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right systems and computer software are put in place when the commission is established, rather than being sought late in the day and resulting in answers to Members of Parliament along the lines of, "This information is not available in the form requested." If it is stated on the face of the Bill that we expect that kind of proper breakdown to be provided, there should be no doubt and no difficulty about providing it.The second element--the costs falling to each police authority--is surely also sensible. It is in the public interest that the impact of the commission's work on police authorities should be open and above board-- open to scrutiny and available to members of the police authorities--and that the information should be provided in a standard form. In other words, if there is an impact on one police authority, one should be able to compare that with the impact on others because the information is provided in the same way, just as other statistics are provided to the Home Office in the same form from different police forces. That would have the great benefit of making transparent something that is at present opaque.
Reference has been made to the financial estimates made by the Government at the time of Second Reading and to the fact that they bundled a variety of different issues together. We pursued that matter in Committee, when I asked the Minister a straightforward question:
"What is the Minister's estimate of the increase in cost? How has he made that calculation?"
It is only fair to quote the Minister's response. He said: "I have no estimate of the increase in cost"--
in other words, "I do not know; I haven't a clue; I haven't the foggiest." He then said:
"We have not calculated the number of officers that a hypothetical in-house team would need. However, if the commission employed its own police officers, working from some central headquarters, it is clear that additional costs, at least for allowances, would be incurred."--[ Official Report, Standing Committee B , 28 March 1995; c. 90-91.]
He then expanded on the subject of the additional costs of an independent team, but additional to what? We do not know: additional to a figure that the Minister and the Government have not estimated. I have pursued that issue since the time when those matters were mentioned on Second Reading and in Committee, and I tabled a question to the Home Secretary, asking:
"what research projects or investigations have been undertaken by his Department or on behalf of his Department into international comparisons of the costs of investigating miscarriages of justice." I received a simple answer: "None." No investigations have been undertaken to try to establish, on comparisons elsewhere, what the costs would be to the public purse. I also asked the Minister: "what research projects or investigations have been undertaken by his Department or on behalf of his Department into the costs of investigating alleged miscarriages of justice; and what conclusions were arrived at."
It seems a fairly simple and straightforward piece of preparation to undertake when approaching a piece of legislation.We have argued many a time and oft that the piece of legislation before us has been long delayed, apparently because the Home Secretary was so exhaustively seeking to ensure that the organisation to investigate miscarriages of justice was set up in a considered way. It could have been set up a couple of years ago, but the Home Secretary wanted to take time to
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investigate everything. Well, he did not investigate the costs, and that appears to be a curious omission. The answer to that question was:"Information about the present and possible future costs of investigating alleged miscarriages of justice is contained in the explanatory and financial memorandum to the Criminal Appeal Bill." If that is the best that the Home Office can do, that does not amount to information that is of any use to anyone in understanding the impact of the Bill.
The Minister then responded to some questions that I asked about the work that was undertaken in conjunction with several police forces to try to investigate the costs of investigations under the present system. Information was requested from a range of police forces, and we understand that some of those forces, when asked for information about the costs of undertaking specific inquiries, including the Metropolitan police in three cases, the West Mercia constabulary in one, the Kent constabulary in two, the Thames Valley police in one and the West Yorkshire police in another, were unable to provide the information requested.
I should have thought that it was straightforward for such information to be available. If police forces undertake investigations at the request of the Home Office, I should have thought that it was fairly straightforward to ensure that the cost of those investigations was known and reportable. But it was not. That makes the case for amendment No. 7, to ensure that we are not in ignorance about the investigations undertaken on behalf of the new organisation.
An answer was available about seven of the 16 cases in which the Home Secretary sought information. Those range very widely, from a case investigated by the Lancashire constabulary costing £570.04--obviously the Lancashire constabulary undertakes careful monitoring of every penny-- to a case undertaken by the Greater Manchester police at £192,913. It is not surprising that there is a vast range of cost as some investigations are simple and straightforward while others are complex. Nevertheless, the information is minimal and limited.
In response to other questions, the Minister provided an analysis of some of the inquiries conducted. The length of the inquiries varied considerably from the case involving the Lancashire constabulary of some 31 hours, to which I have referred, to periods of eight months, 84 weeks and 86 weeks. In supplying that information, the Minister pointed out:
"It is not the responsibility of an investigating officer to make recommendations as to what action my right hon. and learned Friend should take on a case".--[ Official Report , 25 April 1995; Vol. 258, c. 435- 37. ]
The Home Secretary decided not to refer four of the cases mentioned in the Minister's response--which appears in Hansard of Tuesday 25 April--to the Court of Appeal. The other cases are still being considered.
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The commission's recommendations and the information that it receives will vary, as will the work of the police, in the light of the legislation. The importance of establishing this body has been stressed for a long time as it will restore confidence in the capacity of the British legal system to deal with alleged miscarriages of justice. It is therefore very important that the commission should
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be established properly, that the system should be transparent and that information should be available to hon. Members in a common form.In that spirit, our amendment No. 7 would ensure that, from the time the Bill is published in its final form, those involved with the commission and those who undertake inquiries on its behalf in police forces or in other public bodies will be aware of the requirement to provide proper financial accounting for the activities that they undertake. If the Minister is not able to accept new clause 15 proposed by right hon. Member for Berwick-upon -Tweed, I hope that he will at least accept our modest amendment and guarantee transparency as to the cost implications of the legislation for public bodies.
Mr. Maclean: I have again listened carefully to the arguments advanced by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) and the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael). I note the concerns that they have expressed and I agree that the costs of the commission and its investigations will need to be monitored carefully. Having said that, I do not believe that the proposed amendments are helpful.
The right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed asked how the cost of police investigations would be met. The short answer is: in exactly the same way as it is met at the moment. At present, the cost of any police investigation requested by the Home Secretary into a possible miscarriage of justice is met from within the existing resources of the police force concerned. The Criminal Appeal Bill does not give the police force a new role to perform; it tackles the task already and it will continue to perform it when the commission is up and running. Therefore, no great new cost will be involved.
Mr. Beith: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Maclean: I think that I know what the right hon. Gentleman wishes to say. It is a crucial point and--if I may anticipate his remarks-- I think that he has got it wrong. I acknowledge that we expect the commission, at least initially, to receive representations about many more cases each year than currently occurs. We expect an increased work load for the commission because more people will make applications to it.
We also believe, however, that those who will approach the commission-- perhaps as many as half--will be concerned about cases that have been considered previously and rejected by the Secretary of State. By virtue of clause 17, the commission will have access to all the police reports, forensic science reports, statements obtained and other relevant material which the Secretary of State considered in evaluating the cases. It will not be a matter of starting from scratch and beginning a whole new investigation.
Mr. Michael: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Maclean: I should like to complete my point as it is an important one which I believe has led to some misunderstanding. The potential for unnecessary duplication of inquiries by the police should therefore be minimal.
If C3's experience is any guide, not all the cases brought to the commission's attention will require any investigation by the police. Currently, such inquiries are
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needed in only 45 per cent. of cases--that is 329 per year--and even then half of them entail relatively minor inquiries, such as tracing and interviewing one or two witnesses, reviewing case papers, clarifying some minor details, and so on. The remainder require more substantial inquiries. We know of nothing to suggest that the proportion of cases requiring investigation will change or that the nature of the inquiries will alter once the commission starts work. I say to the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, in the nicest possible way, that he may have the wrong end of the stick. We expect that more people will make applications to the commission initially, but we do not expect a greatly increased burden on the police. We believe that current police resources are adequate to deal with the present inquiries and those with which they will be asked to deal in future.The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth cited some of the figures that I have supplied to him in the past few days. If he looks at those cases--even those which have gone on for 82 weeks and have cost almost £200,000, which is a large inquiry--he will see that they form only a tiny part of most police budgets.
Mr. Michael: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way because he said something that is crucial to public confidence in the Bill and in the commission that it will establish. He suggested that there will be no additional investigations or extra work. Does he not accept that there is a backlog of cases which have not been dealt with because there is no system for considering them at present? Is not the commission expected to open up cases that have been waiting to be dealt with for an extensive period? Does he not accept that that was the import of the royal commission's recommendations, as well as the reason for establishing a royal commission inquiry? If the commission is to be as limited as he suggests in the scope of its investigations and those undertaken on its behalf, he will be dragging us back to where we were before the Bill was published. Surely the Minister cannot mean what he has just said.
Mr. Maclean: I do mean it. I totally reject the suggestion that there is a huge backlog of cases which have not been dealt with properly or have been ignored by C3 or by the Secretary of State. That is not the reason why we have set up the independent appeals tribunal. There is no suggestion that C3 has refused to deal with cases or that it has turned away hundreds, or even thousands, of deserving appellants.
Some people may be unhappy about the decisions that they have received, but their cases were investigated and reviewed thoroughly. I suspect that it is the applicants who did not like the decision not to refer their cases to the Court of Appeal who will apply to the commission when they hear that a new body which is divorced from the Secretary of State has been established. It is inevitable that they will try to have their cases reopened to see whether they can get a better outcome. Every hon. Member is familiar with that occurrence. People often approach newly elected Members of Parliament with a horrific, apparently new problem, claiming that they did not approach the previous Member of Parliament about it. The commission will also face that difficulty. From the smiles that I see around the Chamber, I can tell that that
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happens to us all. However, I do not envisage that the commission will pass on a greatly increased work load to the police service.Mr. Michael: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again on this important matter. Obviously, some cases are undeserving, and we have all shared the Minister's experience. However, does the Minister not acknowledge what the royal commission found--that many cases have simply been left to fester because we lack a body such as the one that we are establishing in the Bill? The royal commission recommended the establishment of that body and the legislation will achieve it. That will lead to investigations which are not being undertaken at present. Surely the Minister acknowledges that fact, because it is what the Bill is all about.
Mr. Maclean: I did not acknowledge that a vast body of cases which had not been adequately dealt with were left festering. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make such allegations, he must give us the chapter and verse. He must give us the information. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) never made that allegation. He presented a dossier to the Home Secretary of 50 cases in which he believed there had been a miscarriage of justice, or he did not like the outcome or the way in which the case was handled, but he did not say that those cases were ignored or that a vast body of cases had been left festering or had not been addressed.
The hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth is wrong. It is not envisaged that the police service will have a vastly increased work load because there are hundreds or even dozens of cases out there which have not been investigated by C3 and which have been covered up and that the commission will demand a whole new inquiry in cases with which C3 would not have bothered in the past. That is simply not correct.
Mr. Michael: The Minister winds a comment up to knock it down. I did not use the word "vast"; the Minister used the word "vast". I said that there are a number of cases--a serious number, not an insignificant number- -that the royal commission reported which are not dealt with under existing provisions and are left festering through the lack of such a body, which needs to be established. That is the reason for the Bill. That is why the urgency has been growing before and since the royal commission produced its report. That is why the royal commission was established in the first place.
I am surprised that the Minister seems not to acknowledge the case that was made for the body by the royal commission, the existence of cases that need to be dealt with by that body and investigations that it needs to undertake because they have not been dealt with adequately under the present system. The Bill is about restoring confidence in the criminal justice system in Britain.
Mr. Maclean: The prime case for the creation of the body is to create transparency and to remove the present system from political control and the Home Office. That is the prime reason for advancing the body, not because there is a small or a large body of cases out there which have not been properly investigated.
I am conscious that the House wishes to make progress and that we ought to wind up the debate on new clause 15 and move on, but I cannot let the allegation stand that C3 and the Home Office have been negligent or failed to
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deal with a body of cases adequately or properly under the present system. The hon. Gentleman said that those cases had been left festering.Mr. Maclean: If the hon. Gentleman claims that cases have been left festering, he had better produce the names and details of the cases where the present system has failed.
Page 182 of the royal commission report states:
"Our recommendation is based on the proposition, adequately established in our view by Sir John May's inquiry, that the role assigned to the Home Secretary and his Department under the existing legislation is incompatible with the constitutional separation of powers as between courts and the executive."
That is the reason for the new body. The report continues: "The scrupulous observance of constitutional principles has meant a reluctance on the part of the Home Office to inquire deeply enough into cases put to it and, given the constitutional background, we do not think this is likely to change significantly in future."
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes): Order. Before this discussion continues, let me say that I have been looking carefully again at new clause 15 and the amendment and I cannot see how it will bear this rather general discussion when it evidently deals with reasonable costs.
Mr. Michael: I hope that this intervention will come precisely to that, because the Minister has made a number of claims. He quoted selectively from chapter 11 of the royal commission's report. In paragraph 6 on page 181 in chapter 11 of the report, the royal commission states:
"There is in theory no restriction on the numbers or categories of cases which the Home Secretary may refer to the Court of Appeal under section 17 since the section gives him discretion to refer cases `if he thinks fit'. In practice, however, as Sir John May observed in his second report on the Maguire case, the Home Secretary and the civil servants advising him operate within strict self-imposed limits."
It makes it clear in that and other parts of the royal commission's report that the present system is far too limited and the reason for moving away from the Home Secretary is not simply that the Home Secretary is a political appointee, but that consideration of appeals is far more restricted than it ought to be in the interests of justice.
That is why the cost of the increased work which would be undertaken and the increased investigations that will need to be undertaken is so important. That is the reason for the amendment and for the new clause moved by the right hon. Member for
Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). The Minister's words today deny the conclusions of the royal commission and deny the known facts that there are festering cases, one involving a Mike O'Brien who is not a Member of Parliament.
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7.45 pmMadam Deputy Speaker: Order. I can see that the hon. Gentleman is trying to remain in order, but he is now falling foul of something else. Interventions should be short and he is making a speech.
Mr. Maclean: I detect that the mood of the House for the past 10 minutes has been to move on.
Mr. Michael: It is the mood of the Minister.
Mr. Maclean: Yes it is, but it is also the mood of the House. This is not fertile ground. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that there are cases out there festering where the Home Office and C3 have been negligent in dealing with them, let him bring those dossiers chapter and verse.
Mr. Michael: The use of the word throughout is the Minister's, not mine.
Mr. Maclean: The Hansard record will stand.
I shall move on because my original point stands. We do not envisage the police service having greatly increased burdens landed on it by the commission. We expect the commission to have increased burdens initially as more people seek to try their cases again or take them to the commission again. Some people who might not know that there is a present appeals system to the Secretary of State may be informed of it and try for the first time.
I believe that inquiries undertaken by the police on behalf of the Secretary of State are thorough and effective. The involvement of the commission will not necessarily result in deeper or more wide-ranging inquiries being undertaken. The investigation will be as wide as is necessary in the circumstances of each case. Direction and supervision by the commission may even result in some savings and the commission could quickly close down unproductive lines of investigation by means of the powers provided under clause 19. Therefore, I can see no compelling reason why the present arrangements for the funding of police inquiries into the miscarriage of justice should change and although I have listened to both hon. Members I am afraid that I cannot accept their amendments.
Mr. Beith: I am not convinced by the Minister's argument. He recognises that there will be a greater number of applications, many of which might not require further investigation, but that implies that the commission would have very little work to do if it ruled out almost all of them. Some will require fresh investigation and there is bound to be an initial additional work load. In some cases, the commission will surely exercise its powers to direct more extensive inquiries than C3 and the Home Office would have done.
When one sets that against the background of police authorities which do not have reserves, which can be capped and which are under particular strain at the moment--all new circumstances against which the legislation has to be tested--it is clear that provision should have been made. In no part of his answer did the Minister provide any reassurance to police authorities that they will not finish up taking officers from important duties policing their own areas without any recompense or means of filling the gap. That is so
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unsatisfactory, given the problems in crime and policing in Britain, that I believe that we should press the motion to a Division. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:--The House divided: Ayes 23, Noes 189.
Division No. 137] [7.48 pm
AYES
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Ashdown, Rt Hon PaddyBarnes, Harry
Beith, Rt Hon A J
Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)
Carlile, Alexander (Montgomery)
Connarty, Michael
Corbyn, Jeremy
Eastham, Ken
Ewing, Mrs Margaret
Flynn, Paul
Foster, Don (Bath)
Godman, Dr Norman A
Hinchliffe, David
Kennedy, Charles (Ross,C&S)
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Livingstone, KenLynne, Ms Liz
Maddock, Diana
Michie, Mrs Ray (Argyll & Bute)
Rendel, David
Rooney, Terry
Skinner, Dennis
Steel, Rt Hon Sir David
Taylor, Matthew (Truro)
Welsh, Andrew
Tellers for the Ayes: Mr. Archy Kirkwood and Mr. David Chidgey.
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NOESColumn 922
Aitken, Rt Hon JonathanAllason, Rupert (Torbay)
Amess, David
Arbuthnot, James
Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)
Arnold, Sir Thomas (Hazel Grv)
Ashby, David
Atkins, Robert
Atkinson, Peter (Hexham)
Baker, Rt Hon Kenneth (Mole V)
Baker, Nicholas (North Dorset)
Baldry, Tony
Bates, Michael
Batiste, Spencer
Beggs, Roy
Biffen, Rt Hon John
Bonsor, Sir Nicholas
Booth, Hartley
Boswell, Tim
Bottomley, Peter (Eltham)
Bowden, Sir Andrew
Bowis, John
Brandreth, Gyles
Brazier, Julian
Bright, Sir Graham
Brooke, Rt Hon Peter
Browning, Mrs Angela
Bruce, Ian (Dorset)
Burns, Simon
Burt, Alistair
Butler, Peter
Carrington, Matthew
Cash, William
Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Chapman, Sydney
Churchill, Mr
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Colvin, Michael
Congdon, David
Coombs, Simon (Swindon)
Couchman, James
Cran, James
Davies, Quentin (Stamford)
Dorrell, Rt Hon Stephen
Dover, Den
Duncan, Alan
Duncan-Smith, Iain
Dunn, Bob
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