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I hope that my explanation has reassured the noble Lord that we have not just invented yet more work for local authorities in the area of civil responsibility where it is not needed. These bodies have a particular role to play in the community and for their own reasons want to be more diverse in their representation. This is simply a way for local authorities to assist them.
Lord Tope: I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation, although I do not think that we have yet covered my point about youth offending teams. My question is why they are included here, rather than being covered earlier. As someone responsible politically for youth offending teams, of course I have a deep interest in the intentions of the Bill. Perhaps the Minister would like to come back to me on that point.
I think I did make it clear that Amendments 63 and 67 were consequential on Clause 3 leaving the Bill. Obviously that is not going to happen today. I hope that nothing I have said suggests that the work of these boards is not important, because it is. There should be much greater public understanding and, to the extent that it is possible, public involvement in this work. I am all for that. If local authorities working in co-operative arrangements with these bodies can help with the promotion of those aims, of course that is a good thing and no one would stand in the way. Our concern is that the Bill does not just say that it is a good thing, it makes it a dutya requirement regardless of circumstances and the local situation. That is our worry about this clause and why we think it should not be in the Bill.
Listening to the Minister has actually raised a personal concern. It occurs to me that I have two prisons closer to me than my own local civic offices.
Lord Graham of Edmonton: Serves you right.
Lord Tope: They happen to be located in Surrey, not in the London Borough of Sutton or in Greater London. At the risk of reopening a debate we had a while ago, they are not in my local authority area and I have no idea, to be frank, what the independent monitoring board does. Indeed, my own local authority is not going to tell me because, although the prison is only half a mile up the road, it is over the county boundary, not just the local authority boundary, so I shall remain in ignorance. However, perhaps we should not reopen an earlier debate. It is a point that my noble friend Lord Greaves missed, but no doubt he will correct it at Report stage.
Amendments 60 and 61 not moved.
62: Clause 4, page 4, line 38, at end insert
( ) For the purposes of this section, the duty extends only to those functions of a public nature which are connected with the principal local authority.
Lord Tope: I should say that I really wish to oppose the Question that Clause 4 should stand part of the Bill for similar reasons to those we have just discussed and which I shall not rehearse again. Let me put on the record, however, that we recognise that lay justices play an enormously valuable and important role and that they are very much part of a local community. They are drawn from the local community and for a very long time there has been a pressing need to make them much more representative of local communities than is normally the case. I certainly accept enthusiastically any activity that a local authority can undertake to help to promote these issues.
I have no problems with any of that, and I do not need to be told how important it is. Again, however, it should not be the duty of a local authority to do it. If the Government feel the need to legislate in this area, let them do so. Otherwise it is the duty of the magistrates authorities, not the local authorities, to promote these issues.
I do not want to exaggerate this, but I see some dangers in a local authority doing that, given the interrelationship between local magistrates and local authorities. A great deal of a local authoritys workit is not often very much publicised, unless something goes very wrongis with and in relation to magistrates courts. There might be some cause for concern if a local authority has a duty to be promoting and trying to get people engaged as local magistrates at the same time as it has to use those magistrates courts for its proper business. I do not want to exaggerate that or suggest that it is a major problem, but it is a small issue.
Amendment 62, which clearly would not apply if I were successful in removing this clause, says that, if the clause is to remain part of the Bill, the duty of the local authority in this respect should be limited to those functions of a public nature that are actually related to the work of the local authority. In other words, it is not the whole wide-ranging role of a magistrate in the criminal justice system but that which particularly relates to the local authority. It is a limiting amendment on the powers of Clause 4, should it remain in the Bill. Amendment 64 is consequential on Clause 4 not remaining in the Bill and, as today the clause is likely to stand part, I shall not move Amendment 64 when we get to it.
Lord Borrie: I have some sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Tope, said. I recall that in the past there has been too much connection between magistrates
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Points which are relevant here were also mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, on the previous amendment. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, takes the same viewthat there are a number of bodies, in particular the Ministry of Justice, seeking magistrates. It is their job and the job of local magistrates organisations, rather than that of local government. I do not really mind the addition of local government having this responsibility if it brings into the picture a number of people, especially from more diverse backgrounds, who might not otherwise be brought into the picture of lay magistrates.
If that is so, and if that is part of the Governments answer to this amendment, I have one question for the Ministers: if it is desirable that local authorities should have this Clause 4 duty in relation to lay justices, why do we omit administrative tribunals? Good heavens; there are employment tribunals and national insurance tribunals. Tribunals were reorganised by the Government only a couple of years ago in statute. There is a great needfor diversity as well as for the quality and merits pointto have people to serve on such bodies. No doubt the Ministry of Justice takes a major role in that. If you are going to say that one bit of the judiciary, lay magistrates, should be an obligation of principal local authorities to promote, what about tribunals?
Baroness Warsi: I add my support to the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Tope. Amendment 62, as I read it, has two elements. The first is that, if the clause is to remain in the Bill, there must be a limit to the extent of information made available. The second is that there must be some connection to the local authority. Although the amendment is especially pertinent to the clause, which deals with lay justices and therefore may touch on information of a sensitive nature, the caveats expressed in the wording could equally be applied to all the other bodies for which the local authority will assume a duty.
There must be no accidental publication of sensitive information as a result of the duty in this part that would otherwise not be available in the public realm. I hope that that goes without saying; but I do not yet accept the Governments idea that any local authority should have a duty to promote understanding of things not connected to itin this case, lay justices. Not only does that place a burden on the local authority, it creates a relationship that may not be appreciated by those who have been compelled to become involved. In this instance, I am thinking of magistrates organisations, such as Magistrates in the Community,
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As I said earlier, if the local authority is merely to publish that on a website, how does that go any further than the local magistrates association publishing it on its website? I am also concerned about whether the people who will be visiting the local authority website may be the people who already sit on many local authority organisations. I am concerned that we may end up with a local area with the usual suspects on everything.
Once again, I fear that the Bill creates the risk of overlap and duplication and the risk of sensitive information ending up where it should not. I hope that the Minister will be able to assuage those fears and provide justification for the inclusion of Clause 4.
Baroness Andrews: I shall try not to repeat anything that I said in our previous debate, although many of the same issues have arisen. I shall try to allay some of the fears that have been raised in relation to the magistracy.
In Clause 4, we are trying to require local authorities to promote understanding of what people in the role of lay justice do, how a person can become a lay justice or magistrate and what is involved in doing so. We are concerned only with promoting the civic governance roles listed in Clauses 3 and 4. I say to my noble friend Lord Borrie that it is very important that we make a distinction. Local authorities are not recruiting magistrates; they are simply promoting the role and opportunities for people to put themselves forward to become magistrates if they so choose. I leave to stand all the arguments that I deployed on the previous debate about how that was seen as useful by the bodies representing magistrates. I take the point raised by the noble Lord; I will read carefully what he said about some of those relationships.
Amendment 62 is about ensuring that the information provided about lay justices is appropriate for disseminationthat it is relevant to the local area. The noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, took up the same point. Of course we want that to be the case. We will be setting out in guidance that we do not expect anything more than the general role of a lay justicewhat they do and how to become oneto be disseminated. The clause does that. The amendment is intended to ensure that the functions of a lay justice are explained by a council only where the functions are of a public nature connected with the principal local authority. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, said, that is intended to address the concern that judicial case-specific functions, which would not be appropriate to be explained publicly, should not be included in the duty. We agree.
As I said, the clauses distinguish between public bodies that are meant to reach out to citizens and involve them and others, such as inspectorates or lay justices, who should make decisions independent of public preference. That is one reason why Clauses 3 and 4 differ from Clauses 1 and 2. That is why they focus on promoting information about specific civic roles.
Baroness Warsi: Again, am I correct that the duty in the clause is about promoting involvement?
Baroness Andrews: No, it is not about promoting involvement as in earlier clauses; it is about explaining the civic governance roles of these bodies and how you can put yourself forward to be part of that lay team. I have made that distinction now in several ways.
Lay magistrates are included in Clause 4, as I said. We are not interested in the democratic arrangements here; we are interested only in what the role entails and in how people can become a lay justice. The amendment could limit the information about what magistrates do to the point where the public could not gain the information that they need. We have consulted closely with the Ministry of Justice on this, and it is content that the clause does not require councils to go beyond what can be acceptably publicised.
My noble friend makes an important point about administrative tribunals, which I will take away and think about. My concern is that there is quite a variety of tribunal arrangements in the local community. We should bear in mind that the requirements must be proportionate. Incidentally, I was very pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, say that this role was new and to have his implied support. We must get the balance right between a reasonable expectation on local authorities and a change in the culture to make it more open.
Finally, Amendment 64 would do much the same as Amendment 63, so I will not discuss it because it is taken care of by the debate on Amendment 63.
Lord Greaves: I may be confused by the terminology and do not understand the meaning of words as they are being used, which often happens to me in this place. Will the Minister explain the civic governance role of a magistrate?
Baroness Andrews: I may need to go back a step and reiterate what I said. In Clauses 1 and 2, we are concerned that people know about the governance arrangements of these bodies. In Clauses 3 and 4, we are concerned to ensure that people have information about how they can get involved and how they can become a magistrate. Therefore, the question of the civic governance role of the magistrate does not arise. I hope that I am making that distinction clear and that the noble Lord can see what we are trying to get at in these clauses.
Lord Greaves: Now I am totally confused, but that might be my fault; it is getting late and my brain is getting fuddled. I distinctly heard the Minister in her reply to my noble friend refer positively several times to the civic governance role. All I can do is read Hansard and try to understand it there, and perhaps have some discussions about it.
Baroness Warsi: To take that point further, my question moments earlier was what duty is being placed herethe duty to give information or the duty
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Baroness Andrews: The noble Baroness is quite right to pick me up on that. My language was loose. I will say what I said in the previous debate and at the beginning of this debate. There are two specific duties. In Clauses 1 and 2, we propose that people need to understand the democratic arrangements of public bodies so that they know how things work, how decisions are taken, how they can influence what happens, and how they can stand for the council. Clauses 3 and 4 focus on civic opportunities in which citizens can play a role as lay people. Therefore, this is not about governance arrangements; it is about the way in which they can get involved. The noble Baroness is right to pick me up on that. I hope that that is clear, and that the record will show that.
Baroness Warsi: I thank the Minister for that clarification. In the light of it, I go back to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Borrie. If there is a duty to promote involvement, surely that duty falls on magistrates and the Magistrates Association. If we take that duty away by placing it on local authorities, we take away a very important function that lay magistrates should, and do, perform in courts up and down the country.
Baroness Andrews: I have sent a reply to this point about four times. We are not taking anything away from the constituent bodies that we are addressing in relation either to this clause or to the connected authorities. They have this responsibility. All we are saying is that Clause 3 offers a new opportunity for the local authority to help to,
Nothing is being taken away from the responsibility of further education colleges, magistrates bodies or any other body. This is an addition. It will support, and we hope incentivise, those bodies which do not perform this function very well.
Baroness Warsi: I thank the Minister for that reply. I understand that this measure is not taking away the duty; it is belt and braces. It is in addition to. But if that is the case, I return to my earlier question: what will the local authority do that is not being done, and how will it do it better? What is the practical outcome of this duty? If there is no practical outcome and it will be merely a line on the local authoritys website, why are we placing this duty on it?
Baroness Andrews: I can give the noble Baroness some general argument and a specific example of the sort of things we would like to see. When the local authority takes it upon itself to act as a single point of contact, it will be able to bring together information
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Bristol has used such an opportunity in relation to its Operation Black Vote. This scheme involved people from the Bristol black and minority ethnic community shadowing local councillors. The aim was to encourage these people to stand as councillors. It became a very well regarded scheme. Some participants felt that they could take a role in local politics but others went on to take up other civic roles, such as school governors or magistrates. Because the information that was put in front of them in one place was brought together and opportunities were pointed out, they were signposted towards other opportunities. It was not a failure of the scheme that they did not stand as councillors; it was a bonus of the scheme that they wanted to serve in the community in a civic role that suited them. They might well not have found out how to do that had the scheme not been in place. That illustrates that people who want to get involved often find out about other things that suit them and other matters that interest them, which they might not have come across had the relevant information not been brought together at a central point. I hope the noble Baroness does not feel that she has to labour this point because the obverse is to say that there is no point in giving anyone information. As she well knows, we simply do not have enough young, diverse, representative people in these crucial roles, particularly as regards the criminal justice system. I hope that she welcomes what we are trying to do.
Baroness Warsi: I am sorry if the Minister thinks that I am labouring this point. I am aware of the Operation Black Vote scheme in Bristol. It was an extremely successful programme, but, with all due respect, the people who then went on to get involved in other civic opportunities did so because they were involved in the scheme on a one-to-one basis, including a mentoring scheme that was detailed and organised over a period of time. It was not a simple signposting exercise by the local authority, which is what I think is being proposed in the Bill.
Baroness Andrews: If I had had time, I would have gone into much more detail than I was able to. The noble Baroness is right, but that does not diminish my argument.
Lord Tope: I am grateful to the Minister for trying to explain this fully. I think I understand the purpose of the clause; what I do not understand is why we have it, and why this process is being made a duty. All the things we have talked about are good and desirable, and if a local authority, in co-operation with a magistrates authority, is able to help, that is all to the good. I took
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I come back to this point: we wish the clause to be omitted from the Bill because the duty rests with the magistrates authorities. Of course the local authorities could and should assist where that is appropriate. I know the duty is not being taken away from the magistrates authoritiesI never thought it wasbut we need to be clear about that. I still do not know why this is included in the Bill as a duty on the local authority.
I was interested to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Borrie, giving what I might risk saying was his qualified
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Lord Patel of Bradford: This may be a convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn until Monday at 3.30 pm.
Committee adjourned at 7.26 pm.
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