HL Deb 05 June 1989 vol 508 cc651-6

7.5 p.m.

The Earl of Arran rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 3rd May be approved [20th Report from the Joint Committee.]

The noble Earl said: My Lords, I beg to move. This order, which has been considered by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, gives effect to Section 128A of the Magistrates' Courts Act in four areas. These are the petty sessional division of east central, in inner London, the outer London borough of Croydon, the metropolitan borough of Manchester and the petty sessional division of Nottingham.

It may be of some help to your Lordships if, first, I fill in some of the background to Section 128A and remind the House of its effect before explaining why we are seeking approval for the order.

Section 128 A was added to the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 by Section 155 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. That section developed out of the findings of the court escort scrutiny, carried out by the Home Office and Lord Chancellor's Department in 1985. That scrutiny found that many eight-day remands are purely formal. It is clear before they happen that no progress will be made with the case and that all that will happen is that the defendant will be further remanded. This is wasteful of time and resources for those who escort prisoners, for prisons and for the courts themselves. If 28-day maximum remands were introduced throughout England and Wales and court savings were estimated to be in the order of some 68,000 remand hearings a year, a valuable saving that should enable other cases to be dealt with more expeditiously. Similarly there would be a saving in time for police and prison officers in respect of escorting prisoners to and from courts which could be used in more constructive ways.

We decided, therefore, in the light of this and the comments received on a consultative paper that we issued, to introduce a provision allowing courts to remand in custody for up to 28 days in certain circumstances.

Section 128A now provides that a court may remand a defendant in custody for up to 28 days provided that it has previously remanded him in custody for the same offence and provided that he is before the court; in other words, eight days remains the maximum period for the first remand in custody and a longer remand cannot be made unless the defendant is present. Before exercising the power, the court must also have regard to the total length of time the defendant will have spent in custody, if it does so, and it must give both parties an opportunity to make representations and then set a date on which it expects the next substantive stage in the proceedings to go ahead. It can then remand to that date or for 28 days, whichever is the shorter. The section specifically preserves the defendant's right to apply for bail while he is remanded in custody. Concern was nevertheless expressed about this provision during its passage through Parliament. This focused, on suggestions that if it were enacted defendants would spend longer in prison, that the opportunities for bail would be decreased and that the remand population would increase.

We do not believe that this will be the case. Nevertheless, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary decided that the power would be introduced first on an experimental basis in a few areas rather than nationwide in one go. The Government made it clear both here and in another place that they would not wish to extend the arrangements throughout England and Wales if the experiments showed them to have the results which opponents feared.

I turn now to the experiments and the specific purpose of this order. Information about the use of remands in custody and the length of time spent in custody under current legislation has been collected since October last from four magistrates' courts. They are Manchester City, Nottingham City and County, Croydon and, for inner London, Highbury Corner. The Home Office Research and Planning Unit is collating and analysing this information and it will be used to provide a basis for comparison with the way in which the courts use the new power. We now have sufficient information to proceed to the second stage in the experiments by introducing the new power to these courts. That is what this order does.

We have made it clear that these experiments will be fully monitored and the results published. Before asking your Lordships to approve the extension of this power to the rest of the country we shall want to look at the results very carefully. Meanwhile, I am sure noble Lords will agree that it is right to press on. As I mentioned earlier, there are potentially significant gains to be made in the more efficient use of police manpower and prison manpower— which will be available to improve the regimes in our prisons— and, last but not least, in the courts themselves.

I therefore commend this order to your Lordships' House.

Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 3rd May be approved [20th Report from the Joint Committee.]— (The Earl of Arran.)

Lord Mishcon

My Lords, I am sure that the House will wish to express its appreciation to the noble Earl for the clarity with which he explained this statutory instrument. I wish that I could say that the statutory instrument itself deserves commendation. Indeed, it does not. I submit to the House that this is not only a retrograde step but a seriously wrong and in fact scandalous step when one realises just what is happening in our prisons in connection with remand prisoners generally.

It is the convention of this House that when a vote has been taken— as it was in the Standing Committee, as the noble Earl correctly said, and indeed there was a Division called on this statutory instrument— we do not call a Division in this House. If that were not the convention I say very frankly from these Benches that we would have prayed against the order and wanted to divide the House. However, as I said, we are bound by the convention.

As I have used rather strong language, the House will expect me to justify what I have said about a scandalous situation. This statutory instrument is brought before Parliament a few weeks after an exchange at Question Time in this House on 24th May which was concerned with remand prisoners. Perhaps I may be permitted to remind your Lordships that the discussion arose out of a Question tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hylton. It is recorded at col. 391 of our proceedings of 24th May.

Together with my noble and learned friend Lord Elwyn-Jones, I ventured to put to the Minister certain very serious statistics showing the present position in regard to remand prisoners and the length of stay on remand. At this stage I shall only deal with the figures that I gave to the Minister and his reply. I brought to his attention the fact that at any one time there were 850 prisoners on remand awaiting trial for a period of more than six months and of that figure 100 were awaiting trial in prison on remand for more than a year. I abbreviate the Minister's answer because I am only dealing with those statistics, but he replied to me: I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, says in general". So the figures are not in any way denied.

At this moment in the history— the disgraceful history— of the conditions in our prisons, when there are far too many people confined in one cell and where in that cell the isolation from general life even of a prison is a disgrace, there are people who have not yet been found guilty of the offence with which they are charged who are languishing for such periods of time before trial. One would have thought that when the noble Earl said that the Government were going to get a move on, the "move on" would be to see that every step was taken to ensure that remand prisoners were brought to trial as soon as possible; moreover, that every court in the land would watch to see that that happened and would put to the prosecution at very frequent intervals questions of why the matter had not yet been brought to trial.

We used to have a safeguard in the rule that prisoners were brought before the courts every eight days before a further remand was ordered unless there was a voluntary agreement by the prisoner to another effect. What will now happen is called an experiment, but if it is an experiment it is an amazing one in the circumstances which I have tried to describe to the House. There is no experiment about, "Please we are increasing bail hostels" or "We are making sure that the courts inquire more closely into why trials are taking longer". A court will now have the right to order a maximum period of 28 days. It will no longer be eight days. I appreciate that it is a maximum but one knows that maxima are generally used— in fact they are not treated as only maxima. The excuse is given that if there are any exceptional circumstances or change in circumstances the prisoner will have the right to come back to the court and make an application even though the 28-day order has been made.

That completely ignores the practicalities of the situation. The prisoner does not receive a telephone call from his solicitor 48 hours after he has been put on remand asking whether there are any exceptional circumstances or if there has been a change in circumstances. There is not that kind of communication. Letters are not received within 48 hours, 72 hours or even seven days after a prisoner is put on remand. When the eight-day remand period was in vogue— as it still is except for the changes that will be made by this statutory instrument which is called an experiment— every eight days counsel had a chance to talk to the prisoner to find out whether there was any change in circumstances. That opportunity will no longer be given.

This is happening at a time when scandalous figures have been brought before this House and the Minister has had to agree with their accuracy. We are finding not that prosecution authorities are encouraged to get on with the case or that the courts are encouraged to look into the situation to discover why matters are not dealt with so that the prisoner on remand is brought to trial as soon as possible; we are being told that in four areas the period of remand will be increased before the prisoner has a practical opportunity to come back to the court to argue why the remand period should not be ended or abbreviated. It is a very serious step that the Government are taking. I repeat that, but for the convention that binds us, there would have been a prayer against this statutory instrument. On behalf of my noble friends I should have wanted to divide the House.

Lord Elwyn-Jones

My Lords, I rise to support the views that have been expressed by my noble friend Lord Mishcon on what I can only describe as a deplorable response to the powerful exchanges emanating from all quarters of the House on 24th May about the scandalous state of affairs in relation to prisoners on remand.

First, we reminded ourselves that, of the prisoners remanded in custody, 40 per cent. are either acquitted or given non-custodial sentences at their trial. That is the fact. Yet all those potentially innocent prisoners— because the presumption of innocence until guilt is proved is an important part of our criminal law— so held are treated worse in many ways than many prisoners who are already convicted. This appalling combination of time spent and the worsening of conditions that have to be suffered by remand prisoners is a deplorable element in our prison arrangements. For instance, educational and recreational facilities are often minimal for remand prisoners. They spend most of each 24-hour period locked in their cells. Yet they are not only potentially innocent, but, at worst, they suffer no fate such as that which they suffer during the period when they are held for trial. It is a situation which should have called for an urgent response by the Government, not in making things potentially worse— as this order will do— but at the very least improving the position.

Determined measures to reduce the number of remand prisoners are essential if we are to relieve prison overcrowding and ensure that our penal system reflects some at least of the basic principles of what decent criminal justice ought: to represent. This is a sad occasion. It is a pity that there are not more of us present to explore and indeed expose what is proposed. Far from achieving the objective of reducing the size of the prison population, this order may well have the opposite effect.

I share my noble friend's dismay at what is proposed and our inability— I shall not use the unkind word futility— of the House to do much about prison conditions.

The Earl of Arran

First, I should like to take note of and give considerable observance to, the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, and in particular to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, concerning the convention of the House. We know that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, however deeply and strongly he feels about a matter such as this, by convention does not divide the House. However, I shall endeavour to make some points against the issues that the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, have raised.

Of course as we have said many times before, both here and in another place, this Government take very seriously the situation concerning the remand population of prisoners at the moment. I believe and hope, as all noble Lords know, that work is being done to provide better information to magistrates' courts through bail information schemes, which the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, touched upon. Over the three financial years up to April 1991 a further 500 bail hostel places will be provided and improved training on bail decisions is being provided by the Lord Chancellor's Department. The first electronic monitoring trial involving people on bail will commence in Nottingham on 14th August and two further trials will commence in North Tyneside in September and Tower Bridge, London, in October.

The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, touched upon prisoners in police cells. On 2nd June, 175 prisoners, mostly on remand, were held in police cells. The consequences of the recent disturbance at Risley Remand Centre account for 136 prisoners being locked out of prison in the northern region. The prison service is working on measures to reabsorb these prisoners into the prison estate. The situation is very much better in the South East, where 39 prisoners are currently held in police cells and where the picture is better than it has been for more than two years.

The noble Lord, Lord Mishcon, touched upon the opportunity for the defendant to meet his solicitor. We have heard that the remand hearing provides an essential opportunity for the defendant to meet and consult with his solicitor. However, I wonder whether a weekly remand hearing is the best or only way of engineering such an opportunity. Obviously, if the proposals are adopted, solicitors will visit their clients more often in prison. We accept that on occasions in the past solicitors have experienced difficulty in gaining access to their clients. We accept also that with a longer maximum period it will be more incumbent on the prison authorities to ensure that such problems are overcome. However, the idea that a formal court hearing can be justified simply as an opportunity for consultation does not survive close examination.

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Elwyn-Jones, touched on remand prison conditions. It is the Government's contention that this order will not worsen prison conditions. It is hard to see how this could possibly be so. The hope on the contrary is that prison staff who now have to leave their establishments to escort prisoners will be available to improve regimes within the prisons.

In conclusion, I hope I have made it quite clear that this is an experimental situation, and that the experiments will at all times be fully monitored and the results published. It is right that any proposal to change the law governing the remand in custody of defendants not yet convicted of a criminal offence should receive the most careful consideration by Parliament. There are, however, good grounds for believing that the present arrangements can usefully be reformed without prejudicing the interests of justice and fairness to defendants.

The aim, once again, of the experiments is to establish that the benefits to be gained from dispensing with unnecessary court appearances are not outweighed by other costs, including the cost of defendants remaining in custody for longer than would otherwise have been the case or was necessary. There is no question of rushing this fence. Nevertheless it is incumbent upon us all to take all reasonable steps to dispense with unnecessary court hearings. The burden on the magistrates' courts and the volume of criminal cases which they now have to deal with are so substantial that unless we capture savings which have been identified then delays will increase rather than diminish. Therefore I commend the order to your Lordships' House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Lord Strathclyde

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.5 p.m.

Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

[The Sitting was suspended from 7.31 to 8.5 p.m.].