Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, I have added my name in support of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. During our debates in Committee in July on conditional cautions, I made it clear that we continued strongly to support the provisions launched by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. That, as the noble and learned Lord pointed out, introduced conditional cautions intended to facilitate rehabilitation of offenders or ensure that they made reparation for the offences. But now the Government wish to impose conditional cautions as a punitive measure. My colleague, Nick Herbert, expressed our concerns during the debates in another place about the extension of cautions to punishment, but at that time, in spring this year, we said that we would not oppose the clause remaining in the Bill while we assessed the impact of the new proposals on cautioning. I put on record in Committee our concern about developments in government policy since the clause was debated in another place. This summer, the Prime Minister has announced that he intends dramatically to increase the use of administrative punishment and avoid using the courts. We are deeply concerned that the Government are taking our judicial system down a route that may be convenient to them but that certainly has not been proved to serve the victim and the public well. As the noble and learned Lord made clear, there has as yet been no proper public debate on this matter. He put forward strong arguments for removing this clause. The Minister is of course aware of the concerns expressed about these measures by the Magistrates’ Association, for one, which I thank for its courtesy in coming to the House during the Recess to provide me with further briefing on its views on the matter. The association remains obdurate against the inclusion of the clause. Fair trial safeguards and the involvement of the independent court in the delivery of punishment are also in the wider public interest and in the interest of victims of crime. The rigours of an open trial help to ensure that the right person is convicted and demonstrate publicly that justice is being done and that the state will not accept criminal behaviour. An open trial provides a public warning against offending. A publicly observed objective process in the criminal justice system can also be of great value for victims. I do not see how punitive cautions would deliver those additional benefits. If we were to remove this clause today, we would keep to the current legal position on conditional cautions. The system has not yet been running long enough to prove its own merits or demerits, but we certainly hope that it will prove to have merits. Indeed, in Committee, when I asked the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General about the reoffending rate for those who have accepted conditional cautions, he said that, "““the scheme has been going for an insufficient length of time to give a meaningful answer to that question””.—[Official Report, 6/7/06; col. 378.]" He also said that, if he could improve on that answer, he would write to me, and I am grateful to him for so doing at the end of last week. However, as he will know, my gratitude has to be somewhat tempered by the fact that his letter basically said: ““I’ve got nothing more to tell you. There isn’t sufficient information to give a robust interpretation of the impact of the 2003 measures””. I have the letter in front of me and I give a précis of it, but the noble and learned Lord, while trying to be helpful, was not able to provide robust information to persuade me that the original cautions are working in the way that we hope. It seems only sensible that, before further changing the law on conditional cautions, we should wait to see how the current law has operated in practice across England and Wales. After all, as the noble and learned Lord said, when Hazel Blears introduced these matters in another place she acknowledged that they were an ““innovative and radical departure”” from the current law. That was way back in the spring—on the morning of 23 March, at col. 167. I have nothing against innovation, radical or whatever; if it is done for the right reasons, I would welcome it. But the Government have not yet proved their case on Clause 16, particularly in the light of the policies that they have headlined over the summer. They have themselves accepted that this is a significant matter that requires wider public discussion and consultation. I noticed that the DCA’s paper Delivering Simple, Speedy, Summary Justice, which was published in July this year, says at paragraph 7.7 on page 40, that, "““we need to engage with the judiciary, criminal justice practitioners, communities and the public in general about where the balance lies between simple and immediate responses to low level misbehaviour and fast, efficient and modern court processes””." I would certainly agree with such a consultation, but the wider debate called for in the DCA’s paper has not yet taken place. If we truly value accountability to the public and the victim, that consultation should proceed before we plunge in and include the clause.