Police and Justice Bill

My Lords, it is always easy to listen to the Minister because she is extraordinarily beguiling in the way she sets about her business, but I do not think that I would be the only one to remark on a contrast. If one were to form a point of view of the Home Office based solely on the speeches made by the noble Baroness over the years and again today, one would envisage a department progressing from Bill to Bill, all of them successful and bringing improvements to our society, learning wisely from experience and occasionally filling in what the noble Baroness has called minor lacunae, but leading us slowly and surely towards the desired litter-free paradise of progress and good behaviour. There is therefore a contrast between what we hear from the noble Baroness and what we read everywhere else about the department of which she is a part, not least—and, indeed, most forcefully—from the remarks of her own new chief in the other place. There is a serious problem here. While I do not know if I would carry with me my noble friend Lord Waddington, who is to speak shortly, my impression when thinking of the Home Office from years ago is that it is a great department of state which is cumbersome, not particularly communicative, but immensely conscientious and anxious to get things right. I have the impression that those good qualities are now overburdened by change: not only changes in society brought about by drugs, asylum, immigration—one could go on with the list—but change produced by the ceaseless juggling of laws, regulations and procedures, so characteristic of the Home Office sectors of this Government. I simply do not believe that the Home Office will recover its poise and efficacy while pressure from society—and from Ministers in response to changes in society—remains so strong. I have a vision that I conjure up every now and then of what this means. It is late afternoon, outside a prison, and the van is coming in from the courts. You do not know how many prisoners you will receive. The van sometimes has to go from one prison to another to find space. Within a few hours there is a tension between all the rules, laws, regulations and procedures that have be fulfilled, and a mass of reluctant, sometimes desperate, human beings who have to be admitted to prison. So long as the pressure of numbers is of that kind, the tensions will be such that whatever legislation we pass on these matters will not be fully effective. When it comes to not being able to count numbers here and there, one has to conjure up the vision of this kind of tense afternoon. That is only in the prison sector, but it applies elsewhere. There is not now time or space for whatever improvements we vote for to be carried through to success. This leads me to the Inspectorate of Prisons. I sympathise with what the Government are trying to do, with their desire for simplicity and good order. What the noble Baroness described to us was a sort of motorway, running smoothly from the commission of the crime, through the courts, to imprisonment, release and what happens after release. But when you are planning a motorway, you need to consider not only the route, but what you may demolish along the way. Many of us fear that the prisons inspectorate may be demolished or greatly weakened when this road is built. It is different in nature from other inspectorates. It is concerned with the well-being of individuals who have been deprived of their liberty because of the crimes they have committed. This is a public service not well served by the media, or indeed in either House of Parliament. It is surrounded by a swirl of prejudice and the idea that because these are bad people it does not matter particularly what happens to them once they are imprisoned. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich told us, that approach is the reverse of civilisation. The prisons inspectorate stands now as a fortress of good sense in this swirl of prejudice and ignorance. I have known reasonably well the last three chief inspectors. They have been very different in style, vocabulary and method, and they have all been effective: Judge Tumim, whom I appointed in my time; the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who we are delighted is a Member of this House; and the present chief inspector, Anne Owers. The inspectorate, as the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, pointed out, is known and admired in this country among all those who study the subject. It is also copied all over the world. It has certain characteristics, established not so much by law as by how these three individuals have operated. It is not clear to me that these characteristics will be preserved in the Bill. It is even less clear because of the ludicrously inadequate discussion of these matters which took place in the other place. The four crucial characteristics are: that there should be an Inspectorate of Prisons with an independent head, not someone derived from the Prison Service or the Home Office; that it should have the ability to operate as it, itself, decides is necessary, which will include, for example, unannounced visits; that its chief should have direct access to the Home Secretary; and that he or she should be able to report independently and to publish when and what he or she wishes. These sound simple things but they have been secured not without difficulty and not without tensions with the bureaucracy over these past years. Nothing that the Minister has said today, that I have seen or that has been said in another place persuades me that these characteristics—and no doubt there are others—will be preserved. I appeal to the Minister to think again and to cause the Home Secretary and the Government to think again. At one level, on the sheer merit of the argument, this important matter should not be messed about with in the name of principles which may have a good general application but would do damage here, but mainly because the noble Baroness must realise that the cards are stacked against her. This is piling up and I do not think a simple repetition of the stand taken in the other place, and taken briefly by her today, will do. When my noble friend comes to table amendments, will the Minister please look at them carefully, alter the wording if that is necessary, and enable us to say that the strength and independence of the prisons inspectorate has been preserved. Perhaps I may add a word on extradition, an issue dealt with by my noble friend Lady Anelay. I am delighted that the ingenuity of our Front Bench gives us an opportunity to discuss—and, I hope, remedy—the unjust working of the 2003 extradition treaty with the United States, which is unequal in procedure and in substance. It is a clear example of the law of unintended consequences. Presumably it was intended to gain favour with a powerful friend and ally at a time of great difficulty for that ally following September 11th, but it is actually souring that relationship and will continue to do so unless remedied. It is unequal in procedure because, as everyone knows, the United States Senate has not ratified the treaty whereas the Government brought it into effect on 1 January 2004, by order, in the United Kingdom. It is unequal in substance because there is no requirement for the United States authorities to show a prima facie case against defendants here. It was intended and defended largely as a means of dealing with terrorist offences but it is being used mainly against those accused of white-collar crime, particularly in the financial sphere, where the United States federal authorities seem to be setting themselves up as a global prosecutor. It seeks extradition in cases where the link with the United States is fairly tenuous—it may be only a message passed on the internet through a United States server—and in some cases where the offence could have been prosecuted in this country but has not been. I should add that neither of the two firms with which I am associated in the City has any direct involvement in such cases. The results are now piling up and are damaging. Some organisations with financial contacts across the Atlantic are beginning to operate in an atmosphere of anxiety and risk. There is a similar atmosphere of anxiety and restraint in dealing with our own regulatory authorities because of the fear that information given to them automatically crosses the Atlantic to United States authorities, which may use it in a way that would not be regarded as equitable in this country. This matter has been raised often—I have raised it in the past, as have many Members of this House and the other place—and the volume of protest has now grown and is deafening. I do not think there is any doubt about the damage being done to relationships across the Atlantic and I hope that the Minister will not again turn this indignation aside as if it is unreal, when it is the Government’s stance that is unreal. As the United States has not ratified the treaty, it should not be too difficult to find ways of remedying the evil. I look forward to hearing and supporting amendments drafted in that sense by my noble friend Lord Kingsland.