business on two sites, something that we want to avoid.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston raised a detailed issue about whether the Work programme can be subcontracted to the probation service or the Prison Service. I shall follow up that extremely interesting point. I am certainly sympathetic to it. I shall also consider carefully the offender stream within the Work programme. It could be of profound benefit, and sit separately from the provisions under the Bill. The hon. Lady also raised the issue of how prisoners might start working with a Work programme provider who is embedded in a prison and then be transferred to a different provider if, once they are discharged, their home is some way from the prison. Those practical issues have to be addressed, and the hon. Lady has made perfectly good points about some of the practical challenges.

Kate Green (Labour, Stretford and Urmston)

Another challenge will be the level of remuneration received by the Work programme provider for working with prisoners, because the programme has different levels of payment depending on the scale of the distance from the labour market. I am sure that the Minister will want to explore that matter with the Department for Work and Pensions, too.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

We are doing so. Some 60% of prisoners arrive in prison with a history of recent drug use, if not a deeply embedded addiction habit. If providers take a drug-addicted prisoner and turn him into a tax- paying employee, the scale of benefit to society is fairly straightforward. Those factors are therefore unlikely to be scored at the bottom end of the Work programme reward strategy.

I will leave the point raised by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland about Remploy to one side—[Interruption.]—because she will not like the answer, and I want to keep intact the good humour and supportive nature of this debate.

Finally, it is appropriate to finish with a point about victims. The hon. Lady asked whether dependants or victims will be taken together. No, they will not—victims come first. In the end, the strategy has to focus on victims of crime, which it will do in two ways. First, the prisoner’s work will generate money for services for victims of crime. Secondly, free good will come out of the process: if men and women return to the community from prison having engaged in work and acquired the skills associated with work, they are much more likely to be rehabilitated and much less likely to create future victims of crime. Those two benefits should be the priorities behind the entire programme.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

That was an interesting debate. Let me take the Minister back to the beginning of the Committee proceedings, when we heard evidence that the Bill was not, strictly speaking, necessary. I am not sure whether the Bill is necessary to fulfil the Minister’s aspirations, but I believe that the Government’s rhetoric about how much progress they will make in the next three to four years will not be realised in the form of a rapid expansion of the project. However, I entirely accept that the Minister is thinking seriously about the many dimensions of the problems that will arise—we agree that we should make progress on such an important matter—and that it will be possible to reconsider the detail when the Minister presents the regulations to the House. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I beg to move amendment 387, in clause 103, page 82, line 9, at end insert—

‘( ) In section 127(6) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (inducements to prison officers to contravene prison rules: meaning of “prison rules”), after “section 47” insert “or 47A”.’.

Jim Sheridan (Labour, Paisley and Renfrewshire North)

With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment 388.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Amendment 387 will update section 127(6) of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which makes it unlawful, although not a crime, to induce a prison officer to commit a breach of discipline, including a failure to perform a duty under, or the contravention of, the rules set out in section 47 of the Prison Act 1952. The amendment would ensure that the provision will apply in respect of rules made under proposed new section 47A, which will be introduced by clause 103, as it does to rules made under current section 47.

Amendment 388 would update section 45(2) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, under which a prisoner in England and Wales does not qualify for the national minimum wage for work done in pursuance of rules under section 47 of the Prison Act. Like amendment 387, it would update the provision to refer to both section 47 and proposed new section 47A, thereby ensuring that the exemption applied to work done in pursuance of rules made under both proposed new section 47A and existing section 47.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

The Minister’s explanation prompts a question: what is the position at the moment with respect to prison officers releasing unauthorised information about prisoners? Will the Minister remind the Committee of that?

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

On the precise detail of what disciplinary processes would be applied in such circumstances, I will need to write to the hon. Lady. I propose to write to her rather than detain the Committee, unless there is an indication of interest from the rest of the Committee. The release of unauthorised information would plainly be wrong. I assume that that would be a disciplinary or, indeed, a criminal offence.

Clause 105 - Transit of prisoners

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I beg to move amendment 414, in clause 105, page 85, line 38, at end insert—

(a) The Secretary of State shall not exercise his powers under sections 6A, 6B and 6C of the Repatriation of Prisoners Act 1984 unless he makes a declaration that any person transited under these sections is not at risk of execution, torture or persecution.

(b) A declaration must be in writing and be published in such a manner as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.’.

I am rather concerned by the clause. It looks innocent, but all members of the Committee will remember the alarming stories about the rendition of prisoners. I want to explore whether the clause would make rendition easier, which is why I have tabled the amendment. Again, this is a subject on which there is cross-party concern. The hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) ran a very successful campaign; indeed, he has written a book about this serious problem.

As I understand it, the policy has been to seek to ratify and conclude bilateral agreements that allow for the transfer of prisoners without their consent, and progress has been slow. At the same time, the United Kingdom is a party to two multi-party agreements. We are signatories of the Council of Europe convention on the transfer of sentenced persons, and we also have the Commonwealth scheme for the transfer of convicted offenders. In addition, we have ratified the additional protocols of the Council of Europe convention on the transfer of sentenced persons. Under that, there are 34 signatory countries to which prisoners can be transferred without their consent. That includes Libya, and the Commonwealth scheme includes countries that, sadly, do not have particularly good human rights records at the moment.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The hon. Lady has raised the issue of rendition. As I understand it, the people concerned had not been through a proper judicial process. The measure would apply only to those convicted and sentenced by a lawful court. I hope that helps.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

Yes. I understand those were people who had been picked up on the battlefield. I have discussed the matter with the organisation Justice, which agreed with my concern that it potentially sanctions UK involvement in rendition of those detained by foreign criminal courts or foreign laws.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

That is not rendition.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I am still concerned that we might find ourselves having people coming from a jurisdiction, when the jurisdiction itself and the way the person has been treated in the criminal courts may be of concern. That is one problem. They then turn up in this country and we parcel them off somewhere else without their consent. My concern is that, in the second place to which they are parcelled off, they could be subject to torture. I have worded the amendment as I have because I would like the Minister to explain, if my understanding is wrong, why it is wrong.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The purpose of the clause is to put in place powers to enable the United Kingdom to facilitate the transit of prisoners through its territory. Such prisoners will be transferring from another state to a third state where there is a treaty between those states for a prisoner to be repatriated. The prisoner will not have been prosecuted, convicted or sentenced in the UK. Transit arrangements would normally mean enabling a prisoner and escort to transfer from one aeroplane to another at one of our international airports.

We expect requests under this power to be few in number and only for the purpose of enforcing a sentence of imprisonment lawfully passed on a prisoner by an appropriate court in the sentencing state. In most cases the prisoner concerned will have given his consent to transfer and will be returning to his country of nationality, where he can serve his sentence close to his family and friends, aiding his rehabilitation back into society.

The amendment proposes an addition to clause 105 that would require Ministers to make a declaration that a prisoner subject to transit through the territory of the UK would not be at risk of execution, torture or persecution in the country to which they are being transferred, and to make arrangements for the publication of that declaration.

The Government’s position on the death penalty is unequivocal and any request for transit for the purpose of carrying out the death penalty would be refused. Transit is provided for in all our existing prisoner transfer arrangements. With the exception of the EU framework decision on prisoner transfer, where there is a requirement to facilitate transit, transit is discretionary, and Ministers are able to refuse any request, and they will of course do so, if they have any concerns about an individual transit request or a particular state to which the prisoner is being transferred.

In those circumstances, I do not believe that it is necessary or appropriate for Ministers to make a declaration as proposed. In addition, I have mentioned the EU prisoner transfer agreement, which requires us to facilitate transfer if requested. However under that agreement transit involves the transit of a prisoner only from one EU member state to another. Each member state is bound by the European convention on human rights and we would expect each state fully to honour its commitments and obligations.

The UK will have no jurisdiction to interfere in international agreements made between two separate states where they are transferring a prisoner in accordance with those arrangements. The UK will expect other countries to facilitate transfers of foreign national prisoners repatriated from the UK; it plays its part in doing the same for other states. Those are all prisoners who have been convicted and sentenced. A declaration such as that sought by the amendment may give a prisoner on arrival in the UK the right to challenge the UK’s decision to allow further transit. Furthermore, a Minister could not properly make such a declaration based on information given by the relevant state when, not being party to the arrangements or the prisoner’s views, the Minister would have no means of verifying such information.

I hope, in the light of that information and the rather limited circumstances in which and to whom the provision would apply, that the hon. Lady will withdraw her amendment.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

It is good to see you in the Chair for the last sitting of the Committee, Mr Hollobone. Before the break, we were discussing clause 105 and I raised concerns about human rights issues and countries to which people were being sent. However, the Minister has assured me that he sees no risk and that the administrative systems in place mean that such risks could not be overlooked, so there would not be authorisation for people to be sent to countries where they would be liable to be tortured. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)

The question is that clause 106 stand part of the Bill.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

On a point of order, Mr Hollobone. I seek your guidance. Is this not the point at which we may discuss schedule 14? I thought that clause 106 made provision for incorporating schedule 14. Is that right?

Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)

The order of proceedings for consideration of amendments, clauses, schedules and so on was set out in the programme motion, so we must consider clause 106 before we get to schedule 14. That is the Committee’s wish, which it is my humble duty to follow.

Schedule 14 - Penalty notices for disorderly behaviour

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I beg to move amendment 426, in schedule 14, page 178, line 1, leave out subsections (4) and (5).

Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 427, in schedule 14, page 178, leave out lines 7 to 17 and insert

‘““approved educational course” means an educational course run by the Probation service””.’.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

We have concerns about the schedule and the proposals to extend penalty notices for disorder, or rather, the proposed relaxation of the process for issuing such notices. Amendment 426 is designed to maintain the obligation for a police officer issuing a penalty notice for disorder to be in uniform and for the act to take place within a police station. I want to explain why we have that concern, and I need to say some things about penalty notices for disorder to set it in context.

Penalty notices for disorder are fixed financial penalties that can be imposed as a result of committing minor offences. They are a long-standing measure for dealing with speeding and parking fines, but in 2000 the then Labour Government extended them to prevent antisocial and drunken behaviour. They were introduced for the 43 police forces in England and Wales in 2004 under the Criminal Justice and Police Act 2001.

At present, any person over the age of 16 may receive a PND for a minor disorder, provided that the issuing officer has reason to believe that the person has committed a specified offence. Currently, the fine level is £50 for minor offences, but may be up to £80 for more serious offences.

PNDs were intended to offer officers an effective alternative means of dealing with low-level crime, to deliver swift, simple and effective justice, to reduce the amount of time spent on paperwork, and to increase the amount of time spent on the beat. In fact, it is estimated that they have had those effects. Preparing an evidential case file takes two hours, but a PND takes about half an hour to process. There are also various provisions in the event that an offender does not comply with the PND, and they may be taken to court and end up with a criminal record.

We are worried about allowing PNDs to be issued by police officers who are not in uniform, but are out on the street anywhere. I want to take the Committee back to a former Prime Minister’s idea of marching people to cash points. That was generally thought not to be very sensible, and I suggest that the proposal before us is similar to that. The practicalities are alarming. We are worried about personation if a police officer is not in uniform, and about intemperate use of PNDs on the spot. We believe it important to retain the requirement that only authorised constables in a police station may issue PNDs and not, for example, new recruits. Her Majesty’s Opposition are totally committed to membership of the European Union, but the provision moves us in a continental direction with which we are not entirely comfortable.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Amendment 427 seeks to amend schedule 14 by redefining “approved educational course”—[ Interruption. ] We are dealing with the amendments together, and I am able to make only one speech on them.

Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)

Order. The Minister may make as many speeches as he wishes during this part of the debate. He is not restricted to one speech.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I cannot tell you, Mr Hollobone, with what enthusiasm your ruling has been received by the Committee. With amendment 427, I will get my retaliation in first, and I imagine that you will be generous enough to enable the hon. Lady to return to the charge. I will try to inflict only one speech on the Committee and deal with both amendments.

Amendment 427, which the hon. Lady did not address, seeks to amend schedule 14 by redefining an “approved educational course” as an

“educational course run by the probation service”,

rather than the police. That would not be appropriate and would run counter to our vision for education schemes. Probation resources are stretched in the current climate—the Opposition constantly remind us of that, despite being responsible for the problem—and are therefore rightly focused on much more serious offenders than those who would receive a PND, whom educational course schemes are intended to target. The probation service would therefore not be qualified or resourced to establish national or local PND educational courses. The police are far better placed to run such courses locally, which will highlight the consequences of the sort of low-level antisocial behaviour that PNDs are intended to tackle. Indeed, a number of forces already run informal education schemes. PNDs are not suitable for offenders with the ingrained underlying problems that existing probation services are designed to tackle.

Amendment 426 would reinstate the requirement that a constable must be in uniform when using a PND outside a police station, and that an officer must be formally authorised to issue a PND inside a police station. Such requirements are unnecessary and can cause difficulties for the police at an operational level. The first element concerns authorisation of police officers in uniform in a police station. We definitely consider that to be unnecessary bureaucracy that can be done away with, as far as issuing PNDs within the confines of a police station is concerned.

As for the issue of police on the streets in plain clothes, what we are seeking to address is operations such as test purchases for under-age alcohol sales. Such officers are not in uniform, and are consequently forced to bring suspects back to the police station to issue a PND. We want to remove such inefficiency and bureaucratic obstacles and simplify front-line police processes. There is no longer a need for such restrictive practices.

Let me return to the issue of police officers in police stations, because the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland was looking deeply sceptical at that point. She talked about trainee police officers. Of course, all officers are fully trained to issue PNDs appropriately as part of their probationary training. To then require them to be formally authorised to issue PNDs after they have received that probationary training inside a police station is undoubtedly an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy, which is what we seek to remove. It is part of the process of supporting our police by enabling them to concentrate on their front-line responsibilities.

As for why police should be in uniform, the hon. Lady raised the issue of personation. It would be slightly odd—I suppose it is conceivably possible—for someone to pretend to be a police officer and issue a penalty notice. Such a penalty notice plainly would not have any merit, because it would not be an official penalty notice. Penalty notices do not require the paying of cash on the spot; it is a penalty notice that is ordered, and the dealing of the penalty is not part of the process of issuing the notice. Therefore, it is not a concern that should weigh very heavily against the potential advantages of such a scheme. I mentioned the example of operations against under-age alcohol sales. Another situation envisaged is plain clothes detectives investigating reports of potentially serious offending. They will be unable to issue on-the-spot PNDs for the offence of wasting police time if those reports turn out to be false or mischievous.

Equally, if, during drug dealing investigations, officers in plain clothes have to deal with more minor offences being committed such as the possession of cannabis, which might attract a PND, they would not, under current arrangements, be able to issue a PND for the offence on the street. This measure is about appropriate operational flexibility. I hope that my examples make it clear in what circumstances police in plain clothes might issue PNDs. I do not anticipate circumstances that will widen their scope.

The hon. Lady has drawn attention to her worries.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

If someone has been issued with a notice, does that appear on their record?

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

No.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

A caution does.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

A PND does not.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I am grateful for that clarification.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I am happy to provide that the hon. Gentleman with that information, and I shall be happy to listen to the hon. Lady’s case for amendment 427, if she is allowed another go. However, I hope I have provided a strong case against it that the Committee finds satisfactory, without my having to return to it.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

The hon. Gentleman’s attitude to amendment 426 was rather cavalier. I remind him of the responses to the White Paper, “Breaking the Cycle”. The criminal sub-committee of the Council of Her Majesty’s Circuit Judges said:

“We have expressed our concerns about the ever increasing use of out of court disposals for what is, in reality, criminal activity for some years. We remain very concerned…Out of court disposals have, increasingly, been used as a response to truly criminal activity and the general public may have no idea how the situation has developed and the range of matters that may now be dealt with by extra judicial processes…Until recent years, in our view appropriately, the use of fixed financial penalties has been in relation to offences that might be termed ‘regulatory.’”

It then goes on to consider the extension of the provision to disorder:

“The use of fixed penalties as a response to truly criminal offending is to create the impression that truly criminal offending is not to be treated as significant. We are concerned that this is likely to encourage the belief that crime may not result in retribution and introduce the perception that some criminal activity does not merit proper process or consequences whilst other matters which might be deemed regulatory breach rather than truly criminal activity, result in equivalent or more serious consequences. In the long term, such a policy carries substantial risk. If less serious, but nonetheless criminal activity is to result in similar sanctions to regulatory breach, it is likely to come to be regarded as no more serious. So at the risk of stating the obvious if, for example, theft in a shop attracts the same consequence as unlawful parking, it may come to be regarded as equivalent in seriousness. This must have an impact upon the numbers who may be tempted to engage in truly criminal activity.”

The committee was not only the only body to ask some serious questions. Liberty was also worried about proposals aimed at increasing the use of out-of-court disposals, including notices for disorder. It believes that it is contrary to fundamental principles of justice for prosecutors and

“police to be able to impose on-the-spot punishment without the involvement of the judiciary. By-passing normal judicial and fair trial safeguards can leave individuals open to bias and irrationality in sentencing decisions.”

In their reply, Lord Justices Thomas and Goldwin said that there was a general question mark over the record of out-of-court disposals and, further, that it was sometimes difficult properly to assess the seriousness of a case.

The Minister is presenting the provision as a small improvement in efficiency. I fear that it is not.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

We have not had the stand part debate on the matter, which is where the hon. Lady is taking us. I was replying to her specific amendments, but I am detecting a change in Opposition policy. She made remarks about the previous Prime Minister. Has the Opposition’s policy on PNDs changed?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

No. We are opposing the changes to the way in which PNDs put in place by this Government will operate. The fact is that they are proposing a change, and we are trying to maintain the existing boundaries and processes that we feel are necessary to get the balance right between effectiveness and flexibility, and the risk of inappropriate use of PNDs. We feel that these changes move over that boundary.

Dave Watts (Labour, St Helens North)

Is not the provision a charter, for example, for people to join a club, get themselves involved in vandalism and pay a fine that never shows up anywhere else on their record? They can then go out the following week and carry out the same sort of activity. Is such an approach not encouraging bad behaviour? It sounds to me like something that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor might have been involved in.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I am not suggesting that this relates in any way to the sort of activities that Government Members might have been involved in earlier in their careers. I am saying that there is scope for criminal activity and personation. For example, the Minister says, “Well, it’s all okay because you send your cheque to an address.” How can a person who is in receipt of a piece of paper—a chit—from someone they happened to meet in the street be confident that it is genuine? It would be entirely possible to set up a scam under the scheme the Minister is proposing. While he pauses to reflect on that, I shall speak about the education aspect.

Ben Gummer (Conservative, Ipswich)

I am glad that the hon. Lady shares my concern about the activity of my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon in male voice choirs earlier in his career. The point is not about PNDs—on which we can have a legitimate discussion elsewhere, and which were the subject of considerable debate in previous Parliaments—but about the bureaucracy involved in the issuing of PNDs. Clearly, a plain-clothes policeman showing a warrant card should be able to issue a PND, rather than having to go through the palaver of asking a uniformed officer, who is probably needed elsewhere, to turn up at the scene to issue one. All the Government are trying to do is to simplify and de-bureaucratise what is now a commonplace.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

That may be the Government’s intention, and I am not going to question the motives of Government Members, but Opposition Members see risks with what is being proposed. Those fears have not been allayed by what has been said so far.

Let me move on to education. To be honest, we were a bit puzzled by this. At a time when the police are under pressure to manage their resources very tightly, Ministers are suggesting a whole new area of activity. I appreciate that the proposal is that people pay for the courses; nevertheless, given issues such as the amount of time required to set up these things, up-front investment will be required. I am not confident that the range of skills required to do that successfully are available to police forces at the moment. What do the police think about the matter? When I had discussions with the Association of Chief Police Officers, it was totally unaware of the proposal. I am not sure what consultation Ministers undertook on the issue. It is not at all clear whether we can have courses of an even standard throughout the country, or what kind of quality control the Minister is thinking of.

Finally, may I bring to the Minister’s attention a practical example? A constituent of mine in Durham was charged with speeding in Wales, and was asked to go on the course in Wales. That is not a practical or sensible way of carrying on, yet the Bill will reinforce that problem—people who commit an offence in a particular place being expected to go back to that place. Can the Minister offer a little more by way of explanation?

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

On speeding in Wales and the courses there, I can tell the hon. Lady about a friend of mine who was a graduate of such a course. When he was having his mid-afternoon tea, his “tutor” asked him whether he lived near Bala, and he said yes. He was asked, “How long will it take you to get home?” He said, “Well, if I put my foot down”. I hope that helps.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention. So, we are concerned about the way the Minister is proposing to relax issuance, and we have questions about the efficacy of the police running education courses, which is why I tabled the amendments.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I am afraid that I shall inflict another speech on the Committee, for which I apologise, but I must respond to the hon. Lady’s points. I think I have disposed of the personation issue and I do not intend to return to it.

Education courses are simply an option for police forces. They do not have to set up such schemes if they do not wish to, but the provision gives individual forces the opportunity to do so. The hon. Lady drew attention to the difficulties experienced by people on the speeding scheme, who are expected to attend a course instead of taking the points, and who pay for the course rather than paying the fine. She said that her constituent had to go to Wales because that is where they were caught speeding. First, people have the option of taking the points and paying the fine; they do not have to go to Wales to attend the programme. As I understand it, if such a scheme is available closer to someone’s home, they can choose to go on a course closer to home, so there is already some flexibility built into the system. There is a national website that lists where courses are available. That is just one example of the case that the hon. Lady gave.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

It is an example that applies only to the driving courses. The Minister has just told us that education courses could be set up by police forces if they so wish. A person can take points in a speeding case, but what is the alternative with education courses? Although he may have a case—not a very strong one—regarding moving around the country for the speeding courses, if, say, only five out of 43 constabularies decide to go down this road, it will not be possible to do the education courses.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The parallel is precisely the same as in the case of speeding courses now. A person is issued with a penalty; they can effectively buy out the penalty by doing the education course. They do not have to do the course; if they decide it is massively inconvenient to do the course, they can pay the penalty. That is the position. The operational objections do not exist. In the speeding cases, the purpose is to try to encourage people to take part in the programme so that they receive education on the issue of speeding. If police forces set up education schemes relating to particular forms of disagreeable antisocial behaviour to try to make people behave better, the object will be to get people to take part in such programmes. If they do not, they will have to pay the penalty. Plainly, it will be better for people to take part in a programme than pay the penalty, which is why the price of a programme is likely to be less than a penalty. I do not imagine that police forces will come forward with programmes that will not, at the very least, cover their costs; the hon. Lady is right about that.

I invite the Committee to resist the amendments.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I shall press amendment 426 to a vote, but not the other amendments.

Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)

I call the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland to move amendment 421.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

The remarks I made about amendment 427 have covered the issues comprehensively, so I do not want to move amendment 421.

Clause 107 - Conditional cautions: involvement of prosecutors

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

If we had concerns about the processes for penalty notices for disorderly behaviour under clause 106, we have even greater concerns about the conditional caution proposals.

The clause would remove the requirement that before a police officer can impose a conditional caution they must first refer the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service. Currently, before an authorised person—usually a police officer—can impose a conditional caution, it is necessary for the relevant prosecutor, which is usually the CPS, to decide whether there is sufficient evidence to charge the offender with the offence, and impose the conditional caution.

Removing the requirement that the police must first refer the offender’s case to the CPS could be dangerous, as it would effectively allow the police to sentence the offender, as well as being responsible for his or her arrest. The Opposition believe that the involvement of the CPS would be likely to result in a more robust approach to conditional cautions than if the police had sole responsibility.

In addition, the clause would allow the police to decide and vary the conditions that the offender consented to. Obviously, most police officers in this country are excellent, but we feel that without such a cross-check there is a risk that conditional cautions will be given inappropriately and that biases of various kinds could arise. For example, young offenders, people with mental health problems or learning difficulties, or foreign offenders might be persuaded to accept a conditional caution without realising the full implications.

This relaxation has to be taken in the context of the increase in the use of conditional cautions. In 2003, 241,000 alleged offences were dealt with out of court. By 2008, the figure had more than doubled to 567,000, so the proportion of alleged offences dealt with outside court has produced a sea change in the use of this approach to tackling crime. We have had representations from both Liberty and the Magistrates’ Association about the inconsistent use of conditional cautions in different constabularies. For example, in some areas chief constables have targets for the proportion of offences that are dealt with out of court and the proportion that go to trial. We feel that this is problematic and inappropriate and that if we do not have the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service, that kind of thing might get out of control.

Some things are pretty straightforward. It is not very difficult to ascertain whether someone has parked on a double yellow line, but police officers who have to determine whether there is a problem of disorder are making more complex judgments about what has happened. We are not comfortable with them doing that without the second opinion of the CPS. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary said in its report that there are

“wide variations in practice across police force areas in the proportion and types of offences handled out of court”.

The method accounted for between 26% and 49% of offences brought to justice in different police force areas and the report found that

“where greater use is evident, this is linked in some places to a strong emphasis on achieving targets associated with improving performance in the level of offences brought to justice.”

Although Ministers have repeatedly told us that they want to reduce target chasing, we think the measure is more likely to engender such behaviour by constabularies, especially when the Government are putting them under such severe financial pressure. If the constabulary takes the view that it is a way to save resourcesbecause it is not so resource intensive, injustices may result. We are concerned that by accepting conditional cautions, people may not understand the implications for their employment and their ability to travel abroad. It is extremely important, given the significant level of controversy, that the system provides safeguards and gives the public more confidence that it is being operated properly and equitably throughout the country. I expect that the Minister will say that the provision is a little bureaucratic measure that is all about money-saving—so much of the Bill is about that—but we say that the quality of justice matters and that it is not right to put a cost-cutting agenda above public protection.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

We have received an interesting lecture on the consequences of target setting from the hon. Lady, and it has to be said that she and her colleagues ought to know. The use of PNDs fell substantially after 2007, because before that the numbers had been seriously inflated by Government targets for bringing offenders to justice.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

We are talking about conditional cautions now.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The hon. Lady cited a figure from 2008 of 567,000 out-of-court disposals and she rather implied that a substantial amount of them were conditional cautions, but I am advised that the number of conditional cautions issued last year was between 7,000 and 8,000, which is a discrete, small subset of the whole total of out-of-court disposals. I am therefore happy to reject the line of argument that such a figure can be placed in the same context as PNDs, which were subject to a behavioural change by the police because of the targets placed on them.

Clause 107 will enable a police officer to decide whether to offer a conditional caution to an offender, to set and vary the conditions attached to the caution and to decide whether to charge the offender for the original offence in the event of non-compliance. It will remove the existing requirement that such matters be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service for a decision by a prosecutor in every case. At present, a police officer cannot make the decision to offer a conditional caution, even for offences where the police have the power to charge the offender or to administer a simple caution without reference to the CPS. That inconsistency in a police officer’s decision-making powers can create not only confusion, but unnecessary bureaucracy for both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.

Conditional cautions provide scope for reparation to be made to victims and communities, for rehabilitative conditions to tackle the underlying causes of an offender’s behaviour and for punishments to be administered in a way that cannot be done with simple cautions and other out-of-court disposals. It is unfortunate that the requirement for a prosecutor to authorise the decision to offer a conditional caution has perhaps resulted in such disposals being used less often than they might have been. The clause will remove that requirement.

I shall be surprised if the figure for conditional cautions goes from between 7,000 and 8,000 to 500,000, but I should be delighted if they were more widely used as part of ordinary, everyday policing. The clause is intended precisely to give more flexibility to the police to deal appropriately with low-level offences, which is entirely consistent with delivering restorative justice at a lower level.

The other requirements for a conditional caution remain unchanged, including that offenders must admit the offence, that they consent to being given a conditional caution and that they agree to the conditions. Offenders will always have the right to decline the offer of a conditional caution or to withdraw their previous agreement, in which case they may be prosecuted for the original offence.

The clause does not remove the power for the CPS to give a conditional caution and vary conditions, nor does it prevent the police from seeking advice from the CPS on whether a conditional caution would be appropriate in individual cases. We recognise that there are likely to be cases where it will remain more appropriate for the CPS rather than the police to decide to offer a conditional caution, and arrangements for such cases will be set out in guidance. This excellent clause will aid significantly the delivery of effective lower-level policing.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

The Minister has corrected my statistics, but in doing so he has unwittingly demonstrated that the justice process is being undermined and that no significant savings from the measure will be accrued by the Exchequer. Therefore, in view of our serious concerns, I am inclined to push the clause stand part to a vote.

Clause 108 - Conditional cautions: removal etc of certain foreign offenders

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I beg to move amendment 428, in clause 108, page 87, line 16, at end add—

‘(c) the Secretary of State shall make a declaration that any offender repatriated under this section is not at risk of torture or persecution.’.

Although we do not oppose the clause in principle, we want the Government’s reassurance that they have administrative systems in place to ensure, as we have discussed, that foreign offenders who are repatriated under the clause are not repatriated to countries where they individually face the risk of being tortured, and that vulnerable offenders are not presented with this as the only option available to them. I just want the Minister to explain how he intends the measure to operate.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The hon. Lady asks an entirely reasonable question. The clause relates to the administration of the new types of conditions that can be attached to a conditional caution with the object of bringing about the departure from the UK of a foreign national offender who has no leave to enter or remain in the country and ensuring that they do not return for a specified period.

The amendment would seek to have the Secretary of State ensure that in every case where such conditions are offered the foreign national is not at risk of torture or persecution. The amendment is unnecessary because the new conditions do not remove the obligations of the Secretary of State to provide protection for those at risk of torture and persecution. No one will be forcibly removed from the United Kingdom when to do so would breach our international treaty and human rights obligations. The clause does not change that. It is for an individual to make a claim for international protection, not for the Secretary of State to declare in each case that someone is not at risk of torture or persecution. It would be most undesirable to reverse that position. A person with an asylum or human rights claim—a protection claim—should raise it as soon as is reasonably practical.

It is possible that some of the document fraud offences in the scope of the clause could be committed by someone seeking to enter the United Kingdom due to a fear of torture or persecution abroad. I imagine that that is the concern behind the amendment. The Committee should note that a statutory defence to such offences already applies where the person has a good reason for their illegal entry, and has presented themselves to the UK authorities without delay and made an asylum claim within a reasonable period after entry. Prosecution is not appropriate where that defence applies, and nor is a caution. The intention behind the conditions described in clause 108 is to provide an alternative to prosecution in appropriate cases involving foreign offenders who have no right to be in the United Kingdom. The conditions will be offered only to those offenders who have no legal right to enter or remain in the United Kingdom, who admit the offence and who accept the conditional caution and the condition that he or she depart from the United Kingdom and not return for a specified period. I am grateful for the Opposition’s support for that objective.

Foreign nationals who make asylum or human rights claims to remain in the UK, or who have such outstanding claims, will not be eligible to receive a conditional caution because they have a legal basis to stay in the country while their claim is considered and, clearly, they would not agree to depart from the United Kingdom. Additionally, it is worth noting that a foreign national who accepts a conditional caution with the new conditions is in no way prevented from subsequently lodging an asylum or human rights claim to remain in the UK should their circumstances change in any way. In such cases, the conditional caution will be withdrawn and the individual may instead be prosecuted for the offence they had committed.

Care needs to be taken to ensure that such a scheme operates fairly and effectively and in line with our obligations under the refugee convention and the European convention on human rights. Proper consideration of the circumstances of each case by the police and the UK Border Agency, with advice from the Crown Prosecution Service, is vital for making appropriate decisions on the suitability of offering conditional cautions to foreign offenders, but the safeguard proposed by the amendment is not needed to achieve that.

For the reasons I have outlined, I hope that the hon. Lady is satisfied that sufficient safeguards already exist and that it is unnecessary for the Secretary of State to make a declaration such as that required by the amendment.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I am grateful to the Minister for addressing the cases of people who become refugees. I had such a case in my constituency. He was an Iranian who came out as homosexual, and, obviously, had he been repatriated to Iran, where homosexuality is a criminal offence, he would have been endangered.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 109 - Youth cautions

Andrew Slaughter (Labour, Hammersmith)

I beg to move amendment 337, in clause 109, page 87, leave out lines 24 to 30 and insert—

‘(1) A constable may give a child or young person (“Y”) a caution under this section (“a youth caution”) where the following requirements are satisfied—

(a) the first requirement is that the constable has evidence that the young offender has committed an offence, and

(b) the second requirement is that a relevant prosecutor decides—

(i) that there is sufficient evidence to charge the young offender with the offence, and

(ii) that a caution should be given to the young offender in respect of the offence,

(c) the third requirement is that the young offender admits to the constable in the presence of an appropriate adult that he committed the offence,

(d) the fourth requirement is that the authorised person explains the effect of the caution to the young offender in the presence of an appropriate adult, including the fact that it will appear on a Criminal Records Bureau check’.

Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 347, in clause 109, page 87, line 31, leave out ‘17’ and insert ‘18’.

Amendment 348, in clause 109, page 87, line 37, leave out ‘17’ and insert ‘18’.

Amendment 338, in clause 109, page 88, line 21, at end add—

‘(8) In this Chapter “relevant prosecutor” has the meaning set out in section 27 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003’.

Amendment 339, in clause 109, page 88, line 43, leave out paragraphs (5) and (6).

Andrew Slaughter (Labour, Hammersmith)

This is the last group of amendments and the last chapter that I will address on this Committee, so as I believe you will not be with us at the end of the afternoon, Mr Hollobone, I want to put on record my thanks, and those of my colleagues, for the exemplary way in which you have chaired the Committee. It has been a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

The amendments fall into two groups. The first group addresses the simple point of whether “appropriate adult” should apply to 17-year-olds as it applies to under-17s. We feel the amendments are consistent with the Government’s other changes to the treatment of 17-year-olds in the criminal justice system. I do not need to say any more about that because it is straightforward, and I hope it will be straightforwardly accepted by the Government and, in doing so, that we break their duck on accepting Opposition amendments.

The second group of amendments are like the amendments to the previous clauses, on the adult context, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland. The remainder of the clauses in the chapter address out-of-court disposals, and the amendments address prosecutorial oversight. I hope that, by addressing that issue, my comments will apply equally to our approach and to what we hope is the Government’s approach to these clauses. Hopefully, that will mean that I do not have to speak again, except perhaps briefly on clause 112, which addresses a slightly different matter about youth conditional cautions.

We do not oppose the Government’s track here, but I am slightly concerned about what the Minister said to my hon. Friend a few moments ago about separating conditional adult cautions from other types of out-of-court disposal. There is a need not to salami-slice but to look at how out-of-court disposals are dealt with, how they differ from other disposals, the flexibilities that are granted and the degree of oversight provided. There was a large expansion of out-of court disposals under previous Labour Governments—they are appropriate in many cases; they are quicker and cheaper and do not interfere with the course of justice—but when we make such changes or review the process we must consider the implications.

Clause 109 deals essentially with flexibility, which can be argued both ways. The Government argue that flexibility increases the sentencer’s discretion, making the system less rigid, and that it may, therefore, provide a wider range of possibilities, which might, in the long run, be in everyone’s interest, including that of the offender. The clause contains a change from the two-stage “two strikes and you’re out” process introduced by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 to a situation allowing for a further and more general process for youth cautions, and the following clause states that the process can be used more than once, even after conviction and sentencing.

We are not minded to oppose the provision; we simply say that there are risks because the more rigid system at least gives clear guidance. It provides an escalator effect, saying to young people that they are encountering the criminal justice system for the first time, and that the system has repercussions that become more serious as they move through the process. First there is a reprimand, then a final warning, and then the possibility of a criminal conviction. There is some rigidity, which might focus the mind and divert the young person.

The Government wish to try an alternative approach. In the long term, it might be more successful and we are willing to give it a go, but when one changes a system in such a way it is appropriate to review where one is and, particularly when greater flexibilities and options are introduced, to consider whether checks and balances are needed. That is why we raise the issue of prosecutorial oversight in amendments 337 to 339, and it would be interesting to hear the Minister’s response, including how the Government see out-of-court disposals more generally—whether there is likely to be a great expansion, or more variety in the ways they are dealt with. I do not think that he has addressed those matters.

I will deal with complexity and conditional cautions—a different issue from simple cautions—when we come to clause 112.

On out-of-court disposals, there are serious concerns both from the sentencer’s point of view—my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland quoted some comments about that, including from the criminal sub-committee of the Council of Her Majesty’s Circuit Judges—and about the opportunity for more serious offences, which the general public would consider offences of violence or disobedience rather than of strict liability, to become the subject of out-of-court disposals. Circuit judges take the view that liberalising how out-of-court disposals are given might create a tendency to trivialise. In their observations, Lord Justice Thomas and Lord Justice Goldring said that the officer

“may be exercising his discretion on an incomplete basis. He/she may not know whether there are unpaid fixed penalty notices, or an out of court disposal in another police area for a similar offence.”

When one is liberalising the system, it may be appropriate to see whether procedural problems arise. All too often, records are incomplete when matters to go court. A particular court may not have all the information that it needs on the offender at that stage, but at least that is a known requirement, and if the information is not there, the matter may be adjourned. If one left such matters entirely to individual officers, there could be more of a risk. There are both practical matters and issues of principle.

Equally, the objection from organisations such as Liberty—it might be called the fair trial objection—is that the more one moves towards forms of summary justice, the more discretion one gives to police officers rather than to judicial authorities. The wider the range of opportunities in the process of offending, the greater the opportunity there is for injustices to occur. Although the offences are not of the most serious, they can be important—offences of dishonesty and of violence, such as criminal damage. They could have a material impact on the life chances of the offender or the prejudices that may be shown towards them, so they may therefore need a greater degree of advice and scrutiny at the time.

For those reasons, we raise the matter as one of concern. I will not say more about it at the moment, but we would like assurances that the Minister has considered the issues. Does he consider, specifically in the context of the amendments, that a greater degree of prosecutorial oversight is necessary, given that the Government’s changes on youth cautions are quite substantial? Does he share the concerns expressed by senior members of the judiciary and organisations with a great deal of experience in monitoring out-of-court disposals over the years that they have been in effect?

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

The hon. Gentleman has raised some important issues in the debate, short as it was. He quoted Lord Justices Thomas and Goldring on what they said about the possibility of imposing penalties—for penalties they are—on incomplete information. That is important. An offender could have several unexpired similar impositions, and officers would simply not know on the spot whether that was the case. That is an important point. Several of his other points need exploration, too. For my part, I fully support the hon. Gentleman’s comments.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Since both the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd and the hon. Member for Hammersmith addressed the general issues of the clause as much as the specifics of the amendments, I will make my remarks as if we were having a clause stand part debate, at the beginning of the section on youth cautions, in order to put the whole section in context. I am grateful for the Opposition’s general support for what we are seeking to do in this part of the Bill.

Clause 109 will repeal sections 65 and 66 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, which provide for reprimands and warnings, also known as the final warning scheme. The clause will replace those sections with a new out-of-court disposal for young offenders—a youth caution. Provisions for the youth cautions are set out in proposed new sections 66ZA and 66ZB, which the clause will insert into the 1998 Act.

The clause forms part of the reforms in the Bill that we are making to the current system of youth out-of-court disposals, which we signalled in the justice Green Paper, “Breaking the Cycle”. The current system is unnecessarily complex and does not consistently apply assessments and interventions designed to rehabilitate young offenders and reduce reoffending, so we are removing the escalator principle inherent in reprimands and warnings. That principle normally results in a higher-level response for a further offence, regardless of the seriousness of the offence and the proportionality of the response. Consequently, the effect of the clause will be to increase professional discretion, so that the most appropriate disposal can be used based on the circumstances of the offence.

At present, the system is inflexible and disproportionate, arbitrarily requiring youth offenders to be dealt with in court when an adult would not be. We believe that offenders under the age of 18 should have the same opportunity to be dealt with out of court when the offence is minor and a full court hearing is not necessary. The youth caution is an out-of-court disposal that will be available to a young person who admits committing a minor offence. The youth offending team will be notified of every youth caution that is given and it will be able to assess the young person and, if necessary, put in place interventions designed to prevent further offending.

Following a second or subsequent youth caution, the youth offending team will be required to assess the young person formally and to put in place a rehabilitation programme unless that is considered inappropriate.

Andrew Slaughter (Labour, Hammersmith)

We certainly do not oppose the greater involvement of YOTs, which seems entirely sensible. However, has the Minister made any assessment of the additional costs that will be incurred as a result of this change?

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Let me return, if I remember, to the hon. Gentleman’s point later.

As I was saying, following a second or subsequent youth caution, the youth offending team will be required to assess the young person formally and to put in place a rehabilitation programme unless that is considered inappropriate.

On the issue of costs that the hon. Gentleman has just raised, I will see if I have clear advice to give him and the Committee. However, I do not see that this process will lead to increased costs; indeed, the reverse is probably true. Giving proper flexibility and getting away from the escalator principle prevents our going down a route whereby people perhaps get disproportionate disposals that are more expensive than the offence and its circumstances merit. The thresholds remain as before.

Our assessment is that there is no extra cost associated with the change.

This more extensive action reflects the current arrangements under the final warning scheme. The content of the rehabilitation programme will still be decided by the YOT, but it may include addressing welfare needs, working with parents, or taking part in reparative or restorative justice activities. The difference between the current final warning scheme and our proposal for the youth caution is that the latter does not involve the escalation process. That process determines that disposals are used in a set order, regardless of the circumstances of the offence or the needs of the victim and the community. The youth caution will be available even if the young person concerned has previously been convicted or given a youth conditional caution in respect of another offence.

However, the clause places a restriction on the court’s power conditionally to discharge an offender when they have been convicted of a further offence within two years of receiving a youth caution if, before the caution, they have received another caution or a youth conditional caution. That ensures that repeated offending is dealt with and that intervention by a YOT will be triggered. The new provisions also allow for the receipt of a youth caution, or a failure to participate in an intervention arising from a youth caution, to be cited if the offender is brought back before the court for further offending. That replicates existing provisions for warnings.

I now turn to the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Hammersmith. Amendments 337 and 338 would require the consent of a relevant prosecutor for a youth caution to be administered; in both cases, that would be the Crown Prosecution Service. It is a long-standing principle that the police should be able to caution an offender for a minor offence, if the offender admits responsibility for that offence and it is not in the public interest to prosecute. Police can offer an adult a simple caution without reference to a prosecutor for all but the most serious offences, and it would be inconsistent for that not to apply to juveniles. We believe that the police are capable of determining when it is appropriate to administer a youth caution. Where there is doubt, they will be able to refer the case to a prosecutor, as is the existing practice.

Amendments 337 and 338 would impose an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy on both the police and prosecutors, and they would create an unwarranted delay in resolving cases. Such a delay is not in the interests of justice, victims or communities, and it would take police away from vital and visible front-line policing while they fill in forms and await the prosecutor’s consent. It is for those very reasons that the Bill contains clauses that allow the police to offer adult and youth conditional cautions without reference to a Crown prosecutor.

Amendment 337 would also require that the young person’s admission be made in the presence of an appropriate adult, and that the young person must be warned that the youth caution will appear on any Criminal Records Bureau check. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 codes of practice require that police interviews of persons aged under 17 who are suspected of having committed criminal offences should normally be made in the presence of an appropriate adult. In addition, clause 109 already provides for the effect of the caution to be explained to the young person in the presence of an appropriate adult if the young person is aged under 17. The guidance that must be published under proposed new section 66ZB will set out the implications of receiving a youth caution for the recipient, and will stipulate that those implications must be explained to the offender. That will include the criminal records implications of a youth caution.

Amendment 339 would remove the bar to sentencing a young person to a conditional discharge if they have received a youth caution in the two years before their conviction and they have also received other youth cautions or youth conditional cautions at any point prior to that. The amendment seeks to remove that restriction, and the Government cannot support it. In the case of young offenders, we believe that early and rehabilitative intervention is critical in meeting our aim of reducing reoffending rates. A conditional discharge has its place in the sentencing structure, but it does not involve the young person receiving intervention to prevent them from reoffending.

Where there is a pattern of repeat offending, and multiple cautions have been given, a more interventionist and robust sentence such as a referral order or a youth rehabilitation order should be available unless exceptional circumstances apply that would justify a conditional discharge. In that way, we will ensure that if a young person is sentenced after receiving youth cautions, they will receive a sentence that proactively tackles their offending behaviour. That is the purpose of our rehabilitation agenda.

Amendments 347 and 348 would routinely require an appropriate adult to be present when a 17-year-old is given a youth caution. The presence of an appropriate adult in such circumstances is not currently required by PACE or its codes of practice. For the reasons that I will set out, the amendments are both undesirable and unnecessary. Clause 109 requires an appropriate adult to be present when a youth caution is issued to someone aged under 17. PACE and the codes of practice currently require an appropriate adult to be present for a person aged under 17 from the outset when, for example, the young person is informed of the grounds of their detention, informed of their rights or interviewed. The codes of practice also require an appropriate adult to be present from the outset for a 17-year-old, or indeed anyone over that age, whenever there is any doubt about their mental state or capacity to understand their position and what is happening. If such doubt exists, they must be treated as being vulnerable, and an appropriate adult must be called.

By departing from the established position under PACE and the codes of practice, the amendments would create a series of consequences, the most undesirable of which includes a possible doubling of demand for appropriate adults across England and Wales. In the absence of arrangements to compensate for the increased demand, fewer appropriate adults would be available for detainees under 17, which in turn would be likely to increase the periods for which they are detained as well as increasing costs for police. Under the terms of the amendments, the giving of a proposed youth caution to a 17-year-old would almost certainly have to be delayed until the appropriate adult arrived. In addition, when a constable decides that a person is not to be prosecuted, their release cannot be delayed solely to give a youth caution. In such circumstances, therefore, the young person would need to be bailed to return when an appropriate adult would be present, adding to the delay and requiring bail paperwork to be completed solely for that purpose.

We are not unsympathetic to the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith that those aged 17, like those under 17, should be entitled to the presence of an appropriate adult. Work is already under way in the Home Office, the Youth Justice Board and the Ministry of Justice to consider that matter. However, the resource implications I have outlined are significant, and in the current circumstances they must be overcome before any change can be made. With those assurances, I hope the hon. Gentleman will be persuaded to withdraw the amendment.

Andrew Slaughter (Labour, Hammersmith)

I am grateful for the Minister’s response, particularly for his final comments about the fact that the Ministry of Justice is, at least, considering the matter of appropriate adults. Our proposal is consistent with the Government’s approach elsewhere. We feel strongly that many 17-year-olds in such cases will be immature and, finding themselves in intimidating circumstances, they will need support.

I entirely agree with the Minister’s remarks about resources. From my experience, the appropriate adult system is already in a state of disarray because of the Government’s failure to support it sufficiently. I have talked to people who act as appropriate adults in my constituency and have learned that they are being asked to do double shifts and weekend work, and to make themselves available in a way that was not previously required, because there are insufficient people to do the job. However, in the light of the Minister’s comments, I shall not press the amendments to a vote.

We have concerns about the substantial changes to how youth cautions will work, which might send out the wrong signals—that youth cautions can be used in a much more liberal fashion now, in that they can be issued post-conviction and be used several times rather than once or twice, compared with warnings and reprimands. That gives a great deal more licence and discretion to those who are issuing them. Nevertheless, we are prepared to suck it and see, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I beg to move amendment 350, in clause 109, page 87, line 24, leave out ‘child or young person’ and insert

‘person under the age of 21’.

Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 351, in clause 109, page 88, line 11, leave out ‘child or young person’ and insert

‘person under the age of 21’.

Amendment 352, in clause 109, page 88, line 24, after ‘team’, insert ‘or probation trust’.

Amendment 353, in clause 109, page 88, line 26, after ‘team’, insert ‘or probation trust’.

Amendment 354, in clause 109, page 88, line 32, after ‘team’, insert ‘or probation trust’.

Amendment 355, in clause 109, page 89, line 28, after ‘team’, insert ‘or probation trust’.

Amendment 356, in clause 111, page 89, line 43, after ‘team’, insert ‘or probation trust’.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I echo the words of the hon. Member for Hammersmith in thanking you for your even-handedness and unfailing courtesy in chairing proceedings, Mr Hollobone.

The amendments aim to extend the youth cautioning system to young adults between the ages of 18 and 20, and would require the police officer who gives the caution to refer such young adults to the local probation trust. The Prison Reform Trust and other experienced external bodies, which I support, believe an approach similar to the one we propose would be beneficial for young adults aged between 18 and 20. Such young people, like juveniles, often lack maturity, and those who are given to unruly behaviour particularly demonstrate that.

The amendments are probing, and I do not intend to press them to a vote, but I shall briefly make their case. On the background to the proposals, we know that in the past decade, the youth justice system has been greatly transformed. There is no doubt that it has improved—thanks, largely, to the important work of the Youth Justice Board and the many positive interventions of individual youth offending teams.

Those changes are having a real impact on the ground. Between 2007-08 and 2009-10, the number of children entering the system for the first time fell by 39% to approximately 61,000. The number of those sentenced to custody fell from 6,853 to 5,130, a drop of 25%. As a result, the number of offences committed by children fell by about one third to just below 200,000 in 2010.

As I said, the Prison Reform Trust, among others, believes that the time is right to build on this success by extending the multi-agency approach to young adults aged 18 to 20. Let us pause to think for a moment—many of these youngsters are illiterate, innumerate and may well be harbouring feelings of hopelessness. They are, to say the very least, immature and we would not really regard them as young adults. They are legally young adults, but they should be dealt with differently. That is the main thrust of my argument.

In June last year, there were 7,927 18 to 20-year-olds in custody—almost 10% of the prison population. Although the Ministry of Justice notes a slight downward trend in the number of young adults sentenced to custody, reoffending rates are still stubbornly high. As I said, social factors obviously play a part, but the lack of any real focus on the specific needs of these young adults in the criminal justice system appears to undermine the chances of reducing offending behaviour by this age group.

More than half of the young adults given a custodial sentence reoffend within a year of release, and up to two thirds of them do so within two years, which is absolutely appalling. The cost of young adult offending is estimated to be about £19 billion per annum, including more than £1 billion on custodial and community services. It is, therefore, not surprising that young adults are disproportionately represented in the current prison population. Young men from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are even more starkly over-represented.

Research by the Barrow Cadbury Trust has recently revealed that between 40% and 49% of 18 to 21-year-old young men in custody have been in local authority residential care. Forty per cent. of young women and one in four young men in custody—again, aged 18 to 21—report having suffered violence at home. More than 30% of young women between the ages of 18 and 21 report having experienced sexual abuse at home. Nearly 90% of that age group in custody have at least one form of mental illness, ranging from depression to severe psychosis. The Prison Reform Trust—I fully support it—believes that there would be real benefits to bringing those young adults within the new cautioning regime for children.

Perhaps as important as the youth caution itself is the requirement to refer the child or the young person or young adult to the local youth offending team. These teams have responsibility to ensure that those at risk of falling into a pattern of offending behaviour are diverted from that outcome through the development of a rehabilitation programme, including intensive support services. Their work has been crucial to the reduction in the number of offences committed by children. It could, therefore, be extended, with great benefit.

Responsibility for those aged 18 to 20 rests with the probation service and the few individual trusts with dedicated young adult teams. However, the increased focus of probation trusts on those posing the greatest risk to the public means that that is much less common today than in the past. The introduction of a requirement to refer young adults who have been cautioned to the local probation trust would therefore enable an assessment to be made of the benefit of a rehabilitation programme or their need for other support services.

Of course, that will not be necessary in most cases, and in any case the probation service cannot be expected to take on these additional responsibilities without some additional funding. That is clearly recognised and it would be foolish not to do it. At the end of the day, the cost-benefit analysis should be not simply in terms of monetary cost, which I support, but in terms of the cost to the families and the individuals themselves who are being hampered in their development as good citizens for the future.

As I mentioned at the commencement, these are probing amendments. I hope that the Minister will respond in due course with the Government’s approach. There is a great deal of support for the measures. These are not amendments for the sake of amendment; they involve a target group that is not making as much progress as it should.

I said that progress has been made on children, but the group slightly above children is not being dealt with equally well. Their results are not as good, and society is suffering for it, as well as the individuals and their families. There is a ready answer that should be tried, even for a limited period. If it were trialled for two years, that would be beneficial, in my view. In the view of others far more proficient than I, it would definitely pay dividends.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I am not sure what time you are pushing off, Mr Hollobone, but I echo the remarks made in tribute to your chairmanship. It was delightful to hear the hon. Member for Hammersmith being so charming in his compliments on how you have managed our affairs.

I am tempted to dispose of my advice, which was aimed carefully at the amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd. He has raised the issue of how we deal with a particular group, and I am content to accept the general nature of his analysis. It is a particularly difficult group, and the system at the moment is plainly not succeeding as we would wish. The solution suggested by the amendments is that we should be able to refer people in that group to the arrangements available in youth offending teams.

I resist the amendments because they would create, in legal and statutory terms, one set of legislation aimed at children—that is, those under 18—and one aimed at adults. We should try to keep legislative principles clear about when we legislate for adults and when for children. Legislation is not the right place to address the complexity of the challenge faced by that particular age group. We must consider the tools that we have made available to ourselves through Parliament and statute.

Furthermore, the issue is more about resourcing. The right hon. Gentleman discussed the cost-benefit analysis, saying that interventions for that age group, such as investing in rehabilitative treatment and attention, would be likely to yield considerable benefits. I am happy to concede that point, as I believe it to be true; my only problem as the prisons Minister is resources. He referred to the probation service. If, in the current climate, we created extra burdens through statute by delivering interventions to that age group as intense as those youth offending teams bring to people under 18, I would not have the resources to give to the probation service or to youth offending teams—whichever took responsibility—to deliver what we prescribed, so we cannot prescribe in that way.

That takes us in the direction of payment by results. We must consider more imaginative ways to find the resources to create interventions to address all offender groups, but this group presents particular difficulties. We must find interventions that can make use of social finance or identify through local authorities, police forces, private companies that run prisons and public sector prisons all the mechanisms for obtaining better-quality and more effective interventions for that age group.

I do not have the answers for the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd on how the system operates. I do not think that the right way to go about it is to complicate further the legislative framework to try to address the issue. All I can say is that I am acutely conscious of the problem. We need to ensure that, given the colossal cost of failing to turn this particular age group around, we find ways to get interventions and investment into it, which will then deliver savings to the Ministry of Justice, because of the huge advantage of getting these people better and making them pro-social members of society. I do not want to rehearse all the different ways in which we are trying to do that, such as having payment by results. Payment by results will apply to this age group in all the different environments, as they will to the rest of the adult age group.

I accept the right hon. Gentleman’s general point about 18 to 20-year-olds presenting a particular challenge, and we need to be imaginative about how we deal with that. Hopefully, the potential benefits that arise from addressing that age group will appeal to those who want to invest socially in rehabilitation, those who want to invest privately in rehabilitation and those in public authorities to whom we give the responsibility and the opportunity to take advantage of the savings that will come from successful investment. They will be able to make those executive decisions as well, with public resources available to them. In the current climate, that is the best way we can proceed in this area. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising the issue.

There are operational issues that sit underneath this with 18 to 20-year-olds and young offender institutions: is it the right answer to concentrate it in particular places? Should one be trying to get adults mixed in with an offender population in custody? I know the right hon. Gentleman’s amendments go wider, to the whole gamut of offenders—both under supervision and in the community as well. Many issues flow from this. I hope that I have at least convinced the right hon. Gentleman that I am conscious of the challenge that we face. I hope that he will see that our systems have the flexibility to enable people within the criminal justice system to begin to address a priority age group.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I am grateful to the Minister for his full response. Obviously, I would have preferred some action points to have emanated from it. To be fair and reasonable, however, I understand what he says. He and I will no doubt meet over the coming months, as I wear my hat as the chair of the justice unions group. Perhaps at that time we will be able to revisit the fact that he readily and fairly agrees that there is a concern and a discrete problem here. Hopefully, we will be able to discuss this matter further in the coming months, because it is vital. However we take it forward, something should be done.

I said at the beginning that these are probing amendments, so I do not seek to divide the Committee. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Clause 112 - Youth conditional cautions: involvement of prosecutors

Andrew Slaughter (Labour, Hammersmith)

Our concerns about adult cautions were addressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland and, during my remarks on clause 109, I covered our approach to the group of clauses relating to youth cautions, so I do not need to speak at length on this matter. It goes without saying that what applies to adults in terms of taking care and ensuring that processes are not only thorough, but conducted at the appropriate level and with the appropriate scrutiny, applies even more to young people.

This change in policy removes the involvement of prosecutors in youth conditional cautions. I take the Minister’s practical point, which I am sure he will repeat in his response, that there may be a temptation not to invoke conditional cautions if that involves additional time, bureaucracy, and it results in a more complicated process than a simple caution. We obviously support youth conditional cautions and think that they have an important role to play. We are concerned, however, that the ability for officers with no Crown Prosecution Service—or other—oversight to engage in relatively complex decisions, when it is not really within their jobs or remit to decide what the appropriate disposal is in this instance, cuts corners to too great an extent. If the Minister wants to come up with an alternative way, or a more attractive route, that is another matter. Simply saying, however, that prosecutorial oversight will be removed is not the right approach, and we not only oppose the clause, but wish to press it to a Division.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

This is similar to our previous debate. Turning to the detail, the clause does not remove the power of the CPS to authorise a youth conditional caution and vary conditions, nor does it prevent the police from seeking advice from the CPS on whether a conditional caution would be appropriate in individual cases. It enables an “authorised person”—normally a police officer—to make the decision to offer a youth conditional caution to an offender, to set and vary conditions, and to take the decision to prosecute for the original offence in the event of non-compliance.

As the hon. Gentleman’s remarks made clear, the clause removes the existing requirement in the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 for such matters to be referred to a prosecutor to authorise. A police officer cannot currently make the decision to offer a youth conditional caution, including for offences where they have the power to charge an offender or administer a simple caution, reprimand or warning, without reference to a prosecutor. That inconsistency in a police officer’s decision-making powers creates confusion and unnecessary bureaucracy for the CPS. As a result, in many cases where a youth conditional caution may have been the most appropriate disposal for the young offender and the victim, the police have instead had to charge the offender or offer a simple caution with no conditions, because doing so was quicker and simpler than referring the case to the CPS. The existence of such a situation cannot be right, and the clause would address that problem.

Youth conditional cautions are currently available in five pilot areas, and I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s support for the wider principle involved. The cautions contain rigorous conditions designed to address offending behaviour and to ensure that the offender makes amends to their local community by, for example, repairing any damage that they may have caused, or by paying compensation. The young person must comply with such conditions or risk being prosecuted for the original offence.

Giving the police the power to offer youth conditional cautions will help to ensure that such disposals are used in appropriate circumstances. Guidance will set out the level of training and which persons are appropriate to authorise a youth conditional caution. The opportunities for offenders to make swift reparations to victims and communities will be increased and reoffending will be reduced by providing greater opportunity for offenders to be given quick access to rehabilitative services.

The other requirements for a youth conditional caution remain unchanged. The youth offending team will continue to assess the young person, advise on appropriate conditions, and monitor compliance with the caution. As at the moment, the offender must admit to having committed the offence and consent to being given a conditional caution. Offenders will always have the right to refuse or withdraw their agreement to such a caution and have their case heard in court instead.

We recognise that there are likely to be some cases in which it would remain more appropriate for the CPS, rather than the police, to make the decision to offer a conditional caution. We will set out those circumstances and arrangements in guidance.

Clause 113 - Offences of threatening with article with blade or point or offensive weapon in public or on school premises

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I beg to move amendment 389, in clause 113, page 90, line 33, leave out from beginning to end of line 35.

Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government amendments 392, 393, 396.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Knives on our streets are a social scourge. That is why the unlawful possession of a bladed or pointed article or offensive weapon is already a serious criminal offence carrying a maximum custodial sentence of four years.

Clause 113 goes further than those possession offences. Our aim, through the clause, is to send a clear message to those in possession of a bladed or pointed article or offensive weapon, that if they then go on to threaten and cause an immediate risk of serious physical harm to another person they can expect an automatic custodial sentence. The existing possession offences have defences of lawful authority and good reason or reasonable excuse for having a bladed or pointed article or offensive weapon. Those are important defences that allow for people who may, for example, be carrying a knife for trade or religious reasons, or simply because they are on their way back from the shops with a new set of kitchen knives.

Because the new offences build on the basic possession offences, which target people who are in unlawful possession, the defences that apply to the basic possession offences were carried through to the aggravated offences. However, on reflection, the Government are concerned that there is a small risk that the person using a bladed or pointed article or offensive weapon to threaten and endanger could theoretically be acquitted because they were in lawful possession of the article. While in practice anyone brandishing a blade or pointed article or offensive weapon would struggle to persuade a jury that they were in lawful possession of it at the time, amendments 389 and 393 would remove any risk of that happening. The offence will, therefore, apply to individuals regardless of whether the possession is lawful.

Amendments 392 and 393 simply make it clear that if a defendant is found not guilty of the new aggravated offence, but it is proved that the defendant committed the relevant basic possession offence, the court can return an alternative verdict of guilty to the basic offence. The overall effect of that is that lawful authority or good reason or reasonable excuse for possession alone would not be available.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

I do not want to make light of the clause, but I have a question in which I have an interest, as a Scotsman who wears a kilt and carries a skean-dhu. What is the situation regarding a Scottish person carrying a skean-dhu as part of the national dress?

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Subject to any advice I might receive, I presume there would be a reason to be wearing national dress, which might be parallel to a Sikh taking part in a religious ceremony. I hope that that parallel does not get me into trouble, but that would be lawful reason to possess the knife about one’s person. However, if the hon. Gentleman drew it and used it in a threatening way, he would not be able to use the defence that he was in lawful possession of his knife and he would therefore be subject to a mandatory custodial sentence, as the clause will require.

Alex Cunningham (Labour, Stockton North)

May I assure the Minister that I have no intention of using mine? In fact, it is usually encased in my sock.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

It will not be me the hon. Gentleman has to convince. If he finds himself in such circumstances where he has drawn his knife and used it in a threatening way, it will be the appropriate constabulary and prosecutors to whom his unlawful behaviour will have imperilled him in terms of mandatory custody.

After that entertaining Celtic sally, I repeat that the overall effect of the provision will be that lawful authority or good reason or reasonable excuse for possession alone would not be available as defences for the new offences because they do not justify threatening and dangerous conduct, as I said to the hon. Gentleman. However, those defences will continue to be available to the basic possession offences that he mentioned in relation to what is it called he mentioned? A skidoo? [Hon. Members:“ A skean-dhu”] Indeed. A skidoo is something slightly different I think. I presume as a Scot in traditional dress he would have that defence. I will be interested to see whether I am now supplied with advice that states that that is not an adequate defence.

I trust that the Committee will feel able to support this group of small but important amendments that will ensure aggravated offences will now apply regardless of whether the initial possession can be justified in law. The amendments will also ensure that courts that do not find the defendant guilty of the new aggravated offence are, nevertheless, able to return an alternate verdict of a possession offence that is appropriate to the case.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

May I say what a pleasure it has been to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, during the course of these debates and how unfailingly fair and helpful you have been to Committee members?

The issue of knife crime is obviously extremely serious. In the 12 months up to June 2010, nearly 30,000 offences were committed and, even more worryingly, 4,600 people were taken to hospital as a result of knife crimes. The clause creates a new offence of threatening with a blade or point or offensive weapon in public or on a school premises. At the moment, it is the only clause in the Bill that creates a new offence.

I am rather concerned about the way that the Government are using legislation here. As was mentioned earlier, it seems to be further complicating the legislative framework, and I suspect that this piece of legislation is being used for rhetorical purposes.

My first point is that the clause does not fulfil the commitment in the 2010 Tory party manifesto. The section headed, “Change society: Fight back against crime”, stated:

“We have to send a serious, unambiguous message that carrying a knife is totally unacceptable, so we will make it clear that anyone convicted of a knife crime can expect to face a prison sentence. We will introduce mobile knife scanners on streets and public transport,”

and so on. The clause does not do what the Prime Minister said, which was to make the carrying of a knife in any circumstances a criminal offence. The reason why Ministers are using this legislation in a rhetorical way is that we had the “tough on crime” message from before the general election, but then, in October 2010, the Justice Secretary made a U-turn. A BBC News article titled, “Ken Clarke to drop Tory knife jail pledge”, from 6 December 2010 states that

“Mr Clarke said ministers would not insist on ‘absolute tariffs’.”

He went on to tell the BBC:

“‘We’re not setting out absolute tariffs for particular things. What happens is pundits or newspapers suggest levels for particular forms of crimes… Parliament in its wisdom enacts them—it doesn’t work.

Anybody who is guilty of serious knife crime will go to prison but I’m not in favour of absolute rules. I’m in favour of actually allowing judges to see how nasty the offender is, see what the offence was, see what the best way of protecting the public from him is.

‘I’m more interested in actually, will we stop this man doing this again in future?’”

That is a perfectly sensible remark, but we have the tough, and then we have the soft.

Anna Soubry (Conservative, Broxtowe)

On what basis does the hon. Lady say that it is soft to say that people who carry knives in the manner described by the Justice Secretary should expect to go to prison for a considerable length of time? Will she remind us again about the manifesto commitment that people who carry knives could “expect” to face a prison sentence, which implies a non-mandatory sentence and that seems to me to be exactly what is set out in the legislation?

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

If I may say so, the hon. Lady has admirably, and not for the first time in Committee, demonstrated the point, because the fact is that if I had read that, I would have expected it to be mandatory.

As I was going to say, the Justice Secretary then said something different, but after the shambles around 50% discounts for early guilty pleas, we then had the insertion of this clause into the Bill. The clause was not consulted on in the White Paper. I feel that this legislation is being used to make rhetorical point. I am not convinced that it will have a significant impact, because the Government are talking tough with this clause, but failing to deal with the root causes of youth crime.

Earlier this year, the Government commissioned a report by Brooke Kinsella—the sister of Ben Kinsella, who was stabbed to death at the age of 16 in Islington—titled, “Tackling knife crime together”, and it was published in February. In the course of preparing her report, she visited a large number of organisations and projects around the country that seek to turn young people away from a life of crime and gang violence, including the Prince’s Trust and Catch22.

In her thoughtful report, Brooke Kinsella made a large number of recommendations, including for knife crime programmes to be taught in schools, better data sharing, the encouragement of communities to come together, a communal website to link charities to funding opportunities, more projects to promote knife crime education and awareness, and a credit scheme for young people—all sorts of things—but at no point did she discuss changing the law and there was no recommendation about sentencing for adults or young people.

Brooke Kinsella particularly recommended the knife crime prevention programme in Liverpool, which seeks to challenge the behaviour of young people who are found carrying a weapon and encourages wider stakeholders—for example, accident and emergency nurses—to explain the impact of knife crime to dissuade young people. I know from an anaesthetist in an A and E department in Liverpool that knife crime is a very big problem in that city. People with other illnesses and injuries are put at the back of queue, because young men—usually, but not invariably, young men—turn up and jump to the front of the queue every Monday morning.

The Government are ignoring the prevention measures that they need to take on knives and gangs. The Minister may have read the Hansard report of the Westminster Hall debate this week, which was initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). He pointed out that there is a growing problem: in London, knife crime rose by 8% last year, and in his constituency, 50% of 14 to 16-year-olds said that knife crime was the biggest issue that they face today. The reason why I say that the Government are not tackling the issues in an intelligent way or in a way that is likely to work is that, despite the very real problems, the budget for the youth offending service in Haringey has been cut by 50%.

The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington is not in his place, which is a shame because he, too, contributed to that debate. He said that better information sharing across boroughs was needed. He noted the success of the project in Cardiff that tries to bring together people from hospitals and from the police to ensure that they have a better understanding of what is going on.

When the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice, the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) responded, he agreed with the Brooke Kinsella report, saying that we must be more “hard-headed” about interventions. At no point during that debate did anyone call for tougher sentencing or discuss the Government’s plan to create a new knife crime.

I want to draw the attention of the Committee to the remarks made by the Bar Council. It stated:

“This Clause would introduce a ‘new’ offence of threatening with an offensive weapon or with an article with a blade or a point, with a minimum sentence of six months’ imprisonment.

This provision is little more than ‘tough on crime’ window dressing on a Bill which is actually intended to reduce the prison population and the associated cost to the State. While it may have impressed certain sections of the tabloid press, the actions it covers have been criminalised by existing provisions; namely sections 3 and 4 of the Public Act”—

the Public Order Act 1986. It continued:

“Even if the Government’s intention is to ‘toughen up’ sentencing on knife crime, we fail to see how a mandatory minimum sentence of six months imprisonment will serve such a purpose.”

My point is not that we will oppose the clause, which I have to say is otiose and unexceptionable, but that if Ministers were really serious about knife crime they would tackle it in a totally different way.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

We can be upbraided for not being able to deliver our manifesto commitments, but it is rather a shame that we did not win the general election outright. The Government’s programme is not based on the Conservative manifesto, but on the coalition agreement. [ Interruption. ] It is a coalition Government and there are no commitments on knife crime in the coalition agreement. If the hon. Lady wants to put the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington and his colleagues in the parliamentary Liberal party in the dock, she can do so. But it is therefore the success of the Conservative part of this coalition that they have agreed to support, as part of the coalition, these arrangements that send an unequivocal message about this coalition Government’s attitude to knife crime.

The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland said that this is about rhetoric. I can tell her that it is about message and clarity—to make it clear beyond a scintilla of doubt that the coalition Government take knife crime extremely seriously. That is why we are taking these steps to put on the statute book a mandatory sentence when people use knives in a threatening manner.

Andrew Slaughter (Labour, Hammersmith)

I am slightly surprised by the Minister’s sudden and unprovoked attack on his coalition partners, particularly when the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington is not here. I do not know whether we will hear from the hon. Member for Edinburgh West, who may need to clarify the situation. The Minister certainly needs to do so.

Are we being told that there would have been a stronger provision on knife crime had there been a Conservative Government, or are we to believe what we were told by the hon. Member for Broxtowe a few moments ago, which is that this does exactly the job that the Prime Minister said it would do before the election? They cannot both be true.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

We fought the general election on the manifesto. The hon. Gentleman will have observed that, much to my distress, we did not have a majority on the basis of that manifesto. That is why we are in a coalition and the programme for the Government is the coalition agreement. While there was no reference to knife crime in the coalition agreement, the coalition Government, after due consideration, are sending an unequivocal message through the measure that we propose to put on the statute book in this clause. Of course, we enjoy the full support of our Liberal Democrat colleagues on this.

Ben Gummer (Conservative, Ipswich)

I am surprised by the shadow Minister’s tone here. It is not about rhetoric. It is about sending an important message. The message is important in itself for this reason. She will be well aware that the whole problem with knife crime in some communities in this country is the habitual carrying of weapons, especially by young men, in order to threaten. Sometimes the weapons are not even produced. The point about this clause and the amendments to it is to ensure that a message is sent that it is not acceptable to carry a weapon, whether brandished or not. That is precisely the Government’s intention. We are hitting a real problem with a strong message and a strong solution.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clear and unequivocal support.

Dave Watts (Labour, St Helens North)

If the Minister feels that the measure will be effective, as I suspect he does, has he assessed the likely impact on knife crime on the streets in the 12 months after it is introduced?

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I wish I had a crystal ball and could say exactly what will happen once we pass legislation. We are trying to create the circumstances where we will have an effect and the clarity of the message sent will have an effect. We have to be careful with the conduct of this discussion. If I have contributed to the levity, then I should apologise. This is a serious issue, and we have to find a way as legislators of doing our level best to address it. We have to do it within the proper justice framework and we have to have measures that will be effective. This is the judgment that the coalition Government have come to about how to send what I think we all agree is the necessary message about the absolute unacceptability of knife crime.

Anna Soubry (Conservative, Broxtowe)

The Criminal Justice Act 2003 made the possession of a firearm an offence attracting a mandatory five-year sentence. In doing so, the Act sent out a powerful message, which many people, especially those at the sharp end of the criminal justice system, believe had a profound effect on the carrying of firearms and, in cities such as Nottingham, led to a steep reduction in the use and possession of firearms.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

My hon. Friend makes an extremely powerful point about the messages that accompany our measures, the practical benefits that are felt on the ground and on the enormous benefit to people who would otherwise be victims.

I shall now address the detail of the clause, which creates the new offences of using a blade, pointed article or offensive weapon to threaten or cause immediate risk of serious physical harm to another. The offences under this clause will apply in England and Wales, and they will be triable either way and subject to a maximum penalty of four years’ imprisonment on indictment.

The clause provides that the courts must impose a minimum custodial sentence of six months if the offender is aged 18 or over, unless there are particular circumstances relating to the offence or offender that would make it unjust to do so. That exception exists for firearms offences, and it is usual for such mandatory sentence laws to make exceptions in appropriate cases to avoid the possibility of an unlawfully disproportionate sentence being imposed.

Special considerations apply to young people, which is why there is a separate sentencing framework for juveniles in the criminal justice system. The juvenile criminal justice system has an overriding statutory aim of preventing further offending, whereas the sentencing of adult offenders has a number of purposes that the courts balance. Rehabilitation of juveniles can take place more effectively in the community, where links to family, positive influences, education and wider services can be maintained. Although the new offences apply to juveniles as they do to adults, juveniles will not automatically receive a custodial sentence. Courts will, however, have the power to impose, where appropriate, detention and training orders on juveniles convicted of the new offences.

We will tackle the scourge of knives by complementing existing offences and initiatives with new offences that target the most serious threatening behaviour in which people carry a knife or offensive weapon and use it to put others at risk. Young people convicted of a knife crime and who receive a community penalty will usually be directed to attend a knife crime prevention programme. We are determined to stamp out knife crime, and we need to ensure that young people know why carrying a knife is wrong. Knife crime prevention programmes deliver a powerful message that carrying knives is wrong and may result in tragic outcomes for victims and their families. Modules include sessions delivered by victims’ families and by national health service senior clinicians, who give their first-hand experience of the impact of knife crime. Such programmes are reported as effective and are welcomed by youth offending teams.

Unlawful possession of a knife or offensive weapon is already a serious criminal offence that carries a maximum custodial sentence of four years. If someone is physically harmed, there is also a range of existing offences against the person, particularly offences of wounding or causing grievous bodily harm, that reflect the seriousness of the offending behaviour and the harm caused. The maximum penalty for grievous bodily harm with intent, for example, is life imprisonment. The use of a weapon is an aggravating factor in sentencing. We want to strengthen the existing legislative framework.

Andrew Slaughter (Labour, Hammersmith)

The Minister is arguing against himself. He is effectively conceding the point that this is a cosmetic offence. In their comments, Government Members, including the Minister, are eliding two different things—the offence is one of threatening, not possession—and are trying to cover up their embarrassment at not fulfilling their manifesto programme. There are already offences on the statute book that address the issue.

It is not right that legislation is used simply to send a message. There is nothing wrong with such an offence. It does not do anything bad. We shall not oppose it. I am sure that my hon. Friend will deal with such matters, but the Minister ought to be a little more straight and direct, and accept that he is not actually introducing a measure that will have a material effect on sentencing. He cannot get away with eliding what the offence will do and what the Government promised in the first place.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

There is no difference; the Government have been absolutely consistent since the formation of the issue and will continue to be so. It is a shame that the hon. Gentleman and the style of his interventions serve to undermine the unequivocal message that I hope the whole of Parliament is sending out about such offences. I would rather that we had his support, delivered with more enthusiasm and better grace so that Parliament’s intention to deal with such a scourge is made clear.

We want to strengthen the existing legislative framework by targeting behaviour that amounts to more than simple possession, but does not go as far as resulting in injury to the victim. Our new offences will complement the existing offences of possession that deal with people who carry weapons in public places or schools without lawful authority, reasonable excuse or good reason. With or without the assistance of the hon. Member for Hammersmith, we send through the clause a clear and unequivocal message from Parliament to people who defy the law by carrying knives and offensive weapons in public places or schools and use them to threaten or endanger people.

Karl Turner (Labour, Kingston upon Hull East)

On a point of order, Mr Hollobone. My name appeared on an amendment in respect of night crime. I have made inquiries and, for the record, I want to make it clear that it was a mistake.

Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)

Thank you, Mr Turner. Your comments are on the record.

Schedule 16 - Knives and offensive weapons: minor and consequential amendments

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I beg to move amendment 397, in schedule 16, page 186, line 18, at end insert “only”.

Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government amendments 398 to 404.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The amendments are minor and consequential, and flow from clause 113. Amendment 404 amends the Armed Forces Act 2006, which makes equivalent provision in respect of sentencing by a service court to that made under clause 113 and schedule 16 in respect of sentencing by a civilian court.

New Clause 4 - Consequential amendments to the Armed Forces Act 2006

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The amendments are consequential to the provisions of the Armed Forces Act 2006 relating to service and overseas community orders, which can be made by service courts. The amendments reflect the changes made to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 by clause 55, which deals with the duration of community orders made by civilian courts.

The new clause also ensures that the foreign travel prohibition requirement introduced under clause 61 is not available for inclusion in an overseas community order. As with other Government amendments made to armed forces legislation, the new clause is designed to ensure that the sentencing law and practice of the service courts is, where practical, aligned with the law and practice of the civilian courts of England and Wales.

New Clause 15 - Causing serious injury by dangerous driving

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government new schedule 1—Causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

Government amendments 406, 407 and 408.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I hope that the new clause and its associated new schedule and amendments will be welcomed by the Committee, not least by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East, who has been among a number of hon. Members who for some time have been alerting Parliament to this issue. It certainly goes back as far as 2006 when my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) proposed similar amendments, and representations were made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield, now the Secretary of State for International Development, and the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Mr Crausby). What we are proposing today addresses the concerns that colleagues have raised with us.

The Government believe that it is vital to ensure that the criminal law is fully effective in addressing dangerous driving and its all too often appalling consequences. New clause 15 fills a long recognised gap by introducing a new offence of causing serious injury by dangerous driving. Causing death by dangerous driving is rightly considered a very serious crime, and that is reflected in the maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment. Our law has always regarded cases where death results from criminality to be uniquely serious. That is why death by dangerous driving carries such a high maximum penalty.

For the vast majority of other dangerous driving cases, the maximum penalty of two years imprisonment provides the court with sufficient and proportionate powers to punish offenders. The Government do not agree with those who consider that the maximum penalty for dangerous driving should be raised at large. However, we are aware of the strong feelings about sentencing for dangerous driving cases that cause very severe injuries. We have considered the issue very carefully, not least in the debate on the ten-minute rule Bill that was recently introduced by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East. We have listened to the victims and their families and the judges and hon. Members who have firm views about sentencing for cases of dangerous driving with appalling consequences.

The issue is emotive. Campaigners have long suggested that the gap between the current maximum penalty of two years for dangerous driving and 14 years for death by dangerous driving is too wide. They believe that the current two-year maximum for dangerous driving does not adequately reflect or address the serious injuries that can result from such driving. A victim can receive very serious life-changing injuries, but the maximum penalty remains at two years. We have therefore decided to target directly the offences where there is a clear and obvious gap in the law. We believe the new offence will enable the courts to deal appropriately with people convicted in these more serious cases. It will enable them to sentence more severely at the most serious and damaging end of the spectrum of dangerous driving incidents.

Some people maintain that the courts should focus on the standard of the driving rather than the consequences. They say that whether death or serious injuries result from a piece of bad driving is a matter of chance, however serious the result. I appreciate that argument, but only to a degree. While it is certainly true that the standard of driving must be the most important factor in judging culpability, the Government believe it important to ensure that we strike a balance between the level of criminal fault on the part of dangerous drivers and the consequences of that criminal fault for the victim. We believe that the maximum sentence of five years for the new offence will give the courts the ability better to address that balance.

In short, I believe that it is right for the courts to have the ability to impose a stiffer custodial sentence to reflect the serious consequences of a driver’s actions, where it is appropriate to do so. As I say, we have listened to those who have suffered and those who have spoken on their behalf, and we are now able to help address their concerns through the creation of this new offence. Government new schedule 1 simply introduces a number of consequential amendments, which ensure that the provisions relating to the trial and consequences on conviction for the new offence will be similar to those relating to existing dangerous driving offences under the Road Traffic Act 1988.

Karl Turner (Labour, Kingston upon Hull East)

May I start by saying what a pleasure it has been to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone? If my memory serves me, the last time I addressed hon. Members about dangerous driving was in a Westminster Hall debate which you chaired. I welcome Government new clause 15. I am bound to say that I welcome what the Minister has said, but it would probably be disingenuous of me to say that it reflects entirely what I had initially suggested. I thank the Minister for listening to what I said when I met him, his officials and the Justice Secretary.

The proposals put victims of dangerous driving at the heart of the justice system, which was the main principle of my argument and indeed of my ten-minute rule Bill. Many Members of Parliament have constituents who have been the victims of such horrendous offences. Since I became a Member of Parliament I have represented Katie Harper, who suffered serious injury at the hands of a dangerous driver. One of the most famous cases that I am aware of is the tragic case of Cerys Edwards, who was a toddler when she was involved in a road traffic incident. It was a tragic case indeed. In recent days, the York newspaper The Press reported the case of Graham Bell, who was the victim of dangerous driving. In that situation, the defendant James Ramsden drove his vehicle at about 100 mph down the A64, and hit the victim head-on. The victim did not suffer serious injury, but he was admitted to hospital and was kept in the high-dependency unit for some time.

If I am to criticise the Government, I need to highlight the concern that that case raises. There will be an issue where serious injury has not occurred—in some cases, injury might occur but not serious injury—and that might be a stumbling block. I am sure that many lawyers will be tasked with the legal arguments over whether serious injury has occurred. The issue for me is whether it is always easy to prove that grievous bodily harm has occurred in such situations. The case that I have mentioned is effectively grievous bodily harm—a section 20 offence for dangerous driving.

My argument, if you like, is that dangerous driving is really bad whether or not serious injury occurs. In my opinion, someone who drives a weapon at another person on the road without any regard for their own safety or the safety of others sometimes warrants a sentence of more than two years, whether injury has occurred or not. That is my criticism of the proposals. As I have said, however, the Government new clause puts the victims of dangerous driving—certainly where serious injury has occurred—at the heart of the justice system. I welcome that and thank the Minister for listening endlessly to me, not always in the privacy of the Justice Secretary’s office, but while I chased him down corridors and in the Lobby, as I have done on numerous occasions. I thank him very much indeed.

Anna Soubry (Conservative, Broxtowe)

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East. I add my congratulations on his successful campaign and reiterate his generous comments about other campaigners, notably the victims’ families. I support much of what he says and suggest a way forward: instead of creating a new offence, the mischief we all seek to cure is better addressed with an extension of the existing sentencing powers from two to five years. There are two reasons why that should be done. I will, of course, support the Government, as I welcome the fact that we are taking this step forward in recognising that serious injury occurs and judges do not have sufficient powers to ensure that the punishment fits the crime.

I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern about the definition of serious harm. We are all conscious of the need to consider the cost. I fear that we will increase the cost of many prosecutions, as has been identified, while lawyers disagree, argue and seek more medical advice and so on, to ensure that they have the evidence to support a definition of serious harm, as opposed to very serious harm, which is more a definition of sections 20 and 18.

There are many instances of people driving outrageously badly, when some injury may or may not have occurred. Nevertheless, the current two-year maximum sentence is not sufficient. I prosecuted a case of a driver, who, during the prolonged course of a police chase, which I believe started in Leicestershire and ended in Nottinghamshire, actually changed seats with the passenger at high speed of up to 100 miles per hour. It was a miracle that the child being carried in the rear of the car was not involved in an accident and injured, never mind anybody else in other cars. There are many instances of such appalling driving, where it is a miracle that nobody was injured. We can all think of examples where red lights were jumped, corners taken at great speed and so on. My fear is that we will not cure those mischiefs by simply recognising, quite properly, that the existing powers of sentence do not cover those examples where serious injury has taken place.

I put that forward because there are other instances of people driving appallingly over a long period that have ended in a collision. Those might involve chasing police vehicles, or other completely innocent drivers. The resulting collision could cause extensive damage to vehicles but mercifully, the injury might be whiplash and not serious. However, when all those factors are put together, clearly two years is not sufficient.

The other factor that we also forget is that the current two-year maximum sentence ties a judge’s hands when considering a case of very bad driving, since they cannot reflect that there may be other offences. The person in question might never have taken a driving test in 20 years, and it could be their second or third offence. None of those aggravating features can be properly reflected in the existing legislation. Therefore, I urge the Government to consider that the better way is to change the sentencing powers from two to five years, so that all such offences can be properly sentenced by judges. I am a great believer in giving our judges powers and discretions to ensure that the punishment fits the crime.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I rise not only to support the Government’s position but the work done by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East, with whom I have discussed this matter on many occasions. The thrust of his argument, which we have now heard and has been elucidated by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe, is an important one that we must not forget.

Robert Buckland (Conservative, South Swindon)

I should have said that it is a pleasure to welcome you back to the Chair, Mr Sheridan, and to have served under your chairmanship in this Public Bill Committee, of which this is the last sitting, so my thanks to you.

I was echoing some of the comments made by hon. Members about the problems faced by the courts when encountering the two-year maximum sentence for the offence of dangerous driving. Those problems are particularly aggravated when a defendant with multiple previous convictions for like offences comes before the courts, having built up over a number of years a very poor record of bad driving, aggravated by being disqualified. On disqualified driving, the courts can impose short consecutive sentences on top of dangerous driving, but they are of course limited by the maximum sentence available for disqualified driving of six months. With that addition, one can in effect impose a sentence in excess of two years, but there is still a significant ceiling that causes a problem for judges regarding the discretion available in sentencing repeat offenders for serious offences of dangerous driving. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe was right to remind the Government of that problem and to urge reconsideration of the issue by allowing a maximum sentence to be raised at some future point.

The proposal in new clause 15 and new schedule 1 allows the courts to reflect one of the serious consequences of dangerous driving: serious injury where that occurs. The Minister was right to say that one of the factors paramount in the minds of the legislation’s authors was the course of driving itself, and that there was for a long period a school of thought that the consequences were of secondary importance. We have moved away from that approach. I have noticed in the past 15 or 20 years a move by the Court of Appeal away from just focusing on the driving, and an increasing emphasis on the consequences. That is why I welcome this provision—because it deals with consequences.

English criminal law has traditionally focused on consequences. The law of offences against the person does not specify the type of assault that may be inflicted; it deals with the consequences, namely grievous bodily harm or actual bodily harm. Here, we are in a more modern way defining grievous bodily harm as serious injury. I welcome that on two grounds. The first is the welcome acknowledgement that the consequences of dangerous driving—or driving that falls far below the standard of a reasonable and competent driver, which is the definition of dangerous driving—should be properly reflected in the law and in sentencing powers.

The second ground is the introduction of the modern phrase “serious injury” to allow the Government to give serious consideration to ongoing work by the Law Commission, which is in the process of reviewing the law of offences against the person and which will produce—in a year or so or perhaps slightly longer—a report on modernising the law of offences against the person. I am pretty sure that that review can deal with the archaic phrases “grievous bodily harm” and “actual bodily harm”, and the difficulties occasioned by interpreting the meaning of “inflicting” in section 20, as opposed to “causing” in section 18. Perhaps unintentionally, the Government have opened the door to, and assisted the work of, the Law Commission, which I hope will yield fruit in modernising the law of violence against the person. I warmly welcome the new clause for those reasons.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I want to put on record Her Majesty’s Opposition’s support for the new clause, which is sensible. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East on his successful campaign. He has achieved something that Members on the Opposition Front Bench have failed to do: he has persuaded the Government to make a change to the Bill, which indicates that he has a great career ahead of him. He is a very effective Member of the House.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East deserves credit for the way in which he has run his campaign in this Parliament, but other hon. Members deserve credit, too. This was the position of the then Opposition in 2006, so the measure has some history. The hon. Gentleman referred not only to the case of his constituent, Katie Harper, but to that of Cerys Edwards. A number of colleagues, including the hon. Member for Bolton North East and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield, have been associated with the cause, so it concerns Members from both sides of the House. I welcome the support that has come from all quarters for the measure.

To respond to a couple of minor points, serious injury is defined in the new clause as

“physical harm which amounts to grievous bodily harm for the purposes of the Offences against the Person Act 1861”.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon for explaining how that definition relates to the work being done by Law Commission. He and my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe invited us to consider raising the overall maximum penalty to five years. We have done so, but there is no evidence to suggest that the maximum penalty is too low in the vast majority of dangerous driving cases. In addition, an increase in the overall maximum would almost certainly lead to an upward drift in all dangerous driving cases, which would carry significant cost implications. It would also unbalance the sentencing relativities across the board.

The Government are much more convinced by the argument that we should focus on consequences. I was therefore convinced by that part of the argument made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon. That is the direction that the law and the Court of Appeal have taken, and we endorse it, which is why the new clause delivers a more targeted approach to addressing the consequences of bad driving.

New Clause 6 - Maximum and minimum sentences

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

It is nice to see you back in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Sheridan. I shall not delay the Committee unduly, because the new clause is self-explanatory. It would place a duty on courts to state the maximum, as well as the minimum, time that shall be served when someone is sentenced for a determinate term. Such a measure would give courts greater freedom to impose the sentences they deem fit and to have regard to the individual circumstances of each case. The stated minimum term would have to be less than half, but no less than one third of the maximum sentence. It will undoubtedly incentivise individuals, and I think it will become clear to the public as well. I concede, however, that if this system were introduced, on average, sentences would be 10% longer. That would add about 6,000 to the daily prison population over a parliamentary term. Surely, in this case, public protection should and must trump cost or political point scoring. I do not want to press the new clause to a vote, because I do not need to do so. I say that, because I am utterly convinced that the Government will accept it, because when they were in opposition it was one of their central policies. In their election manifesto, it had a prominent position. I am sure that the Minister will accept the amendment with open arms.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The principle and the idea underlined by the right hon. Gentleman is as attractive as it was when the general principle found its way into the Conservative manifesto. I am happy to concede that point. We have had to wrestle with the realities of the position that we found ourselves in once in office as part of a coalition Government. He has already alluded to the inflationary aspects of the prisoner population that could be estimated as a result of these measures. He and I have discussed this in private and in office meetings, and I listened to the debate on the ten-minute Bill that he introduced on this issue.

I am not sure whether the new clause as drafted is even what a Conservative Government would do on their own, without the assistance of our coalition partners, without the appalling economic inheritance that we have to manage, which is a problem with issues like this. [Interruption.] It is obviously not my fault. Resources are a serious issue, and they have not been more serious for any Government for a long time, so those arguments are important.

The new clause is flawed. It fails to provide all the provisions that would be required to create such a system or to specify how this new min-max sentencing system for determinant sentences is set to interact with the existing sentencing provisions. For example, it does not set out the criteria for release before the maximum period or the provisions on any licence supervision or for recall of offenders. Nor does it make consequential amendments to incorporate existing provisions into the new min–max sentencing system, which is but one of the reasons why I cannot welcome the new clause with open arms.

As I have said, I have discussed this with the right hon. Gentleman. We reviewed these ideas when we came into office and he has explained the background. We are interested to see whether such a system would increase honesty and transparency in sentencing and whether it might be the way to develop the notion of earned release, rather than automatic release.

After careful consideration we decided that we are not in a position to pursue such a system in the sentencing reforms. Creating a min-max system would require a complex legislative framework involving a complete reworking of the legislation and many rather involved clauses. Our focus is on the immediate challenge that we face.

More serious, however, is the question of whether the system would provide for more honesty or, more accurately, greater transparency in sentencing. It is true that setting an unalterable minimum sentence may be seen as more honest than setting a sentence which appears to be halved. However, such a system would also mean that every determinate offender was subject to a period of indeterminacy. It would not be clear when an offender would actually be released. It would not be clear to the court when setting the sentence when the offender would be released, if the decision was made in the discretionary release period by the prison governor.

There is also a particular set of problems with the criteria for release. It perhaps depends on the offender carrying out specific activities or programmes. If so, could these be completed within the minimum period to allow the offender to demonstrate that they could be released at the minimum point? Would there then have to be an appeal against a decision not to be released at the minimum point if it was not the fault of the offender?

There are many more thorny issues to contend with. That is why, although we remain interested in these ideas, we have not pursued min-max sentencing in the Bill. We have retained the current determinate sentencing system and we are taking other measures to try to make sentencing more transparent by providing more and better information and working with the Sentencing Council and others to promote public awareness of sentencing. I hope that this brief explanation of some of the difficulties of such an approach will be sufficient to convince the right hon. Gentleman to withdraw his new clause.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I rise with less enthusiasm than when I sat down. The Minister has discussed this with me before. I thought that this was a vehicle to bring about a discussion. No doubt at some point in the not too distant future there will be further discussion. I understand what he says. I understand that the new clause may be deficient in some ways, so it would be rather foolish to press it to a Division. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

New Clause 10 - Sentencing law relating to extended supervision

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I will have another go and see how I get on. I am ever the optimist—one has to be in a small party. I am very optimistic for our rugby team on Saturday morning. That team will carry the hopes of the whole of the UK. Let us get back to business.

The new clause seeks to amend the Criminal Justice Act 2003 by inserting a new subsection dealing with a matter that one would think was already covered in the current law. It is not. Under section 227 of that Act, persons of 18 years or older who commit certain violent or sexual offences are given an extended sentence. However, in cases where someone has committed a serious crime and is subsequently diagnosed with psychological or psychiatric problems, it is the feeling of many sentencers that an extended period of licence would be more appropriate, for both the individual involved and the protection of the public. In many cases, the disposal of a hospital order would be preferable, but that disposal is not currently available to sentencers.

A few minutes ago, the Minister prayed in aid the Court of Appeal. The conundrum of this sentence not being available to sentencers was precisely the finding of Mr Justice Saunders who presided over a case of a defendant who stabbed and killed a man while she was suffering from a debilitating mental illness. In his sentencing remarks he said that this

“would clearly have been a case for a hospital order”,

but that that disposal was “not open” to him. He wished to pass a sentence that would provide an appropriate level of protection for the public, although not designed to over-punish as the defendant’s culpability was relatively low, owing to the mental illness. He expressed great frustration that Parliament does not allow sentencers to order an extended period of licence, which he calls “an unfortunate omission” in their powers.

The new clause states:

“In determining whether to impose extended supervision a court shall have regard to…any psychological or psychiatric assessment that is carried out following the commission of the…offence...and the likelihood of the person being involved in further similar serious offending.”

Effectively, that is an attempt to respond to the plea by the High Court judge, who is a highly regarded and highly experienced judge on the bench. I have previously introduced that matter as a ten-minute rule Bill, and it is very serious—High Court judges do not make spurious points in appealing to Parliament. Therefore, if the Minister is not able to discuss the details of that very important matter today, I will be content if he takes it away and reconsiders it.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

The new clause, which relates to the imposition of extended sentences for certain violent and sexual offences for adults, is designed to require the court to consider three additional factors—having regard to the seriousness of the original offence; considering psychological or psychiatric assessments carried out after the offence and any subsequent assessments; and considering the likelihood of the person becoming involved in further similar serious offending.

Let me say at the outset that I understand the thinking behind the new clause. Those are clearly important considerations for a court in imposing a sentence, but I suggest that such additional statutory requirements are not necessary, and I shall explain why. First, on the requirement to have regard to the seriousness of the immediate offence, there is a general provision in section 143 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 that a court, in considering any sentence, must consider the seriousness of the offence. In doing so, the court must consider the culpability of the offender and the harm caused. That is a fundamental part of the process of deciding any sentence for any offence, so it is not necessary to repeat that established principle in relation to the imposition of one type of sentence.

The second element of the new clause relates to the consideration of psychological or psychiatric assessments carried out after the offence and subsequent assessments. Of course, such considerations are important, but several existing statutory provisions allow or require a court to consider such reports. For example, section 156 of the 2003 Act, which deals with pre-sentence reports, allows the court to take into account any information before it that relates to the offender.

There is also a particular requirement on the court in the case of mentally disordered offenders. Under section 157 of the 2003 Act,

“in any case where the offender is or appears to be mentally disordered, the court must obtain and consider a medical report before passing a custodial sentence”.

I therefore suggest that there is sufficient provision under the current law for the court to commission psychological or psychiatric assessments, or to consider any reports put before it, whether they are submitted in a pre-sentence report or by defence representatives.

Finally, on the duty to consider the likelihood of further offending, there is already such a requirement in the section dealing with the imposition of an extended sentence. An extended sentence can be imposed if an offender is over 18, has been convicted of a specified offence and, under section 227(1)(b) of the 2003 Act,

“the court considers that there is a significant risk to members of the public…occasioned by the commission by the offender of further specified offences.”

It is therefore already part of the law that sentencers should consider, when imposing an extended sentence, the risk of further similar offending in the future.

The right hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of hospital orders, which is a different matter. My understanding is that, under section 37 of the Mental Health Act 1983, mental health issues should be considered in relation to a hospital order at the point of sentence. If such issues arise after sentencing, there could be different options.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

That is exactly the point, and the gist of the case. It is about a situation in which a sentence was imposed and where it subsequently came to light that there were psychiatric problems, and a hospital order would have been preferable. That is why the learned judge made the plea. In such circumstances, what disposal is there to protect the public?

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

We are getting into the area of transfer between prison and mental health custody. I need to take advice on this point and write to the right hon. Gentleman, because I am not equipped as a lawyer.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

As I said at the outset, I am more than content for the Minister to take this matter away and look into it. He may well come back and explain that I am wrong—I do not know. I am a lawyer, and although I am not trying to wrongfoot him, I believe that High Court judges do not make pleas to Parliament lightly. After further careful deliberation, we might well both conclude that there is a case for change. If so, that is all well and good, and if not, there we are, but given the seriousness of this point, it might be better to take it away. That would not be a bad reflection on the Minister in any shape or form.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

After witnessing 13 years of amendments to the law, and having started from the position of not being a lawyer, I have seen how magnificently complicated the criminal law framework has become. The last thing I am going to say is that I understand every scintilla of it, so I am happy to take away the right hon. Gentleman’s comments and get my officials to look at them carefully. We will also look at the High Court judge’s submission, to which the right hon. Gentleman drew attention, and I will write to him with the result of our considerations.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

New Clause 11 - Sentencing law relating to early release of those serving determinate sentences

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

At the risk of boring the Committee, the new clause is again in my name, and, again, it seeks to amend the Criminal Justice Act 2003. After section 244(3)(d), it would insert the words:

“(e) Before releasing a person sentenced to a period of imprisonment of four years or more the Parole Board must be satisfied that the individual is considered low risk of harm to the public and low risk of reoffending.”.’

As the Committee may know, under section 244 of the 2003 Act, when a fixed-term prisoner has served the requisite custodial sentence, the Secretary of State must release them on licence. Since 2005, those serving four years or more have come out after serving 50% of their sentence, regardless of the progress that they have made in prison.

The new clause would add a further paragraph to the section to ensure that, before releasing a person sentenced to four years or more in prison, the Parole Board must be satisfied that the individual is at a low risk of harm to the public, and also has a low risk of reoffending. The amendment effectively puts in place an incentive for rehabilitation, and for prisoners who are serving determinate sentences, the Parole Board must be satisfied that they are a low risk to the public before they are granted early release.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

I think the right hon. Gentleman said after “section 244(3)(d)”. Is there a typing error on the amendment paper?

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

Section 244(3)(d) of the 2003 Act.

Helen Goodman (Labour, Bishop Auckland)

For some reason the amendment has not been properly transcribed on the amendment paper, which I am sure is not the right hon. Gentleman’s fault.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

The amendment was meant to read, “244(3)(d)”, but I did not notice the error.

What I am saying is fairly obvious. One would assume that people released at the halfway stage are always vetted, have always done the various courses and are always proven to be of no risk to the public, but I am afraid that that is not the case. The Minister will say that the amendment would have financial consequences, but we have to recognise that keeping the public secure has a cost to the taxpayer.

I have discussed the matter with the Minister previously, and I would be grateful for his response. I am not minded to press the amendment to a vote, but, none the less, I would be grateful for a detailed response.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

I hope that the right hon. Gentleman understands the dramatic impact that the new clause would have. There is a hideous operational issue with prisoners who have received indeterminate sentences for public protection. The amendment would, to a degree, add to that problem because there would be a huge increase in the number of prisoners caught by release arrangements that would effectively be the same as those for indeterminate or life sentences.

The right hon. Gentleman will have read the reports from several serious authorities—prison governors, the Prison Reform Trust and so on—on the indeterminate sentence regime and the problems that have already arisen. The Parole Board’s capacity had to be doubled in very short order because the consequences of the policy were not predicted when it was included in legislation in 2000 and 2003. The truth is that we are managing a serious operational problem to ensure that prisoners sentenced to indeterminate sentences with a tariff for public protection are able to go to the Parole Board at the end of their tariff and can satisfy its release test. As things are set up at the moment, it would not be possible to extend that policy to every prisoner who receives a sentence of four years, and who serves more than two years in custody. Frankly, I am uncertain about whether such a proposal is desirable. I much prefer the determinate sentence regime, under which the tariffs and sentences are clear, so people know how long they can expect to serve. It is then the Prison Service’s responsibility to ensure that people attend the programmes, and everything else, to address the causes of their offending behaviour.

On the new clause, my overall fear is that we already have a substantial operational problem, quite apart from the associated justice issues that would be magnified many times. On those grounds alone, I ask the Committee to resist the new clause.

I regard the determinate prison sentences in the 2003 Act to be the right approach. It is is simple and straightforward. It is clear that prisoners are entitled to automatic release at the halfway point of their sentence—regardless of its length—and those sentenced to more than 12 months will then serve the whole of the second half of their sentence on licence. That model should continue to apply to the majority of determinate sentences. We do not believe there is a case for returning to a system, as under the Criminal Justice Act 1991, whereby the Parole Board has to consider the release of all prisoners serving four years or more. Not least, it is important that the Parole Board’s resources are focused on the most serious or high-risk offenders only, where a period of discretionary release and the board’s expertise in assessing risk is most needed.

As the Committee knows, the Government have been looking at how best to deal with serious offenders who commit violent or sexual offences. In that regard, we have been reviewing the indeterminate sentences for public protection and we expect to set out our conclusions extremely shortly.

The release test proposed by the new clause could not operate on its own. It would have to be accompanied by broader changes to the release framework to provide that prisoners serving four years or more are no longer released automatically—indeed, as I understand it, it would be prisoners serving two years in custody—but instead were subject to a period of discretionary release by the Parole Board.

As I said, the Government do not believe that there should be a blanket requirement for all determinate or extended sentence prisoners serving four years or more to be referred to the Parole Board. Discretionary release by the board must be reserved for those cases in which it is needed to control the release of the most serious or high-risk offenders.

Given those remarks, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will withdraw his new clause.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I thank the Minister for that response. I do not know whether there is slight confusion, because I am no fan of indeterminate sentences for public protection anyway, as new clause 12, which I tabled but which was not selected, shows.

I understand what the Minister says, and I said that I knew that there would be considerable financial consequences. However, I must also say that people who are sentenced to four years’ imprisonment can often be pretty dangerous individuals, and my point was that they should have been more closely assessed if they were going to be released at the halfway point.

We have had the debate and I have listened to the Minister. My only intention, frankly, was to have the debate. I did not intend to divide the Committee on the issue, but it is an important point. One of the highest duties that we as individuals in Parliament have to shoulder is public protection. The new clause was purely designed for that. It was not meant to extend anyone’s period of imprisonment, but rather to make absolutely sure that those who are released at the halfway point of a four-year sentence are ready for civvy street and will not pose a risk to their neighbours and other individuals.

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

We should remember that prisoners with sentences of that length are, of course, not released without proper supervision. Some of the licensing conditions that can be applied to them in the community are extremely robust in order to deliver that level of public protection. There are approved premises that the kind of offenders about which the right hon. Gentleman is concerned will go to, and they will get the most careful oversight by both the probation service and the police in the community. If they breach their licence conditions, they will be recalled to custody. We are not therefore operating in a way that creates absence of supervision of prisoners once they have completed the first custodial half of their sentence. The number of recalls to prison makes that clear.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

I thank the Minister. I have no intention of dividing the Committee, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.

New Schedule 1 - Causing serious injury by dangerous driving

New Schedule 2 - Crediting of time in custody: Armed Forces amendments

Clause 114 - Power to make consequential and supplementary provision etc

Clause 117 - Extent

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

On a point of order, Mr Sheridan. To mark the conclusion of proceedings, I want to thank you, Mr Sheridan, and indeed Mr Hollobone, for your balanced and professional chairmanship of the Committee. I thank all members of the Committee for their participation. It has been a productive Committee with many excellent contributions by hon. and right hon. Members, many of whom have brought to bear a wealth of experience from their respective professions. Serious and very complex issues have been discussed and the atmosphere has generally been very good.

I also thank the Clerk to the Committee, Hansard, the Doorkeepers, police and, of course, our Ministry of Justice officials, who have been very helpful throughout the process.

I am pleased to note that the Committee has covered all 119 clauses and 16 schedules in the Bill through robust, informed and thorough debate. We have even managed to end early on the last day, which I must admit is quite an achievement. The Committee has given the Bill the scrutiny and the consideration that it fully deserves.

The usual channels must also be congratulated. Our proper allocation of time has meant that we have not had to guillotine debate at any point, which is how I wanted to proceed from the outset, and I am pleased that we got there. I am also grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate, who, of course, made a valuable contribution in leading the debates on parts 3 and 4.

Andrew Slaughter (Labour, Hammersmith)

Further to that point of order, Mr Sheridan. The Minister has said that we are going to end early, but I must warn him that my point of order may take up the rest of the time.

Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)

That will depend on whether it is a proper point of order.

Andrew Slaughter (Labour, Hammersmith)

I echo all the thanks that the Minister has given, but I begin by thanking you, Mr Sheridan. We had the opportunity before Mr Hollobone left this afternoon to thank him. We have appreciated the authority that you have both shown, the good order in which you have kept the Committee, and the good humour that you have displayed, even when we have been sitting up—as we did on at least one occasion—until midnight. I take no responsibility for late sitting or verbosity; that was caused simply by the Government’s bad timetabling.

I echo the Minister’s thanks to Miss Emms and her colleagues in the Clerks’ office. In the first five years that I was here, I managed to do a lot of Bill dodging, so I came to the Committee with little experience. As a result, I suspect that I and those working with me have pestered Miss Emms unduly with our requests outside the Committee. We appreciate not only the firm procedural guidance but all the assistance that she has given, particularly to the Opposition, outside the Committee.

The Minister has thanked the civil servants, and we should perhaps thank them for writing short speeches for the Ministers. I do not know whether it is traditional, but I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland will join me in thanking our researchers—

Crispin Blunt (Conservative, Reigate)

Who have written long speeches.

Andrew Slaughter (Labour, Hammersmith)

I would like to thank our researchers for what they have done with somewhat fewer resources. As my researcher is here, he can attest to that, and to the doorstep briefings that he has handed round on many occasions. With rather fewer resources than the Government, I hope that we have acquitted ourselves well.

I would like to thank Hansard, and I apologise to the Hansard Reporters for the fact that my handwriting is often as incoherent as my thoughts. Of course, I also thank the Doorkeepers, the police and everyone else who has assisted us. I would like to mention the Whips. It really is a case of the iron fist in the velvet glove, because they have seamlessly taken us through without our even noticing their presence. What better example could we have? My hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde has been rewarded for that by being sucked into the epicentre of power already—as far as the Opposition are concerned—and it can be only matter of time before the same happens for the hon. Member for Kenilworth and Southam.

I did not have many dealings with the prisons Minister before this so I have had to get used to his style of debate, which is to be charming and emollient and to have a sting in the tail of everything that he does. I do not want to make any invidious comparisons, but if he were a confidence trickster, he could take someone’s wallet not only without their noticing but without their minding. I am slightly more used to the debating style of the legal aid Minister and I think that he is a Geoff Boycott, because however penetrating our questions—all our questions are penetrating—he can dead-bat them away in a style that leaves us none the wiser and floundering to make a different point.

I wish that we had heard from the hon. Members for East Hampshire and for Edinburgh West. No doubt they are saving their best for Report, and I am sure that that is why we have three days of it. As far as the other Government Members are concerned, we have been privileged to have such experts, and it would be invidious to make distinctions between them. In relation to the points that they have made and articles they have written, perhaps their voting behaviour does not demonstrate their full intent and support of the Government’s position. That is all credit to them. We have been privileged to have people who bring a great deal of expertise; it was not a matter of simply packing the Committee with people sympathetic to the Justice Secretary, to avoid anybody voting against part 3 of the Bill, as I initially thought.

I thank the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd and apologise for mangling or shortening the name of his constituency, though he must be used to that by now. He has brought a different, expert and useful perspective to our deliberations. I am also grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for St Helens North and for Stockton North for their interventions and personal insights. I pay particular thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Kingston upon Hull East, for Makerfield and for Stretford and Urmston, who have shared the burden in a hugely professional way. I end by thanking, last and the opposite of least, my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland, who again is being rewarded and, sadly, moving on to higher things. It has been a pleasure to share the brief—and particularly these proceedings—with her over the past year.

It is usual to say that we have had wonderful debates and have all been terribly erudite. I think that is for others to judge. We will see with the three days on Report what the Government wanted to do in Committee but failed to bring before it. We look forward to next week with interest to see what they put before us. I hope we have done the best we can to scrutinise the Bill; the Government will no doubt think they have done their best in defending it. We can end today on that reasonable note of harmony. Thank you, Mr Sheridan, for your eloquent chairing of the Committee.

Elfyn Llwyd (Plaid Cymru, Dwyfor Meirionnydd)

Further to that point of order, Mr Sheridan. I associate myself fully with what has been said by both hon. Gentlemen. The proceedings have been very interesting, ably chaired by you and Mr Hollobone. Without the Clerks, I wonder where we would be.

The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Huntingdon said that we have arrived early and that the whole process ran well. It has been different for me. I missed the first sitting through recuperating from pneumonia, and yesterday I was run over by an idiot on a bike in Camberwell. Fortunately, he broke his nose before I did. It is hardly a happy way to finish the Committee.

In any event, it has been a pleasure to serve on the Committee. It has been an interesting process, and Ministers have engaged beyond their briefs, which has been most welcome. I shall remember this Committee for a long while.

Finally, I say to the Hansard writer, Diolch yn fawr i chi, a gobeithio y byddwn ni’n ennill dydd Sadwrn. For the record, I said, “Thank you very much. I hope we win on Saturday.”

Philip Hollobone (Conservative, Kettering)

I am sure I speak on behalf of Mr Hollobone as well when I thank you for your tolerance. For both of us, it was a virgin Bill, as we were chairing for the first time. We stumbled through. Quite rightly, we thank the Clerk who kept us in check and up to speed. That is epitomised by one comment she made after explaining a procedure to me five times. She said, “I do not know why I bother.”