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My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon mentioned casework, and the Hull university report. The inspector will shortly embark on a thematic review. The House will remember that the inspectorate will conduct not only area inspections, but thematic inspections. In the next year, handling casework with an ethnic minority dimension will be the subject of a thematic review, which will examine cases involving allegations of racially aggravated offences--my hon. Friend mentioned such cases. The review will examine cases involving defendants from ethnic minorities and cases of incitement to racial hatred. It will also consider whether Crown Prosecution Service arrangements for monitoring cases of racially aggravated offences are effective.
Amendment No. 1 would create a specific statutory obligation on the inspection process to examine equality issues in relation to CPS staff. That amendment does not fit comfortably in the structure of the Bill, and would mean singling out one specific aspect. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon would acknowledge that other important matters should also be considered. As I said at the outset, my hon. Friend is right to be anxious about the matter, but he is pushing at an open door. As I said, the chief inspector is devising a methodology to cover the wider remit that the Glidewell report recommended.
When my hon. Friend spoke about amendment No. 2, he mentioned the case of Maria Bamieh, about which I do not want to comment. Several tribunal hearings reached particular conclusions, and the matters have been settled. Mrs. Bamieh is in CPS headquarters and, in her current job, contributes to carrying the diversity agenda forward. It would be wrong to use the inspectorate, which should deal with the performance and overall operations of the CPS, in the way in which amendment No. 2 proposes. As I said, the circumstances that the employment tribunals explored have been tackled.
On amendment No. 3, I do not believe that it is right to pick out specific topics for coverage in the annual report. It is right that the CPS is accountable to the House, but there are other important topics to consider. Disclosure has been discussed on various occasions in the House, and whether the prosecution discloses properly to the defence. Victims
have also been considered. My hon. Friend could ask, "If diversity is to be singled out, why not the other topics?" I assure him that the annual report will consider all issues. The inspector will send to hon. Members the area reports that are relevant to their constituencies.The combined effects of the amendments have been the promotion of an important issue. However, I hope that my hon. Friend is sufficiently reassured to agree that they should be withdrawn.
Mr. Dismore: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.5 pm
The Solicitor-General: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
The Bill is a short and straightforward one. Its purpose is to establish an inspectorate, independent of the Crown Prosecution Service. It places the chief inspector on a statutory footing. The Bill sets out the functions of the chief inspector, whose primary function will be to arrange for the inspection of the CPS. On Report, I said that Parliament will be kept informed of the work of the chief inspector. Members will be told also about the area inspections relevant to their constituencies.
I know that concerns have been expressed about the funding of the CPS by my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) and by other colleagues on previous occasions. Earlier this afternoon, my right hon. and noble Friend the Attorney-General was able to announce that an additional £15.8 million had been allocated to the CPS budget for this year. That is a useful step in the right direction. It includes £4.5 million from the police modernisation fund, which has been transferred to the CPS by the Home Office. The matter was agreed some weeks ago, but it has taken some time to put the agreement in place procedurally.
Mr. John Burnett (Torridge and West Devon): Does the additional £15.8 million mean that, this year, the CPS will be expected to allow for and provide efficiency savings of 3 per cent.? Will the deficits rolled up from previous years be overcome by the additional funding?
The Solicitor-General: This sum more than overcomes the 4.5 per cent. figure to which the hon. Gentleman has referred on previous occasions. In terms of a budget of some £300 million-odd, £15.8 million is quite a considerable sum. The funding will allow the CPS to implement a diversity programme; some £2.5 million will be allocated for that purpose. That very issue was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) on Report.
In addition, the £15.8 million will be used to increase investment in new information technology. I know that the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr. Burnett) has taken an interest in that matter; frankly, the CPS is in the dark ages as far as IT is concerned. It is only in recent months that matters have advanced.
Some £5 million will go to improving the CPS's performance. It will do that by targeting additional resources to areas where significant improvements in
performance can be delivered. As a result, the total budget allocated to the CPS's 42 areas in 2000-01 will be higher than for 1999-2000, in cash terms and real terms.The funds recognise the important role of the CPS and the contribution that it can make to improving the performance of the criminal justice system, including the police and other agencies. It is especially important that the £15.8 million includes a contribution of £4.5 million from the Home Office. That demonstrates that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, the Lord Chancellor and my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury have all provided full support to the CPS's case for improvements in its levels of resources.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes, I must say that the debate is moving into wider territory than it should. This is about the inspectorate to be set up for the Crown Prosecution Service: it is not a general debate about the financing of the CPS.
Mr. Burnett: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but we do not wish to overload the inspectorate by having inadequate funding for the CPS. I wish to ask the Solicitor-General whether the £4.5 million to which he has referred is the same as the £5 million that is mentioned in The Independent today, and which is to be used to develop closer links between prosecutors and police officers?
The Solicitor-General: I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Narey project and the criminal justice unit project, which my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree mentioned earlier. Certainly, there is a contribution to those projects in the overall CPS budget. The close working of the CPS and the police is important, but I fear that if I say too much about that matter, I will trespass on other issues.
So far, the Bill has received a unanimous welcome in both Houses. The proceedings were very brief and I thank all hon. Members for dealing with the matter so speedily. I commend the Bill to the House.
5.11 pm
Mr. Edward Garnier (Harborough): On Second Reading, I am reported as saying:
- The Bill has been described as modest, short and uncontroversial. In some quarters, those epithets might lead people to think less of it, but, despite, or even because of, its brevity, narrow compass and inoffensiveness, it should command the support of the House.--[Official Report, 23 May 2000; Vol. 350, c. 882.]
5.12 pm
Mr. Hurst: Like other hon. Members, I generally welcome the Bill, but I have one note of caution to add. Inspection is a fine thing as long as it goes wider than criticism alone. I am sure that those who serve in the CPS sometimes feel that they are the Aunt Sallies of newspapers, politicians and others who wish to criticise results in law cases that they would sooner not see, even though the law dictates the result. Therefore, while the inspection of the functions of the service will be wide ranging, one would hope that, on occasion, those inspectors' reports will give credit for the hard work and dedication of Crown prosecutors throughout the country.
5.13 pm
Mr. John Burnett (Torridge and West Devon): I endorse the comments that have just been made by the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Hurst) because there are many hard-working and dedicated individuals in the CPS. I have also noted what the Solicitor-General has told the House this afternoon about funding. On Second Reading, there was considerable debate on that point, and matters have gone from bad to worse in the CPS. It is no good the Government creating new crimes and boasting of their law and order agenda when the CPS is unable to mount a compelling prosecution.
I hope that the CPS inspectorate will have sufficient personnel, especially as I have heard speculation that the CPS will take over the prosecution role of Customs and Excise. I wonder whether the Solicitor-General can tell the House, at this late stage, what role the CPS inspectorate will have, if any, in the matter of the independent prosecution agencies in this country, such as Customs and Excise.
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