John Healey
MP for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough · Labour · United Kingdom
“Mr Spock, I think some would say, Mr Speaker! My hon. Friend is right. Despite global conflicts, trade tensions and rising threats in the world, which are pushing up inflation, bearing down on growth and pushing up borrowing costs, the UK economy is demonstrating huge resilience.”
“The Prime Minister and I have been clear that we must cut the costs of welfare. On levels of taxation, we had a period of Conservative Government, with low growth and high debt. They crashed the economy with the mini-Budget, and we had levels of taxation that were putting pressure on business, adding to the cost of living.”
“The hon. Lady is talking to the person who led the work to establish a defence and security partnership with the European Union and bilateral agreements with other countries, on which we now build both our economic strength and our national security strength. On the question of the Budget, I ask the hon.”
“Since day one in the job, the Prime Minister and I have been in lockstep in our determination to meet Britain’s fiscal rules. This is the bedrock on which we build good growth and help give a bit of breathing space to families and businesses.”
“May I start by paying tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves)? I am proud to have been a member of a Government with the first female Chancellor in 700 years.”
“My hon. Friend speaks up very strongly for his local area. He is right about the importance of pubs, social clubs and live venues, and about the importance of the 20% cut that we announced in July. These are the things that make the places where we live the places that we also love.”
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“To be fair, the third report—“Punishment and Reform: Effective Probation Services”—which was published in March 2012, restated the intent to open up the market for the supervision of low-risk offenders. However, it also proposed a stronger role for probation trusts and a stronger emphasis on partnership working. The report states: “We intend that there will be a stronger role for public sector Probation Trusts as commissioners of competed probation services…We will devolve to Probation Trusts the budget for community offender services”. At that time, the Government said: “Trusts are best placed to work with courts and with local partners to design and commission services jointly…We will support the joint commissioning of services for offenders between probation and key partners such as local authorities, health and the police.””
“There are some useful provisions in the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) has said that the Opposition do not object to some of the Bill. Additional requirements as part of supervision orders are sensible. Extending the supervision requirement to those who are released from custody after short-term sentences is sensible. My argument is that the legislation is part of a wider programme, the policy purpose of which lacks evidence and justification, but not the ideology that drives the Justice Secretary. That purpose—that end—is the privatisation of our probation services. It is not about the means to a better probation service or better protection for the public. Let me develop my argument. I have mentioned the first and second coalition consultation reports.”
“No other part of the public sector performs so consistently, and to such a high professional standard, as the probation service.”
“He has to be able to demonstrate that his plans are better than building on what is already in place. He cannot do that because all 35 probation trusts in England and Wales have been independently judged either good or excellent. All 35 probation trusts are hitting all the targets they have been set. Reoffending rates for those under their supervision have been falling every year for more than a decade. Imagine the credit the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government would take if all local authority children’s services were judged good or excellent. Imagine the purring pleasure of the Secretary of State for Education if all schools were judged good or excellent. Imagine the huge relief of the Secretary of State for Health if all hospitals were judged good or excellent.”
“Clause 1 was introduced and approved because there are still too many doubts about the Bill and the programme of privatisation—doubts about the viability, accountability, affordability and safety of services under a new, largely privatised system. How much will it cost? How much will it save? How will it be more effective? How will it reduce reoffending? How great will the risk be in putting serious offenders in the hands of private companies? How much money will be offered up front? How much will be held back and paid via payment by results? How will the repeated failures of the Work programme be avoided? How will the fiasco and fraud we have seen before be avoided in the Ministry of Justice’s management of contracts? To justify the proposed legislation, the Justice Secretary has to address those concerns, and he has not.”
“He has stopped the pilots; he has added medium-risk offenders who have served a custodial sentence, and those on community sentences and suspended sentences, to the list of offenders who will be handed over to the private sector; and he has issued the invitation to contract for £450 million of services before the Bill has even had its Second reading in this House. There has been no testing, no costing, no evidence to support such sweeping changes and no backing from any serious professional probation voices. Clause 1 was inserted by the Lords as a vote of no confidence in the case that the Justice Secretary has been making. That was not a party political move, as it was led by Cross Benchers and a former chief inspector of prisons.”
“My hon. Friend is right. One of the real worries about this so-called reform programme is that it borrows from the Work programme, which the Justice Secretary introduced when he was Minister of State for Employment. Frankly, many of the failures, flaws and potential fraud in the Work programme could be replicated in our probation service. Returning to probation trusts, I quoted from the March 2012 consultation report. What has changed since then? The Justice Secretary has changed.”
“That is a red herring. Unbelievably, probation trusts are prevented from putting forward proposals to bid for contracts to do the job they have proved they can do so well. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman comes across to south Yorkshire and looks at our probation trust, which is one of the best-performing trusts in the country. In the past five years, it has been top-ranked almost every year in reducing reoffending.”
“My right hon. Friend raises an interesting point. Probation trusts want to do the work they already do, including with offenders who serve custodial sentences of less than 12 months. They require all their officers to be qualified to work with medium-risk offenders—the group the Government want to put out to the private sector—which is one reason why the results for reduction in reoffending have been so good in the past five years. I see no reason why probation trusts should not be able to bid to provide the service my right hon. Friend talked about. Ministers say, with a sweep of the hand, “They cannot possibly deal with the uncertainty of payment by results,” but that is not the case.”
“Let us hear from the Minister why probation trusts should not be allowed to bid under their own terms for the work he wants to put out to contract.”
“That is absolute nonsense. Public bodies, like local authorities, have reserves to deal with uncertainties. Why does the Minister not take a look at the legislation passed by his Government on local authority funding, which is based increasingly on business rates and contains an element of risk? Good, prudent public authorities can manage those risks, and there is no reason why probation trusts should not be able to bid for this work and do it as well as they do the work with the offenders they are already responsible for supervising.”
“To which I might add that the probation trusts have a proven track record—certainly in south Yorkshire—of dealing with the group the Minister is rightly most concerned about: offenders who have served less than 12 months in custody. That work is already done in south Yorkshire by the probation trust, with multi-agency teams including the police, drug workers and housing officers. The Justice Secretary’s plans will split up those cases and break the relationships on which such excellent work is dependent and currently undertaken.”
“Eventually after his partner receives treatment for 3rd degree burns to her back, which are explained as accidental. Social services intervene. During this process I have been undertaking work behind the scenes to promote the safety of the child and partner” while also “undertaking work…with the client to challenge his behaviour and attitudes to alcohol.” Probation officers deal with people who are often chaotic, volatile and vulnerable, and whose lives are constantly shifting; and these probation officers constantly have to juggle their priorities. Private companies will not have close relations with, or the confidence of, other agencies. Their staff will not go that extra mile, but will be under pressure to do the bare minimum.”
“In one incident he returned home intoxicated by alcohol and proceed to put his steel toe cap boots on and kick the family dogs to death in front of his young children. I become increasingly concerned about his behaviour. He informs me that he has missed an appointment with me because he had to take his 4 year old son” to hospital “with a broken collar bone” that he said was the result of an accident. The probation officer had seen the “over-chastisement” of the child when the offender had come to the office the previous week. They continue: “I share my concerns with social services. I begin to receive regular incident bulletins from the police of incidents they have been called to but no evidence of violence used. I assess his risk to be high.”
“My role is not just about undertaking the bare minimum but trying to assist people from the first point of contact regain control over their lives. In this case the individual was not classed as being a client of our service as they were awaiting sentence.” This probation officer highlighted one other case concerning exactly the category of offender who will be put in the hands of private companies under the contracting and privatisation provisions: “In another case the individual is being supervised for an offence of driving whilst disqualified…for drunk driving. He is assessed as presenting a low medium risk of harm, as there have been previous concerns relating to domestic abuse.”
“I have not been supplied with the details of the offence by the crown Prosecution Service despite numerous attempts. I contact the individual’s solicitor who because they have respect and trust in the publicly run probation service sends me a fax copy of the documents. The individual…is distressed” and “discloses that they have a…plan to end their life… The pressing matter is to stabilise this person. I contact my colleagues in the Criminal Justice mental health liaison team. They arrange to see the person immediately after my interview with them. I contact a housing organisation with expertise in debt issues. They establish phone contact with that person later on in the day and arrange to see them the following day.”
“IT systems regularly freeze or crash… Another key service we provide is detailed reports to the Courts and Parole Board to aid sentencing and release considerations.” I have not heard a word about such considerations from the Justice Secretary. They continued: “Staff routinely work through their lunch breaks to ensure that work is completed in a timely manner and to exacting professional standards. Staff are known to work late” and “come in at weekends on a regular basis. This is true dedication and professionalism.” The probation officer described a recent case: “I arrive at the office at 8.00 completing administrative tasks. I have arranged to see my first case at 8.30 so as not to impact on the individuals work commitments. 9.30 I interview a person for a Court Report.”
“I wish to put on the record the words of a probation officer from Rotherham who can describe more forcefully and eloquently than I can how complex and tough this work is—it does not simply comprise a set of tick-box tasks. I received an e-mail late last night from this probation officer explaining that they and their colleagues averaged up to 60 cases in their case load. Typically, one third of their clients will be in custody, half a dozen or so will be high-risk and the others will be deemed low or medium-risk—exactly the group Ministers want to transfer to private contractors. They wrote: “The job is one of constant juggling demands brought about by working with individuals who lead often chaotic lives.”
“It is too high and the Government are right to want to tackle it, but this could have consequences for a rising prison population. First, the courts might well choose to make more use of short custodial sentences with this extra 12 months’ supervision added by the Bill. Secondly, if the new licence conditions available under the Bill are too tight, more people might breach them and be sent back to custody. The Justice Secretary has not answered, and cannot answer, such concerns—as he cannot the other concerns—because he will not test his plans in practice. Finally, I turn to the amendment of the definition of “responsible officer” in part 3. It is being made so that the staff of private companies or charities can do the job that probation officers currently do.”
“These individuals are likely to yo-yo between agencies, which will result in extra cost, paperwork and risk. The chief inspector of probation said: “Any lack of contractual or operational clarity between the public and private sector providers will, in our view, lead to systemic failure and an increased risk to the public.” In other words, there will be increased risk as a direct result of the Bill. I turn briefly to parts 2 and 3 of the Bill. Like my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, I broadly support some of the provisions in part 2, including the ones that seek to reduce the reoffending rate among those who serve less than 12 months in custody, for whom the probation trusts do not have supervisory responsibility at the moment. That reoffending rate is around 60%.”
“Why privatise out of existence the people with the proven expertise and dedication to help the short-sentence offenders, whom he, in the Bill, rightly wants to support? Why run the terrible risk to the safety of the public with these changes? The risk that Ministers talk about does not relate simply to the original crime committed. With these offenders, the risk changes, often rapidly and in response to personal circumstances—their stopping taking medication, breaking up with a partner, or suddenly falling into a circle of old friends and bad habits. Last year, one in four offenders moved, one way or the other, between the high and medium-risk categories. They are exactly the group that the Government want to see moving between the public and the private sectors—between the probation service and the contracted services.”
“I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I was not aware of that. He is an excellent shadow Justice Secretary, and I am interested to hear what he says about Greater Manchester. I suspect that the point is the same with regard to south Yorkshire: the Government’s proposed changes are all about taking on the extra work that is already being done effectively. Many of the 35 probation trusts are now saying, “Give us the challenge and the opportunity to do this extra work and we will do it without the extra cost.” I ask the Minister: why destroy this local probation service, which the combination of privatisation and the Bill will do? Why dismantle the working relationships in place with partner agencies?”
“I want to finish on this point, because other Members want to speak. The hon. Gentleman could have intervened earlier, but he did not. At the end of his speech, the Justice Secretary talked about common sense. Common sense says: pilot these changes, pilot the provisions in the Bill and pull the proposed privatisation programme. To do otherwise would be totally unjustified; it would run a reckless risk with the lives of vulnerable offenders to whom we owe a duty of supervision, and a reckless risk with the safety of the public.”
“South Yorkshire, like west Yorkshire, has one of the best-performing probation trusts anywhere in the country and it already works with people who are convicted and serve a term of fewer than 12 months. Is it not the case that all of the probation trusts have said they will do this extra work at no extra cost? The question for Ministers, therefore, is: why on earth will they not back the probation trusts, which are already doing the job and doing it well in most cases?”
“The hon. Gentleman is making a good speech and a strong point, about which the Minister was shaking his head. Is it not the case that one in four offenders in any one year moves between medium and high-risk categories? They therefore risk yo-yoing between the agencies, which must involve extra cost, extra bureaucracy and extra risk to the public.”
“The British embassy in Washington part-sponsored a state-by-state study of jobs in the United States that are linked to exports and the potential gains from a comprehensive EU-US trade and investment deal. No such study has been carried out in relation to the United Kingdom. Will the Government commission a similar area-by-area analysis of British jobs, output and exports?”
“How can NHS patients and staff have any confidence in decisions about their local services when they are taken by the Competition Commission on the overriding grounds of what is best for a competitive market and not what is best for patients? Will he learn from the failure of the merger between the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and take merger off the table as an option for Rotherham hospital?”
“Closing the loophole in the legislation over attacks on some private property is a sensible step, but one that they have been pushed to take. Let us see Ministers take the next sensible step this afternoon, introduce and accept the principle of dog control notices and help to reverse the rising trend of attacks and to head off some of the attacks we will otherwise definitely see, which will leave adults and children badly scarred, badly injured, badly traumatised and, in some cases, dead.”
“Dog control notices have been legislated for in Scotland for three years and this represents a sensible extension of the scope for local authorities, courts and the police to take action against a person in control of a dog whose behaviour is out of control. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) has explained some of the steps and sanctions available to the authorities when a dog control notice is in place. Labour has been arguing this case but Ministers have been dragging their feet for three years now. During that time, thousands more have suffered serious and often debilitating injuries. Most dog owners are responsible and their dogs are well behaved, but a minority see dogs as status symbols or even offensive weapons. The Government must go further than this Bill.”
“One said that the law must be changed: “I was mauled by an American Pitt bull crossed with a Bull mastiff at my friend’s house and as it was in its rightful house nothing could have been done…I have been left with traumatic memories and ugly scars, this dog has not been put down and has in fact bitten someone else”. Another caller simply said that we should “just do what is definitely necessary to prevent any more horrific and fatal attacks on innocent people and children.” The Minister has the chance to do just that this afternoon. I urge the Minister, taking advantage of his fresh mandate as a new Minister in a new post, to accept new clause 3.”
“While Becky was still in hospital, I sat down with her husband John, who was very upset by Becky’s injuries and very angry that the police had no ability to act on that dog because the attack took place in that private house. Since I started campaigning on this issue in the past few weeks, a lot of people have contacted me, including Norma Saunders, who told me that she knows someone who was a victim of a dog attack. She said: “After the dog attacked several times, our community felt terrorized. I did not let my little boy play in the garden & I did not walk to the shops, but the authorities were not interested.” I pay tribute to Hallam FM in South Yorkshire, which has taken up this campaign, aired the problems and given listeners the chance to give their experiences over the past week. A couple have phoned in with very powerful points.”
“We know that thousands of victims are injured and hospitalised each year as a result of dog attacks. We know that the number of owners sentenced for offences related to dangerous dogs has increased by more than one third since 2009. Just in South Yorkshire the police tell me that in the past year they have responded to 464 dog attack incidents, and that just in 2013 they have so far taken out 26 court cases pursuing prosecution against those owners. The latest case reported to me was that of Rebecca Lowman of Goldthorpe, who was attacked and badly injured in the arm and leg last month when she was defending a woman who was being attacked by her own dog in her own house.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Poole (Mr Syms) and it was good to hear him speaking in the House, after a period in the Whips on the Front Bench, although what he had to say was still a little too loyal for my taste. I welcome clause 98 and the extension of the offence of allowing a dog to cause injury or the fear of injury to all places, including all private property. That is long awaited and closes a significant loophole in the law. Ministers have simply been much too slow to make this change. Today, however, particularly with new clause 3, the new Minister has the opportunity to act ahead of a serious and growing problem, instead of just giving a long-delayed response to a problem, as we have seen so far. I am talking about the introduction of dog control notices.”
“I am not prepared to accept that, and the Committee should not be prepared to accept it either. It is part of our duty in a Committee stage such as this to exercise scrutiny in the House of Commons, but we have been unable to do so. We have been unable to do so because of the time scale, because of the lack of any wider consultation, and indeed, as we have heard this afternoon, because of the Government’s failure to provide the Committee even with some of the most basic documentation before asking it to consider the Bill. Such a degree of confusion and incompetence on the part of Ministers is unacceptable.”
“The Leader of House, when he was Health Secretary, was forced to pause, review and reflect upon that Bill. The same problems with this Bill surely call for the same solution. Let me now deal specifically with clause 36 and the amendments. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, told us that his Committee had considered the White Paper, the forerunner of the Bill, and that there had been no mention of part 3 or of trade unions. He said that, according to his calculations, this part of the Bill—including clause 36—had been published the day before the summer recess, eight working days before we were required to consider it in Committee today, and he rightly pointed out that the task of scrutinising these provisions would therefore fall to the other House.”
“It is pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland). He declared himself an optimist about the purposes of this part of the Bill and clause 36 in particular. The problem with the Bill, as well as with this particular provision, is the gap between the declared purposes and the provisions themselves. In clause 36, the problem is that the purposes are not clear at all. In its confused content and its incompetent and chaotic handling, this whole Bill reminds me of a previous piece of legislation that the Leader of the House introduced—the Health and Social Care Bill. I led the opposition to that Bill. It was a Bill without allies and with a remarkable range of critics that saw Lord Tebbit and the trade unions finding common ground.”
“The clause gives the certification officer, or any investigator whom he may appoint, sweeping powers of access to very personal individual information about trade union members, which could contravene article 8 and the right to privacy. As I think the Committee will appreciate, union members are rightly concerned and sensitive about the issue, given the recent history of blacklisting and discrimination on the basis of trade union membership or activity. What I should like the Minister to do when he responds to the debate—”
“I shall respond to my hon. Friend’s intervention in a moment. I want my speech to reflect what has been said in the debate so far, and the point that he has made has already begun to emerge during our discussion of clause 36 and the amendments. Another point has emerged as well, and it constitutes a direct challenge to Ministers. The face of the Bill bears the following declaration from the Leader of the House: “In my view the provisions of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill are compatible with the Convention rights.” Members of Parliament and legal experts outside the House have rightly asked whether article 8 of the convention, in particular, is not confounded by the provisions of clause 36.”
“Our debate so far has clearly shown that there is no evidence of a problem, that there is no public call for these changes, and that there is no principled case for them. We can only conclude that the intention, or the purpose, of the clause is to tighten the legislative leash on trade unions and their ability to take proper, lawful industrial action.”
“What I should like the Minister to do when she responds to the debate is give the Committee a commitment that she will publish, or place in the Library of the House, the legal advice on which the Leader of the House’s statement on the front of the Bill is based, so that we can lay that concern to rest. Let me now turn to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne). In his excellent speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) asked what was the problem with which clause 36, and part 3 as a whole, had been designed to deal. Even the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) rightly asked the same question, albeit in different terms. He asked what intention was behind the provisions in clause 36.”
“Clause 36 will create a mountain of data and paperwork which will be at the fingertips of employers well in advance of any particular risk of industrial action or dispute.”
“Too often in recent years, employers—not just large employers such as Balfour Beatty, Serco and London Midland—instead of dealing with the grievance at hand, and instead of consulting, negotiating and discussing the problems that they face with their own employees and dealing with the dispute, have looked for legal ground to try to prevent any industrial action through the law courts. The duty in clause 36 to provide the membership audits and certificates, and the potential investigations on the back of any complaints under the auspices of the certification officer, are likely to make it much easier for employers to find legal grounds and to take legal action to prevent union members from taking proper, legitimate industrial action.”
“The series of legislative steps that any group of trade union members must take before engaging in lawful industrial action are already highly complex, lengthy and tightly specified in law, but clause 36 will make that specification much tighter, and will make it much more difficult for unions to take such action. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Katy Clark) pointed out, there is no legal right to strike in this country, and any industrial action lays a trade union open to being sued for inducing and encouraging members to breach their employment contracts. It is only the immunity from being sued, which comes from following all the steps specified in existing legislation, that will be made more difficult by the provisions in clause 36.”
“Indeed so, Sir Edward. As a former member of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the steps, linked to the clause, that any union needs to take before contemplating industrial action are already highly complex. They are legally specified, and they set a number of very high hurdles for any group of trade union members who wish to consider industrial action. As for his general point, it is often the determination of union members to take industrial action if necessary, and as a last resort, that causes employers to see sense, negotiate properly and, in many cases, solve the problems at hand. Let me sum up the position. The number of days lost to strike action is at a near all-time low. Industrial action is always a last resort.”
“I think my hon. Friend is right, but our problem is that we are having to intuit the intention behind these provisions and this clause because the Government have not supplied evidence of a problem, have not supplied a purpose for these provisions, and have not supplied any reason for this unreasonable tightening of the legislation.”
“Regardless of what the Government are prepared to say about its purpose now, it is designed to tighten the current legislation binding trade unions. It is designed to make it more difficult for trade unions to take proper legal, legitimate industrial action and in particular for members facing problems in their workplace to stand up to an employer as a last resort and say, “You’re treating us in such an unfair, discriminatory and unacceptable way that we are prepared to take industrial action as a last resort.” If we allow this provision and this part of the Bill to proceed unamended it will become much more difficult for ordinary people as union members in the workplace to stand up for themselves through their union against their employer.”
“My hon. Friend has more experience in this area than I have, and he is right to point that out, and he might have gone on to say, “And what a stark disparity with the legal requirements on trade unions to take any industrial action they may have balloted upon within days, not years, and then to give further fresh notice to the employer before the start of that industrial action.” The legislation is already hugely unbalanced and is, as the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) argued, ripe for reform—although I think he and I would disagree on the nature of the reform that is required. The Opposition’s arguments against this clause and my particular objections are clear, and our amendments highlight them.”
“I support the hon. Gentleman’s arguments and his attempts to amend clause 26, but Opposition Members have a lot of experience of the gap between what Ministers say and what they do. The clause is a noose around the neck of democratic election debate. It gags those who have a passion to play a part in challenging politicians, and, as the hon. Gentleman has said, it is a curb on the campaigning activities of trade unions, charities, Churches and others. If the Minister produces amendments on Report that do not do what the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends want, will he vote against them?”
“My hon. Friend is making a set of important points about process rather than principle, which is what he normally covers, and they are extremely valuable. Does he agree, in asking ask the Minister to set out the principles on which his proposed changes for introduction on Report will be based, that they should be principles for how he wants to change the status quo rather than how he wants to tinker with the Bill’s deeply flawed provisions?”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just the great and the good of the charity sector—groups of the type that she has been talking to—that would be affected? Has she, like me and many other Members, been contacted by a lot of constituents who see very clearly the dangers to the democratic process—constituents like Dr Kathryn Horridge from Rawmarsh, who said: “I support greater transparency and accountability in the political process, and would like to see the influence of ‘Big Money’ over politics reduced. I’d support a new law which genuinely did this, rather than a law which gags campaign groups but leaves Rupert Murdoch and millionaire party donors untouched”?”