Andy Slaughter
MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick · Labour · United Kingdom
“I welcome the Bill, and thank the Government for introducing it and bringing it back to the House before the summer recess. It is the result of years of committed campaigning, led by the families of the victims and survivors of Hillsborough.”
“I know that case means a huge amount to the hon. Lady as a constituency MP, and I thank her for all the work she does on the Justice Committee. I think we have only begun to scratch the surface. This Bill will be a transforming piece of legislation. I will make one final comment.”
“This would be a new, independent public body that collated, analysed and followed up on the conclusions and recommendations made after official investigations into deaths and state failings, in order to improve oversight and implementation of them.”
“I think I have taken enough time, but I thank the Member for that intervention. This afternoon, the Justice Committee signed off a new major report on legal aid, which will be published on Friday. Those who are interested can read more there.”
“In the time that I have, I will focus my remarks on clauses 1 to 16, which create a new appeals body for immigration and asylum cases known as the independent immigration appeals authority.”
“From that visit, our diagnosis was that these are operational problems. There are two key questions for the House: will the IIAA fix the problems with the current system, and will it be truly independent from the Home Office?”
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“Q12. The Mayor of London has cut air pollution in central London by a third in the first six months of his ultra low emission zone. Does the Prime Minister support the Mayor’s plan to expand that zone and does he still oppose the third runway at Heathrow that will reverse these gains?”
“My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. He is right to talk about rationing. My CCG has started rationing referrals to consultants to clear one of the biggest deficits in the country. Will he also talk about the massive backlog of capital? As he knows, I have two world-class hospitals in my constituency, Hammersmith and Charing Cross. It will cost half a billion pounds to bring them up to standard, but there was not a penny of that in the money the Secretary of State allocated. They are lucky they get a few million pounds of seed money to plan for work for which there is not the money to pay.”
“Rather than dealing with children on a case-by-case basis and risking some of the parents being released and causing further mayhem, is not the solution to repatriate all UK citizens and, if any are guilty or suspected of committing offences, to put them on trial?”
“From next April, the vast majority of personal injury claims will have to be dealt with online, without the benefit of legal advice. Even the Association of British Insurers—the major advocate and beneficiary of that policy—does not think the Government will be ready. It is urging the Government to drop the proposed increase in the small claims limit for employers and public liability and concentrate on road traffic claims. As the Government often follow the ABI’s advice, will they on this occasion?”
“There is a review of criminal legal aid, but that is not due to report until next year. I ask the Minister to have a sense of urgency in dealing with the crisis in legal aid and to look at legal aid for inquests again. It is a scandal that that is not being dealt with. I also ask that we have a proper review of LASPO and its consequences, because, frankly, what is being proposed barely touches the sides.”
“Many courts are at the same time standing empty because there are not the judges to fill them and, as I have said, the court day is being lengthened, so hearings are taking place at 8 o’clock in the morning. Who has got a grip on what is happening in the Courts Service? It does not appear to be coming from the top. Let me— [Interruption.] I hear you clearing your throat, Madam Deputy Speaker, which is a shame, because I did want to spend some time talking about legal aid. I will do that very briefly, given the time. A huge number of law centres and other not-for-profit providers have closed over that time. We have had no increase in fees for criminal defence solicitors for about 20 years now. As a consequence, we have both legal aid deserts and practitioners either not continuing or not being prepared to go into that type of work.”
“There is real chaos in the way the court systems are working now. There has been a drop in prosecutions—down 45% over the last eight years. Even though some more money is going to be put into the Crown Prosecution Service as a response to the hope that there will be more activity by the police, more arrests made and more people charged where offences have taken place, I doubt that it is enough to correct what has happened. The consequence is that many courts are standing empty for large parts of the time—ironically, given that many courts have been closed or sold off—yet at the same time we are introducing extended court days. In my local area, for example, we will now have no courts in the borough. The county court has been moved three times so far in the last five or six years. That work is now being sent an hour or more’s journey away.”
“I look forward to hearing what the latest Minister has to say on that, but if we can get neither the personnel nor the policy to stay in place for more than a few weeks or months, we are not really going in the right direction. On the Courts Service, all eggs have been put in one basket, which is digitisation. A huge amount of money is being invested in courts going paperless and things being done remotely. I do not think that anybody is against that in the Courts Service any more than in other parts of the public service, but it is a leap of faith. The real problem is that the money that is going to pay for a lot of that is from the closure and sale of about half the courts in the country, but that is being done in advance of seeing whether this remote access and digital processing actually work in that way.”
“That is all very well, in an attempt to get a tabloid headline; but in fact there already exists a power, in the case of very serious and dangerous criminals, for judges to specify an extended sentence for public protection—that prisoners should serve two-thirds rather than half their term, for example. All that is being achieved here is to push an already very high and inflated prison population even higher, and that will deplete the limited resources that are available. We will not see improvements in the appalling prison conditions that colleagues have spoken of, or tackle the lack of treatment and the lack of ability to treat mental health problems and addictions.”
“So even where there have been initiatives, they are not necessarily working. The saddest thing is that if there is going to be substantial capital investment in prisons, it appears to be all to do with new prison places—the 10,000 extra places that we have heard about. I am afraid that what the new Lord Chancellor announced this week is an extraordinarily retrograde step, and appears to be no more than a political crowd-pleaser. It appears that the restrictions on short sentences, championed by the previous Lord Chancellor and Prisons Minister, will not be going ahead, despite all the academic work that was done on that approach. That has now gone out of the window. Instead, we shall see longer time served for certain categories of prisoner.”
“There have been initiatives such as the 10 prisons project, set up by the former Prisons Minister, the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart). Although I am sure it was well intended, I thought it was a bit gimmicky, in the sense that it addressed one or two important aspects—drug use and assaults. It was not entirely successful. In the case of one of the 10 prisons, Wormwood Scrubs in my constituency, assaults actually increased by 50% between the second quarter of 2018 and the second quarter of 2019—the period of that programme. Even in the areas that the programme was designed to tackle, it did little more than tackle superficial elements and was very limited. I note that the inquest figures showed that in those 10 prisons, over the first 11 months of the programme, there was actually a 20% increase in deaths.”
“The sad truth is that since 2010 every aspect of the Ministry’s work has suffered, whether it is prisons and probation, the Courts Service or legal aid. In the past few weeks, we have talked a lot about the rule of law. There is perhaps a greater public awareness of the crucial importance of the judiciary and their role—thanks in large part to the Prime Minister and his unlawful acts. However, I do not think there is always a realisation that money is an essential driver of the justice system. It is perhaps rather sad, therefore, that the one area of the MOJ budget that is receiving some attention financially is the Prison Service. Yes, we have heard about investment in new prison officers, but it is a shame that we lost the experienced ones that we had, and are still 2,500 below the 2010 level.”
“This afternoon’s debate does feel like a meeting of the Justice Committee. It is very nice to see everybody, but the attendance for the debate may be a clue as to why the Ministry of Justice, as a Department, has suffered the largest cuts since 2010. I am not saying that it is our fault that that has happened. Justice, as a subject, tends to be a little bit niche, and the public do not perhaps feel that it impacts on them directly in the way that cuts in other public services do. The reality is, though, that if legal aid is not there when we need it, we may not get a fair settlement in a civil dispute or get fairly treated by the criminal courts; and if we do not get the prison system right, even people who have not been to prison feel the impact, whether through recidivism or levels of criminality.”
“I spoke to Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust earlier and asked what there might be from this announcement for our local hospitals; I was referred to the Conservative party press release, which is the only information that the trust has so far received. If I divide up the seed money between the three major hospitals that will get some money, I see that we could get as much as £9 million for planning for currently unfunded work that could happen in six to 10 years. That can be compared with £76 million wasted on consultants; £170 million, which is the current-year deficit for north-west London; and £1.3 billion, which is the Imperial maintenance backlog. We need that money now. When are we going to see it?”
“The Minister is knowingly confusing the Government’s negotiating position with the authority of the law as made in Parliament and enforced by the courts. The Prime Minister says, without evidence, that the Supreme Court is wrong, and now he is saying that he will not follow a very clear provision in an Act of Parliament. Does the Minister accept that that trivialises and undermines the rule of law?”
“In the light of continuing breaches of international humanitarian law by the Saudis, and another disregard for the law by this Government, will the Minister withdraw her appeal?”
“The judgment of the Supreme Court found that the Prime Minister had acted unlawfully and outside his powers in the advice he gave the monarch. He has just said again that he believes the court was wrong. Will he confirm that he has read the judgment? If he has, could he point us to the errors of law or fact that he says the 11 justices made?”
“Like the hon. Gentleman, I was giving evidence to the HS2 panel, as well as meeting Extinction Rebellion and indeed Dignity in Dying, and Shelter. I wonder why it can be said that we have little to do here if we have to try to be in five places at once. I admire what he said on Prorogation. Will he go a stage further and say that we should at least remain Members of Parliament so that we can still lobby and come back some time in October? Were an election to go ahead, we would have no control over that whatsoever. As the Prime Minister has said he may be equivocal about obeying the law, an election is to be avoided at all costs. [Mrs Anne Main in the Chair. ]”
“There is confusion about the “stay put” policy and tall buildings being approved with single staircases. What has happened to the review of means of escape?”
“Will the Prime Minister order an inquiry into the £76 million that was wasted paying management consultants to work on the “Shaping a Healthier Future” programme for north-west London, which the Health Secretary has now abandoned after nine years?”
“People who read these reports regularly will not have seen one as shocking as this for some time.”
“The problems at Feltham are nothing new—as my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) said, young men were being transferred to Wormwood Scrubs for their own safety or the safety of others 10 years ago—but this is on a completely different scale. The situation has escalated far more quickly, whether in relation to the rise in assaults or to privation, particularly the time spent in the cell. When that was perceived as a problem more generally, the previous Prisons Minister set up the 10 prisons project, which involved regular and active engagement between the Minister and the institutions concerned, and it had an effect. I know that we are short of Ministers at the moment, but will the hon. Gentleman look at that and see whether he or his colleagues can take some responsibility, because this is on another level?”
“What the Minister says, along with the text of the clause, indicates a potential problem. This is a major change and problems are anticipated. The Minister has put something on the record today, but where are the Government going to set down, if not in the Bill, the package of measures being introduced to ensure that people can have comfort that their needs will be addressed? Will that be in regulations? Will there be a code of conduct? Will it simply be in a letter sent to us by the Minister? I am not sure that what the Minister has said so far is sufficient.”
“I am not a luddite; I welcome matters being dealt with online where possible, and I was at least partially persuaded by the evidence that the Justice Committee heard that there may be more opportunities to litigate—that must be a good thing—because of the ease with which those who can use online systems can put matters forward. I am told there will be an effort to make forms simpler, to deal with those issues. That is all well and good, but a significant part of the population will find it difficult. It is right that their interests are protected and heard in the committee on an ongoing basis as it makes decisions. These amendments are modest and reasonable to achieve that aim.”
“We have had briefings about the Bill from the Law Society, the Bar Council and the Magistrates Association, who clearly know what they are talking about. It would be helpful if each of those bodies, or someone who represents those branches of the profession, were included. The same can be said of certain organisations, since we have had representations from Mind that people with disabilities are far more likely to be digitally excluded. Even among the general population, the estimate is around 18%. Those are not negligible figures.”
“One way to address that is to put matters in the Bill, as earlier amendments seek to do, but that appears to be a route that the Government do not wish to go down. The other way is to ensure that the committee has a range of experience and abilities, and includes those who have dealt with litigants’ practical problems on a daily basis, such as barristers, solicitors and legal executives. That is a sound and sensible way of dealing with this. No one wishes to make committees too large, but it has been pointed out in briefings we have had from representatives of legal bodies that the Civil procedure rule committee has 16 members, including nine judges. This committee, despite a slight increase in size, is still much smaller than that, so the amendment does not seem unreasonable.”
“Despite that, Committee members on all sides were left with some residual feeling that perhaps this eminent and learned Government may not have had much recent experience in, say, Hendon magistrates court or the Clerkenwell county court—I use those as examples because they are where my constituents have to travel since the wholesale court closures programme began—so they may not have experience of the difficulty of day-to-day business in the way that some members of this Committee will have as a result of dealing with their constituents’ legal problems. How do we address that? The Minister’s earlier comments show that he is open to addressing the real concerns of people who are digitally excluded or who have practical difficulties even when dealing with relatively straightforward legal matters.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. Two weeks ago, the Select Committee on Justice heard evidence from the Master of the Rolls, the Lord Chief Justice and the Senior President of Tribunals on the matter of online courts. They were very persuasive, although it would be a sad state of affairs if they were not—we would all be in a difficult position.”
“As the Minister often says to our Front Benchers, I would urge him to think about this again and see what he is gaining or has to be worried about in these provisions. It seems an unnecessary bit of control-freakery by the Government.”
“I strongly disagree with Government amendment 9. It is very common practice for there to be dual control—the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice—in relation to a variety of matters. It seems sensible and is an important safeguard. Nowhere should that be more self-evident than when one is dealing with the practical operations of the courts and ensuring, as the Bill does, that new systems coming into operation have that practical guidance. Having perhaps accepted in principle the arguments that were very well made in the other place, particularly by Lord Judge, I cannot see that the Government now wish to weaken that by simply having consultation rather than concurrence.”
“Members wish to speak. I end simply by asking again in relation to the detainees on death row in Saudi, and specifically in relation to those who were juveniles when their alleged offences took place, that the Government redouble their efforts and use what influence they have—they say that they have a lot of influence—with Saudi, and that they do so in the strongest possible terms and the most urgent terms, because it could well be the case that at no notice we find that there has been another series of mass executions in that country.”
“We are fortunate in this country to have a tradition of good independent journalism, of good independent non-governmental organisations, some of which briefed us for this debate, and of lawyers who will do that job if the Government are not prepared to do it themselves. The Minister has set himself up as somebody who does take these issues seriously and wishes to see this country take its human rights responsibilities abroad as seriously as its defence and security and trade responsibilities, so it would be useful if we could see some change of tone and of policy specifically in relation to Saudi. Do we need anything further than what happened to Jamal Khashoggi just last year to raise the alarm about the way that that country is conducting itself in the region and in the world? I shall end my comments shortly as other hon.”
“There is an unhelpful trend in this Government not to deal with issues that they find embarrassing to themselves or to their close international partners. When I heard the announcement today, I thought, “Well, this is exactly what we heard about Leveson 2: ‘Nothing to see here. We’ve all moved on. No need for an inquiry.’” That is becoming an unhealthy habit of the Government. They should bear it in mind that, even if they are not prepared to confront these matters in this House or in public, they will still come to light and, as with the war in Yemen, there will be legal challenges. I have no doubt that there will be in relation to rendition.”
“The integrated activity fund and other larger funds, which are operated through the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development, run to more than £1 billion in total, but there is no clarity whatever about how that money is spent. Frankly, that is a disgrace. I welcome you to the Chair for this debate, Sir Henry. This morning’s statement on detainee issues had really to be dragged out of the Government over the period of a year. It is a matter of great regret that the Government announced that they would not pursue that, despite previous promises on rendition and the Gibson inquiry and the Intelligence and Security Committee inquiries and their inconclusive nature.”
“[Sir Henry Bellingham in the Chair ] No doubt the Government will say, “We respect human rights and we hope that by engaging with these countries we can promote human rights,” but that is not what is happening at all. There is no sign that the engagement is in any way mitigating or addressing the way in which the Saudi authorities operate, so in effect we are colluding. There is no clearer sign of that than the funds that have been referred to, which are largely opaque; this is within Government. Numerous attempts have been made to identify exactly where the money goes, particularly in relation to the Gulf countries.”
“I am pleased to say that, in response to my urgent question at that time, the then Lord Chancellor, who is now the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that he was closing that operation down and withdrawing from the contract. He is to be congratulated on that, but it was one beacon of hope and has not really been followed up in succeeding years. Indeed, there continue to be concerns about the College of Policing and other arrangements whereby respectable UK institutions offer training—it was reported only last year that hundreds of Saudi police officers were being trained—or supervise or in some way give credibility to institutions in which practices such as torture are carried out.”
“A type of double standard appears to operate. It would be useful to have from the Minister today an acknowledgement that these matters are serious, that they are growing, that the regime in Saudi, far from becoming more tolerant, is becoming more illiberal in these ways, and to hear what response the British Government are going to make. Sadly, as I have said and we have heard also from the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, there is continued close co-operation—collusion—with the Saudi Government. The matter that I was referring to from 2015 related to a prison contract that the UK had as part of a bizarre arrangement set up within the Ministry of Justice called Just Solutions International, which actively went out and sold services, often to repressive regimes, without making sufficient checks.”
“I shall say more about it in a moment, because it relates to a good decision that the previous Government made, but I referred in that exchange to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, who has taken a close interest in these matters over a number of years, writing then to the Prime Minister and raising the case of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, yet four years on there is no less a threat. Indeed, because judicial processes have been exhausted, there is, other than the mercy of the King, nothing standing between him and other detainees and their executions. These are difficult subjects to deal with, but they have to be dealt with, and the British Government appear to have particular difficulty in dealing with such matters in relation to Saudi Arabia even though they are outspoken in relation to other places.”
“The first, which is particularly shocking, it is not just that many people who in other countries would just be seen as exercising their democratic rights end up in prison in Saudi Arabia, but the fact that it also happens to juveniles. Sadly, a number of young people have been executed, including in the mass execution earlier this year of 37 people, in which three young men who were juveniles at the time of their arrest were executed. The three who have become a cause célèbre and are still at risk on death row are Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, Abdullah al-Zaher and Dawood al-Marhoon. Their cases have been raised many times in this House over a period of years. Indeed, in preparing for this debate, I looked back at an urgent question that I was granted back in October 2015.”
“Again, it is outside the scope of this debate, but of course beyond all this are the atrocities being committed, and the breaches of international humanitarian law, in Yemen. It is a shame, but I think it is emblematic of the way the British Government are responding to many of these atrocities that it took victory by the Campaign Against Arms Trade in the Court of Appeal for the Government to look at suspending in any way the sales of arms that are fuelling that war. Even so, it is without any embarrassment that the Government are taking their case to the Supreme Court, no doubt with the intention of resuming sales thereafter. That is the background to this debate, and I want to focus on a couple of those points.”
“Of course, the issue that gained the regime in Saudi Arabia notoriety around the world was the horrific murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Again, there is no contrition there and no real willingness to co-operate with the UN special rapporteur or the international community in investigating that. Indeed it has simply been swept under the carpet. The treatment of the Shi’a minority population has been atrocious over many years, with many people put on trial on trumped-up and vague charges. Most significant was Sheikh al-Nimr, himself the uncle of one of the young men currently on death row but also the most prominent Shi’a cleric in Saudi, who was executed after years of persecution in the mass execution in January 2016. I think it was one of the largest of the recent mass executions—47 people were beheaded or killed by firing squad.”
“A lot of the current cases date from immediately after the Arab spring and the crackdowns that occurred in those countries, including some of the cases of juveniles who were arrested and who are still incarcerated and face the death penalty. However, it is also undoubtedly true that the situation has become worse since the accession of King Salman and the increase in power of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. We now look with great irony at the way they were fêted as reformers and as those who would undo a lot of the anachronisms and anomalies of Saudi society. There is little sign of that in the area of women’s rights. The response to women’s rights defenders who protested not only the driving ban, important though that is, but against the whole guardianship system has been the arrest, detention and torture of prominent individuals.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I sincerely congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on his comprehensive account of some of the crimes and misdemeanours currently being carried out by the Saudi regime. I will emphasise one or two of his points, but I will endeavour not to repeat them. It is probably now a truism to say that the Saudi regime operates, to a large extent, outside civilised norms, the rule of law and due process, and does not, in many cases, recognise the right to a fair trial. It is not unique in those respects—indeed, it is not unique in the Gulf region; its closest allies in the Gulf Co-operation Council, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, are equally guilty in many respects—but that does not excuse what it is doing.”
“I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument and I would hate to take credit for the Just Solutions contract being cancelled. I was simply an advocate of it. The hon. Gentleman’s parliamentary colleague, the then Lord Chancellor, must take the credit for it, and no doubt he has had those discussions. In advancing his argument, what evidence can the hon. Gentleman point to in recent years of the regime’s move towards a human rights success—not ones that have been forced or dragged out of it, but ones that he would say our close relationship has helped to achieve? What evidence is there?”
“Would the Minister also like to take the opportunity to state the Government’s policy on the extradition or return of anyone to another jurisdiction that practises capital punishment, and to explain that they would not do so except on the undertaking that that would not be used? We have had recent examples of queries about that, and it would be helpful to get an unequivocal statement from the Minister.”
“The problem I am having with the Minister’s speech is that he keeps answering questions that have not been asked and caricaturing those who have been critical of the Saudi regime as somehow wanting to break off relations for all time or to end any trade with the area. It is all very well talking about social and economic rights, but this is a debate on human rights in Saudi Arabia. Will he answer the question I put to his hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt): where has he seen an improvement in human rights in Saudi Arabia under the Mohammad bin Salman regime?”
“There is a big difference between the targeted collection of evidence in the pursuit of serious criminal offences and a fishing expedition in which Government embarrassment is a factor. This seems rather too near to the second of those. Never mind journalists—the general public are concerned about the way in which the state and other agencies are now able to collect data on them. Should we not be on the public’s side? Should not the Government be publishing information, in readable and accessible form, on people’s rights to privacy and on the right of the state to intrude on them?”
“It is good to know that the Minister feels secure in his post. With all respect to him, however, Nazanin’s fate has been tied to the person of the Foreign Secretary, current and previous, for good or ill. I am not asking him to predict who will be the Foreign Secretary in a week’s time, but will he assure us that all eventualities are being planned for in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office so that the matter remains at the top of the agenda and we do not have any more confusion and delay?”
“The Government have known for four years that there were 5.5 million Whirlpool tumble dryers in homes across the UK that were liable to catch fire. Last month, the Minister gave notice that she intended to order the recall of those dryers still in use, but now she has agreed a voluntary recall with the company. Will she reconsider that and use the powers she has? If she does not, how will we know that Whirlpool is taking this seriously?”
“Although the Gibson and ISC inquiries were curtailed or restricted, nevertheless they revealed hundreds of cases in which the UK was complicit or benefited from torture or mistreatment. Does that not mean that there is more of a case to set up such an inquiry than there was nine years ago, when the then Prime Minister said that there should be a judge-led inquiry “fully independent of Parliament, party and Government” —[ Official Report , 6 July 2010; Vol. 513, c. 181] ? The only thing that has changed in those nine years is that it would be difficult now to reach the truth because of the effluxion of time. Will the Minister at least say that there will be an inquiry, even if we hear the details later this week?”