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7.52 pm
Mr. Paul Boateng (Brent, South): We have supported the Bill in the other place, on the Floor of the House and in Committee. It will provide a context for the implementation of subsequent reforms. We are indebted for all the work that has gone into preparing and improving the Bill.
We welcome especially the creation of a Civil Justice Council, which will be an advisory body. Its function will be to promote the aims of the civil justice system and review its operation and development. For the first time, provision will be made for an input from the consumer of legal services, who all too often is forgotten in the development of our justice system. We welcome the fact that that will change, as a result of an amendment supported by Lord Irvine of Lairg in the other place. The important and significant voice of the consumer will be heard on the Civil Justice Council.
As we give the Bill a Third Reading, we should remember that access to justice demands that those who use our court system are not burdened by excessive fees. Many Labour Members are concerned by the recent imposition of excessive fees which are designed to make the civil justice system self-financing, but which will exclude many from access to it. We condemn the imposition of those increased fees, because it runs counter to the Government's stated objectives in introducing the Bill.
Nevertheless, we broadly welcome the Bill, because it provides the context for subsequent reform. That reform should be subjected to a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, because it is farcical to imagine that the reforms encapsulated in Lord Woolf's report, "Access to Justice Final Report", can be implemented without considerable cost to the Exchequer. The taxpayer will have to pay a price for implementation of the Woolf report. We have urged the Government to publish the figures and tell us how much implementation will cost, and we will continue to press them in the remaining weeks before the general election.
The Labour party welcomes the Bill, but we will review civil justice, including the legal aid system, as an early priority of the next Labour Government. Our priority is true access to justice; that cannot be achieved without a cost-benefit analysis, which is markedly lacking to date. With that warning to the Government, we welcome the Third Reading of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill read the Third time, and passed, without amendment.
Mr. Alun Michael (Cardiff, South and Penarth):
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes):
With this, it will be convenient to discuss new clause 3--Use of information on the register of sex offenders--
Mr. Michael:
The new clauses address a gaping hole in the Bill. Two provisions are missing from the legislation. First, there is no provision for a paedophile register, which was promised when the Bill was announced in the Queen's Speech. Secondly, although the Bill specifies that offenders must notify their address or change of address to the police, it does not say what the police should do with the information.
We had some good debates in Committee, and I had hoped that Government amendments would be tabled to cover the deficiencies. I am disappointed that no such amendments have been tabled. Unless we get the Bill right, including the provisions in new clauses 2 and 3, we will leave children at risk. There is also a danger that we will leave the police at risk.
The Bill would require those who have been convicted of the offences specified in the Bill to register their addresses with the police, but it contains no system for
handling the information. New clause 2 would place a duty on the Home Secretary to maintain a register of the information supplied to the police under the Bill. We have fine-tuned our suggestions after the debates in Committee and discussions with police officers at all levels. The simplest way to introduce the register, without extra bureaucracy and cost and new software, is to include the information in the police national computer. New clause 2 would allow the information to be kept on the police national computer, and it is sufficiently flexible to deal with developments.
New clause 3 is needed to fill a gap in the Bill, by saying what should be done with the information when it is provided. There has been much debate concerning how information about the addresses of offenders, especially those who have been convicted of paedophile offences, should be dealt with. There is a problem in deciding whether it should be generally available, available only in specific circumstances, or retained as confidential, for the use of the police alone.
A variety of organisations hold the strong view that such procedures need to be part of a system directed at protecting children, which will ensure that the information gets to the places where it is needed in order to achieve that objective.
In Committee, we suggested a structure that would make that responsibility clear and, while requiring the Home Secretary to produce a code of practice, would also allow for informal advice. The view that is held in several quarters is clear. The chief constables, who have spoken to me and to my hon. Friends, and those who represent police officers say that, unless a structure is provided in the Bill, they could be left unprotected.
There are two ways in which that could come about. If information is handed to the police station, what is to be done with it? Yes, it may be fed into the police national computer. We suggest that structure in new clause 2. But should the information also be distributed more widely to members of the public?
The police could run into danger on two grounds. First, they could provide information that led to an individual becoming a target--perhaps an innocent person, as a result of mistaken identity. Events could flow from the fact that the police had made available information given to them under the Bill. That could lead to criticism and challenge, perhaps in a legal sense, and certainly by the public.
The second element of challenge could occur if the police did not provide information--if, for instance, information arose about the identity of an individual who might be in an area, especially in relation to informal contact with children, a contact less likely to be covered by the provisions of the Police Bill, which is also now under discussion in Parliament. If the police had not provided such information, they could be criticised for not having done so.
It seems to me that we are running away from those problems unless we put into the Bill a careful, but flexible, structure allowing for a balanced, reasoned and measured approach to this difficult and problematic area. That is why, in new clause 3, we suggest that there should be further consultation. We do not want to jump at it, which is why we made our suggestion in that particular form. Following that consultation, the Home Secretary should
make regulations in respect of the provision of the information. Clearly, parallel arrangements for Scotland would also be needed.
We suggest that the regulations should involve not a code of practice but the minimum registration necessary to tie into the legislation a common-sense system and good practice in child protection. That is the way to avoid all the arguments of recent years about practices such as intrusive surveillance. There is nothing about that in legislation, so arguments have taken place on what the police are and are not entitled to do under the common law. That has built up into a major conflict, evidence of which we have seen recently in the House of Lords, the press and the other media--all because the problem had not been tackled at an earlier stage. It would be all the more sensible, therefore, for the House to recognise that there is something that needs to be dealt with, and to deal with it in a reasoned and measured way today.
The Home Secretary, following consultation, would put minimal regulations in place to cover the three points in subsection (1) of new clause 3, the first of which is:
Secondly, new clause 3(1) refers to
'.--(1) The Secretary of State shall, following consultation, make regulations in respect of--
(a) the means whereby information notified to the police under this Act is to be registered and maintained;
(b) those persons who may have access to information so notified; and
(c) the responsibilities of the police to provide information and to co-operate with others in using information so notified for the protection of the public, including, but not confined to, responsibilities for providing information and advice to members of the public and to statutory and voluntary bodies.
(2) In addition to any regulations made under subsection (1) above, the Secretary of State may, from time to time and following consultation, issue guidance on good practice concerning the use of information notified to the police under this Act in child protection activities, including activities undertaken by, or in collaboration with, local area child protection committees and others.
(3) Regulations made under subsection (1) above shall be laid before Parliament in draft and shall be subject to approval by a resolution of each House before being made.'
"the means whereby information notified to the police under this Act is to be registered and maintained".
From the point of view of the police and all the professionals, as I believe the Minister has acknowledged in discussion, that would be done by holding the information in a systematic way on the police national computer.
"those persons who may have access to information so notified".
That could be as simple as specifying the police and those whom the Home Secretary, on the advice of the police, has authorised to have access. The regulations do not need to be complicated.
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