Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I declare an interest in accordance with the Register of Members' Financial Interests, as I have practised as a barrister since 1990. There is not much in the Bill that is not about saving money, which, in itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. I am afraid, however, that some of the proposals could undermine confidence in the system. On the criminal law side, one example is how the Bill makes provision for the greater use of cautioning. West Yorkshire police, who operate in my constituency, are an innovative force pioneering a scheme called ““In the Dock””, which displays photographs and details of convicted criminals on the internet. They hope that it will act as a deterrent and provide reassurance. It might work, but at the same time victims and the wider public might be more reassured, and potential criminals might be better deterred, if the same force did not caution thousands and thousands of criminals each year, including for sex and violent offences. The Bill encourages cautioning for adults, however, together with the greater use of fixed-penalty notices. That is cheaper, sure, but the message goes out, ““Don't worry, you'll only get a caution.”” Is there really a clamour from victims of crime for the increased use of cautioning by the police? Other powers sought in the Bill are simply unworkable. Clause 12 allows the provision of legal advice at police stations to be means-tested. Before Labour Members get too excited, I should say that the only reason why that was not introduced through the back door by the previous Labour Government was that the High Court stopped them. The provision simply will not work. Legal advice at police stations is guaranteed by Act of Parliament. If the police were anxious to interview someone who was self-employed and did not have three years of accounts on him when arrested, what would happen? Someone would have to sit down and work out whether they qualified for assistance. There is no basis for bringing that sort of provision into the criminal justice system. The Bill also introduces a knife crime offence that already exists in at least two other statutes. It does not mean that jail for carrying a knife is automatic—and nor should it. The young ex-soldier I represented who had been blown up in Kosovo and who had a knife in his coat as he walked through Middlesbrough for reasons he did not really feel able to explain should not be sent to prison automatically because he falls foul of legislation. There has to be room for discretion. Sentences of up to four years are already available to the courts, and if the new offence in clause 113 is to be introduced, I invite the Minister to review its wording. The current wording certainly creates an offence, but it will also create practical difficulties for prosecutors seeking to secure convictions. There are positive measures in the Bill. The Legal Services Commission is dysfunctional, and it is a courageous but necessary decision to bring it in-house. Already the inability to process legal aid forms is causing delays of months, which are unfair to victims and a waste of resources. The LSC's inability to process payments threatens jobs in small businesses and is a disgrace. If a template for how to do that job well is required, the Minister should visit the Armed Forces Criminal Legal Aid Authority, at which a small group of people working in a portakabin demonstrate what can be achieved. Other aspects of the Bill appear to cause concern but in reality do not. Schedule 10 might not be a good advert for drafting, but it does nothing to change the status quo as far as the granting of bail is concerned. The double negative involved means that the absconder or the reoffender will not benefit from those provisions. Elsewhere in the Bill, unfortunately, positive features—of which there are some—are overshadowed by the steps being introduced to achieve savings. An example of that is clause 57, which takes away the mandatory requirement to impose a community sentence alongside a suspended sentence. There are occasions on which that is simply unnecessary and is a waste of resources as far as the probation is concerned, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has indicated, the clause also moves back up to two years the length of sentence that can be suspended. Suspended sentences have been fashionable, then unfashionable and become fashionable again over the past 20 years, but the effect of the measure is that a sentence of 18 months, which currently has to be served, could in future be suspended. I agree with my hon. Friend that sentences of more than 12 months really ought to be served. Let me address the measures on civil courts, in which decent people who have suffered dreadful loss through personal injury or clinical negligence receive financial compensation to offset their suffering—and no more than that. There is no profit element to a victim's damages, and a victim of surgical error can be as much a victim as a victim of crime. Some of those victims are children whose births were so badly mismanaged that they will never become adults. I remember acting for one such child: not only was he going to require 24-hour care for the rest of his life, but his parents had not even been told by the hospital how long that life would be. When I told them that number at a meeting—it was not a large one—two of the most dignified people I have ever met looked at each other said, ““Well, at least we'll always be young enough to look after him properly.”” The compensation they received was carefully costed to provide only what was necessary and no more. The Bill introduces the concept that the successful claimant should pay part of their costs from the damages. The idea that this might make people more involved in the claim may have a certain appeal, but in reality it means that that element will have to be funded from damages that are awarded for pain and suffering. In practical terms it means that although someone wins their case, not all the steps around their house can have a ramp and not all the doors in the property can be widened. In clinical negligence claims, a claimant inevitably requires expert medical evidence. As that is expensive the claimant can take out a policy to insure against the cost, if the claim fails. At present, that is recoverable from the other side and will remain so, but only in clinical negligence cases. If the same injuries with the same consequences occurred as a result of a surgeon driving into the victim, rather than performing a negligent operation, the premium will have to be paid by the successful claimant from the damages they receive. That seems strange, because the people who will be affected by it are not ambulance chasers or part of a compensation culture, but innocent victims. The offer of a safety net that requires claimants to demonstrate human right violations in order to get justice is a poor solution. We should prosecute those who should be prosecuted and jail those who should be jailed. We should make provision that allows those whose lives are ruined not by crime but by the negligence of others to achieve proper redress. We should, because we must, look to make savings, but savings in the justice budget must not become synonymous with providing less justice.