Constitutional Affairs Committee Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-74)

ALEX ALLAN, BARBARA MOORHOUSE AND ROD CLARK

17 JULY 2007

  Q60  Keith Vaz: I am concerned about the smooth transition and integration of former Home Office members of staff. In response to a question the Chairman put to you—and I apologise for missing the earlier part of this session—you talked about consultants. Of course we know about secondments. Most of the Judicial Appointments Commission appears to be made up of secondees from the Ministry of Justice. Are you confident that you will be able to integrate the former employees of the Home Office into your departmental structure or will you need more consultants and perhaps more secondments?

  Mr Allan: The former employees of the Home Office have moved across and are now employees of the Ministry of Justice, so that change was made. Basically, staff who were employed on the National Offender Management Service side of the Home Office have moved over into the new Ministry of Justice. Inevitably there were some staff on secondment from other government departments already. Issues like that, we have been talking, through our human resources people, with each of the individuals as to what their position is. I am confident we will be able to integrate the two departments successfully.

  Q61  Keith Vaz: You of course know about the fiasco of the lack of deportation of foreign prisoners. We cannot blame you for that, Mr Allan, because of course you were not in charge then, but you now have part responsibility for this. Are you absolutely confident that there is a seamless line between yourselves and the Home Office on these issues? They could not manage it when it was within the Home Office: they could not talk to each other in the same department. Now, part of this responsibility is passed to yourselves. How is communication going with the Home Office?

  Mr Allan: We are very keen to make sure that communication works well.

  Q62  Keith Vaz: When did you last have a meeting about this with Home Office officials?

  Mr Allan: I met David Normington last week.

  Q63  Keith Vaz: About this very issue?

  Mr Allan: Not about foreign national prisoners specifically.

  Q64  Keith Vaz: When did you last have a meeting about the foreign nationals?

  Mr Allan: I have had meetings with people inside the Ministry of Justice, the National Offender Management Service. I have not myself had a meeting with the Home Office on that specific issue but the people within the department who deal with that have had meetings.

  Q65  Keith Vaz: But it is a pretty hot issue, is it not, because the Government was very concerned about lack of communication? They could not find these foreign prisoners once they had been released. Is it not right at the top of your agenda?

  Mr Allan: It is one of the issues that I absolutely recognise caused immense problems when it emerged in the Home Office. We were involved to some extent then because there was an issue through the court service in notifications being sent from the courts to the Prison Service and then subsequently the Prison Service notifying the Immigration Service.

  Q66  Keith Vaz: But took none of the responsibility. Nobody blamed the DCA for that; it was very much a Home Office issue. Now you have part responsibility. I am concerned to ensure that in the transition—and this is a big, big change, is it not?—this is an issue on which you are focused.

  Mr Allan: We certainly are focused on it.

  Q67  Keith Vaz: Do you have weekly meetings? Monthly meetings? Fortnightly meetings?

  Mr Allan: I have more than weekly meetings with the teams in the Ministry of Justice looking across all the issues affecting the Prison Service, which includes foreign national prisoners as well as a number of other issues. Of course, over the past six weeks or so, when we have had well-known issues on prison population, how we are dealing with foreign national prisoners has been very high up the agenda. Equally, one of the things that both the previous Lord Chancellor and the current Lord Chancellor have been keen to stress is that, although changing to the Ministry of Justice creates new links that will enable some bits of the process to work more smoothly, we absolutely must make sure the links that already exist between, in this case, the Prison Service and the immigration authorities are maintained.

  Q68  Keith Vaz: IND has changed its name, of course.

  Mr Allan: I know.

  Q69  Keith Vaz: It has now become the Border and Immigration Agency. Has a change of name improved its efficiency?

  Mr Allan: I think that is something you would need to ask David Normington rather than me.

  Q70  Keith Vaz: Do you find it easier to communicate with them because they have changed their name?

  Mr Allan: Again, I think you had better ask David Normington that question rather than me.

  Q71  Keith Vaz: Okay. Following the Machinery of Government changes on 9 May, the Ministry of Justice became the gatekeeper for departments' proposals for new offences. How does that work in practice? How do you prioritise which new offences we should have?

  Mr Allan: The issues that emerged, for example, for the new Criminal Justice Bill, are issues on which we work very closely with the Home Office, in terms of what should be included in the Bill, what the implications would be for the prison population, the various measures that were being considered for the Bill. That was very much a joint exercise, to work through what the priorities were. Clearly, the Home Office and ourselves have very close interest in this, in relation to the issues to do with sentencing and the nature of offences, how that will impact on the reduction in crime, how that will impact on the prison population, and then how we prioritise it. That was done in the instance of deciding what measures should be included in the Criminal Justice Bill and it is how we will work in the future, and, similarly, for any other department which comes forward with proposals for new criminal offences. I am not aware that we have had any detailed discussions with other departments on new criminal offences in the last six weeks or so, but there may be some.

  Q72  Keith Vaz: This is now a huge department, is it not? You have a very big hitter, a former Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary, as the head of your department. Do you think it is probably a bit too big? I know it is difficult to ask a civil servant to give up part of his or her empire, but do you think this really has been thought through carefully enough?

  Mr Allan: The genesis of the idea was brought about because of the problems that the previous Home Secretary recognised in managing the pressures in the Home Office, given the huge expansion of activities there, including, in particular, the counter-terrorism agenda. He, as I think is well known, was very keen, in order to provide the focus necessary on counter-terrorism, that a rebalancing of the portfolios was necessary. The change has clearly increased the department's responsibilities. I am confident that we can manage these new responsibilities and that there will be a better balance of portfolios across the two departments and more widely in some instances.

  Keith Vaz: Thank you.

  Q73  Chairman: The creation of two departments in criminal justice policy or, indeed, giving to the Ministry of Justice lead responsibility, opens up the interesting possibility that you, as gatekeeper of criminal justice policy, start, if you like, to moderate the enthusiasm of departments to legislate or at least to subject it to appropriate challenge. What system are you setting up for this to work?

  Mr Allan: As I say, I think the key relationship will be between the Ministry of Justice and the Home Office. We already have very close links, naturally, and I am talking to David Normington about more regular arrangements that there need to be. Clearly the two secretaries of state have discussed this already and are very keen to make sure that the departments work together closely. The various more formalised bits of machinery, like the Criminal Justice Board, will be very important in taking this forward. Clearly there are other links too. The links with the Department for Children, Schools and Families on youth justice are very important. Part of the recent changes is a greater sharing of responsibility for the Youth Justice Board with the DCSF. We are working with them on how to implement that and how to make sure we get the right balance and focus, not just on re-offending but on preventing offending before it happens among youth, and as to how we can deal appropriately where they have offended.

  Q74  Chairman: Some of the value of the reform would be lost if the Home Office saw the Department of Justice as just a roll over—that all they have to do is to think up some new powers which it might be nice to have and Justice will agree them and get them through Parliament. It is not going to be like that, is it?

  Mr Allan: We will take very seriously, first of all, our responsibilities for the prison population—which clearly is an issue that looms very large—but, secondly, also our responsibilities for the criminal and civil law as a whole now. We have had responsibility for the framework of civil and family law for some time and are bringing in responsibility for the framework of criminal law. We already work very closely with the Law Commission on some of these issues. I think that the impact of proposals will be something we will want to look at, but I equally do not want to imply that we will automatically be at loggerheads with the Home Office. We want to work together with them and to work out what the most effective ways of reducing crime, reducing re-offending and dealing fairly with victims of crime are. That is still very much a shared endeavour.

  Chairman: Thank you very much.





 
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