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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, of course we accept that vulnerable people may have difficulty in dealing with some issues. However, we cannot accept the new clause—although we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, for raising this matter again—because powers are already available to ensure that warrants outstanding against vulnerable people may be referred back to the courts. These powers are already used. That is not to say that we ought to have a system that simply allows a person routinely to stop a process after they have committed an offence, ignored a summons, failed to appear at court, or failed to respond to repeated correspondence from the court; but even at the latest possible stage, when a bailiff is engaged, there is and ought to be a process whereby the matter can be halted in the case of a vulnerable person. The new clause provides that where an offender has been convicted in absence and fined, a warrant to enforce the fine or other financial penalty may be suspended or withdrawn. Regulations may provide that those who may suspend or withdraw the warrant may include a court, a member of Her Majesty’s Courts Service, or any person employed in enforcing the warrant. The regulations under the new clause would also have to set out the steps to be taken when a person is deemed vulnerable. Finally, the new clause attempts to define a vulnerable person for the purposes of this power. As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, told the House, following the withdrawal of this amendment in Committee on 3 March my noble friend Lord Hunt and I had a useful meeting with the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I believed that we reached agreement on the extent of the current powers to deal with the withdrawal of distress warrants. That meeting was also attended by representatives of the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, which does such valuable work in assisting vulnerable people. At that meeting, my noble friend gave an undertaking that our officials will develop guidance for the courts which will clarify their powers to withdraw such a warrant. He also agreed that officials will consult with the trust as well as with other key stakeholders, such as, of course, the Magistrates’ Association and the Justices’ Clerks’ Society. My noble friend followed up that meeting with a letter to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. The Reverend Paul Nicolson of the trust kindly copied my officials into a response to my noble friend’s letter, indicating that he thought some points had not been answered. These are the ones that the noble Lord has quite properly raised tonight. The first concerns the fines officer. Let me deal with the referral back to court by a fines officer or bailiff. I remind the House that under Schedule 5 to the Courts Act 2003 the fines officer has the power to refer a case back before the magistrates’ court at any time. For example, the fines officer could do this if they did not have at their disposal suitable delegated powers to deal effectively with the offender. In practice, this power enables a fines officer to return a case to court where it is clear to them that the offender is vulnerable and genuinely unable to pay the fine. The magistrates could consider the powers which they have at their disposal, which include the power to remit or reduce the level of the fine as they feel appropriate. Bailiffs, too, should refer the matter to court if they come across someone who they consider genuinely vulnerable. There is concern that the National Standards for Enforcement Agents—which is only guidance for bailiffs—is being widely ignored in practice. However, the bailiffs have a contract with Her Majesty’s Courts Service and are required by that contract not to take enforcement actions in certain situations. The relevant paragraph is 6.31 of the specification for private enforcement provision. I quote briefly: "““The Contractor shall not take any action to levy distress without prior reference to the court if the Defaulter: is in hospital or nursing home; appears to suffer from severe physical or any mental disability; is an elderly person who has difficulty dealing with his/her affairs; is suffering long-term sickness, serious or acute illness or frailty, which has resulted in a recent period of hospitalisation or defaulter being housebound and can provide evidence of sickness for the period in default””." Some noble Lords may say, ““Yes, but in practice this means nothing to the vulnerable person with the bailiff knocking at the door””. That is not the case, in our view. If a person has a complaint about a bailiff, the first thing to do is to complain to the company that the bailiff works for. This is important because the Courts Service contract with bailiffs was recently extended for a further year, until the end of March 2009. There have been some attempts to make the complaints process in respect of bailiffs more robust. If this does not work, an individual can go to the magistrates’ court that issued the enforcement order and, as we explained to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, ask the court to withdraw the distress warrant. We acknowledge that bailiffs have a difficult job, but we accept that some do not always do that job as we might like. We are fully committed to the regulation of the bailiff industry. I firmly believe that regulation of the industry will drive up standards by improving training and raising professionalism and behavioural standards where necessary. Part of that improvement will come from improving compliance with the national standards where that is needed. Noble Lords will know that primary legislation in 2007 delivered important enforcement law reforms, including provision for an enhanced certification process for bailiffs ahead of full regulation. The House will also remember the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. The next step is to develop the underpinning rules and regulations that will bring those reforms into force. A scoping exercise to that end has commenced involving a series of meetings with relevant parties. It is anticipated that this scoping activity will be completed by May of this year. Lastly, what about the argument—perhaps the noble Lord’s most powerful argument—that some of these people are simply too vulnerable to engage in this process? I stress that those who help to support vulnerable people—and thankfully there are many in our society, both volunteers and relatives, who do—must do all they can to ensure that they do not wait until the bailiff is at the door. The key is to contact the fines officer before matters get to that stage. The fines officer can advise offenders, help them to understand what has been ordered by the court and explain the implications of default. They can advise offenders where they can get help managing their finances, where that is needed. Fines officers can help offenders to understand how they can appeal against the decision of the court, or make a complaint about enforcement action taken either by the court or by bailiffs themselves. It is therefore vital that offenders, especially those who could be considered vulnerable, keep in touch with the court. We cannot emphasise strongly enough the need for offenders to use fines officers as a way of keeping in touch with the court and for help with understanding the enforcement process. If they do so it will reduce the number of occasions when the first face-to-face contact which the offender has with the court is through a bailiff on the doorstep attempting to execute a warrant of distress in lieu of payment of a fine. In the light of what I have said and the work that we are doing on this, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.