House of Commons - Home Affairs

Select Committee on Home Affairs Second Report

The Committee's performance in relation to the 'core tasks'

6. On 14 May 2002 the House, by resolution, invited the Liaison Committee to establish common objectives for select committees. The Liaison Committee subsequently issued a list of indicative core tasks, and has asked departmental select committees to reflect these in their annual reports. The table opposite shows the relationship of our inquiries and evidence sessions to these core tasks. A detailed commentary is then set out in the paragraphs which follows.

Inquiries carried out into:

(a) Government policy proposals and implementation of legislation and major policy initiatives

7. The Home Office produces more policy proposals, in the form of consultation documents, green and white papers, bills and draft bills, than any other government department.[15] We monitor these proposals and initiatives in a variety of ways. We hold an annual evidence session with the Home Secretary to review ministerial priorities and emerging policy areas as a whole. We aim to respond rapidly to developments where issues of major public concern are at stake (see paragraph 14 below).

8. We devoted sustained attention to the Government's proposals to introduce a national identity cards scheme. We inquired into the initial proposals, published in a white paper in November 2003, and then, to a tight deadline, scrutinised the subsequent draft bill, published in April 2004. Our report was published in July 2004.[16] It gave broad backing to the Government's plans but highlighted important areas that needed to be tackled if the proposals were to succeed, including lack of clarity over the scheme's scope and practical operation and insufficient openness in the procurement process. The report also made a number of recommendations for strengthening the draft bill. The Government welcomed the report and incorporated a number of our recommendations, such as systematic peer review of technical aspects of biometrics and an enhanced role for the National Identity Scheme Commissioner, in its revised proposals and in the Identity Cards Bill currently before Parliament.[17]

9. Since 2001 the Government has taken a series of initiatives which are collectively known as the police reform programme. We held four evidence sessions in autumn 2004 looking at the implementation of police reform, and since the subsequent publication of a white paper making further proposals we have taken additional written evidence. We will publish a report on this subject shortly.

10. Several of our inquiries investigated the way in which past legislation is being implemented. We held an evidence session on the use by the police of powers granted under anti-terrorism legislation,[18] and will look further at this issue in the context of our current inquiry into terrorism and community relations. In our work on sentencing we considered the way in which new penalties under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 are being introduced.[19] And in our ongoing inquiry into anti-social behaviour we are examining how the provisions of the Criminal Justice and Police Act 1998 (in particular Anti-Social Behaviour Orders or 'ASBOs', and fixed-penalty notices), as well as those in other recent legislation, are being put into effect.

11. We have also monitored the Government's response to our own past reports. We append to this report a memorandum from the Home Office setting out the action they have taken in respect of all accepted Home Affairs Committee recommendations since the start of the 2001 Parliament.[20]

(b) Areas seen by the Committee as requiring examination because of deficiencies

12. Two of our major inquiries focussed on areas of government policy which have been the subject of much criticism. Our report on asylum applications[21] identified particular problems with the quality of initial decision-making on asylum claims and called for greater 'front-loading' of the asylum system, with more resources put into achieving fair and sustainable decisions at an early stage. However, the report, which looked at the asylum system as a whole, broadly backed the Government's asylum strategy and endorsed the use of induction and accommodation centres, fast track processing of claims, and language analysis schemes to detect nationality fraud. It also recommended further measures that should be taken to ensure public confidence in the asylum system: in particular, that there should be a fundamental attempt to integrate asylum decision-making, voluntary departure and compulsory removals; and that more should be done to tackle illegal working, including more effective action against employers who knowingly employ illegal migrants.

13. Our report on the rehabilitation of prisoners[22] found that although the basic policy framework for rehabilitating offenders was largely in place, implementation had been patchy, and the scale of the problem was massive, with nearly three in five prisoners being reconvicted within two years of leaving prison. The report found that overcrowding is having a hugely damaging impact on the delivery of rehabilitative regimes, and it expressed scepticism about the Home Office's projection that the prison population will stabilise at about 80,000 by the end of the present decade, exactly matching estimated capacity. The Committee's research found that disturbingly high proportions of prisoners are engaged in little or no purposeful activity. It argued that over-crowding should not be an excuse for neglecting rehabilitative interventions, and made positive recommendations for improving the situation. In particular the report called for a radical transformation of the prison regime to ensure prisoners do 'real' work on a conventional 9 to 5 basis and have greater access to day release for work and education.

14. The Committee has questioned witnesses on specific departmental actions as and when they arose during the course of the year. Sometimes this involved taking evidence at short notice in response to developing events. For instance, on 23 February 2004 the Government announced a package of measures in respect of the eligibility of nationals of EU accession states to work and receive benefits in the UK. We immediately sought written evidence on this new government policy from the Home Office and on 9 March took oral evidence from the relevant Minister.[23] Likewise, on 20 July the Government announced that it was not proceeding with its intention to create 10 National Offender Management Service (NOMS) regions to replace the existing 42 probation areas and 14 prison areas. On the same day, as had been previously scheduled, we took evidence on the Home Office's annual departmental report from the Permanent Secretary and from the Chief Executive of NOMS. We took the opportunity of immediately exploring with our witnesses the detailed implications of the NOMS decision.[24]

(d) The work of the Department's Agencies and associated public bodies

15. The Committee has taken evidence from a wide range of witnesses representing bodies associated with the Home Office. These include individual police forces, the Prison Service, the Probation Service, the Criminal Cases Review Commission and the Sentencing Guidelines Council.

(e) Major appointments

16. In January 2004 the Committee took evidence from the newly appointed Chairman of the Criminal Cases Review Commission.[25]

15 See Home Affairs Committee, Third Report of Session 2003, The Work of the Home Affairs Committee in 2003 (HC 345), paras 2 and 5 Back

16 Fourth Report of Session 2003-04, Identity Cards (HC 130-I), published 30 July 2004 Back

17 Government reply published as Cm 6359, 27 October 2004 Back

18 Oral evidence on Anti-Terrorism Powers taken on 8 July 2004 (HC 886-i, 2003-04) Back

19 Fifth Report of Session 2003-04, Draft Sentencing Guidelines 1 and 2 (HC 1207), paras 58-70 Back

20 See pp 13-102 below. Back

21 Second Report of Session 2003-04, Asylum Applications (HC 218-I), published on 26 January 2004; the Government reply was published as Cm 6166 on 25 March 2004 Back