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Queen's Speech

My Lords, it is a great privilege to be opening today’s debate on Her Majesty’s gracious Speech, not least since it is usually the lot of Ministry of Justice Ministers to close this debate. Today, we discuss the Government’s proposals on home affairs, justice and constitutional affairs for the final Session of the Parliament. Such Sessions can often seem to generate more heat than light. Our contention is that the Bills we are debating today show that the Government remain as committed as ever to delivering a fair and just society. Noble Lords will recall the series of books by the late, great journalist, Mr Anthony Sampson, entitled The Anatomy of Britain. This series was periodically updated and the last edition, published in 2004, was called Who Runs this Place? The Government’s answer to this question is unequivocal: the UK belongs to its people. The legislation that this House will consider during this Session and debate today says that loud and clear, putting power into the hands of the people and helping to make our communities safer and more secure. Today, we are considering two major pieces of legislation: the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill and the Crime and Security Bill. In addition, we are looking at two other Bills, less contentious perhaps but none the less valuable for that: the Bribery Bill and the Third Party (Rights against Insurers) Bill. In another Bill, the Children, Schools and Families Bill, there will be clauses dealing with the transparency of family proceedings in court. If the House agrees, the Third Party (Rights against Insurers) Bill will follow the new procedure for uncontroversial, but worthy Law Commission Bills. It has already been used successfully on one such Bill. I turn to the Crime and Security Bill. I am proud to be part of a Government who have had such a positive impact on the criminal justice system. Crime is down by more than a third since 1997. The chances of being a victim are at their lowest since records began in 1981. Reoffending is down by 20 per cent since 1981 and youth reoffending is down by nearly 24 per cent. We have reformed the penal system, with 75 per cent more serious and violent offenders in prison and a modernised prison estate with nearly 25,000 more places. We have continued to put the needs of victims at the centre of the criminal justice system. We have trebled the money that we provide to Victim Support, introduced new protection for victims of forced marriage, appointed Sara Payne as the first independent Victims’ Champion and published her report, which we are studying carefully. We have also announced proposals for a new national victims’ service. Eighty-three per cent of witnesses and victims have expressed satisfaction with the criminal justice system. We are better engaging communities in criminal justice by giving them a say in the types of community payback projects that offenders carry out and allowing them to see justice being done through the use of high-visibility jackets. In 2008, 8.4 million hours of free labour were provided to benefit communities by offenders sentenced to unpaid work. Such work was valued at £48.7million. The Crime and Security Bill builds on these reforms. It will protect communities by making parents take responsibility for their child’s anti-social behaviour. The Bill will introduce new powers to help victims break the cycle of domestic violence. It may assist the House if I summarise the main provisions of the Bill. It will help to make our communities safer, first, by making families take responsibility for their children’s anti-social behaviour by assessing parenting needs for young people aged 10 to 15 years and imposing parenting orders where they have breached their ASBOs. Secondly, gang injunctions for under-18s will make our communities safer and prevent young people from being sucked into a life of crime. Furthermore, it will prevent crimes against vulnerable people by tackling domestic violence with orders issued by police officers requiring alleged perpetrators to leave their premises for a fixed period of time, so victims feel safer in their own homes rather than seeking refuge elsewhere, as well as making sure that airguns are safely locked up and out of the reach of children. It will also provide for criminal and exploitative markets to be closed down by preventing the use of unauthorised mobile phones in prison and so stopping organised criminals and terrorists from being able sometimes to continue their criminal enterprises from behind bars, as well as having licensed wheel clampers to prevent unscrupulous companies from exploiting their position by imposing exorbitant fines. Moreover, it will ensure justice for victims and families by protecting the public by making sure the right people are on our DNA database by indefinitely retaining the DNA records of convicted offenders and holding the DNA of those who are acquitted for a proportionate amount of time. Furthermore, we will retrospectively collect DNA from serious violent and sexual offenders, allowing us to take DNA samples from sex offenders returning to the UK following conviction overseas and to collect DNA from convicted offenders who are back in our communities. I turn to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, already progressing in the other place and carried over from the previous Session. The Bill is a key package of measures designed to rebuild trust in our democratic and constitutional settlement by reinforcing the principles of transparency, accountability and probity across government. Noble Lords will hardly need to be reminded that a draft Bill was scrutinised in depth by a Joint Committee of both Houses and other Select Committees. I put on record again the Government’s gratitude to the members of the Joint Committee for their work, especially Mr Michael Jabez Foster MP, the chair, and the Members of the other place and this House who took part on the committee. We look forward to hearing the contributions this evening from the noble Lords who served on it. The Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill continues the process of constitutional reform and further strengthens the role of Parliament in relation to the Executive. The Bill will do this by enshrining in statute the key principles by which the Civil Service must function: integrity, impartiality, objectivity and honesty. Secondly, it will provide greater clarity in how the Government conduct international relations by placing in statute the process by which Parliament has its say about the ratification of international treaties. Part 6 of the Bill will provide protection for the salaries of judicial office holders in certain tribunals and make provisions for a new method of obtaining medical assessments for candidates for judicial office. The Bill will also provide Parliament with more consistent and transparent information about public spending. Your Lordships will no doubt take a particular interest in the important measures to ensure that there is a robust disciplinary regime in the House of Lords. The Bill will allow Peers to resign, or to be expelled from this place. It will also allow Peers to disclaim their peerage after resigning or being removed from the House. I also underline the Government’s firm commitment to abolish the hereditary by-election process in the House of Lords. Doubtless, noble Lords will wish to reflect on them in particular detail, but I underline the fact that those hereditary Peers who are currently members of the House will not lose their seats. The Bill abolishes only the mechanism which allows further hereditary Peers to enter this House solely on the basis of their hereditary title. It does not seem to serve any of us to have a seat in Parliament decided by such minuscule electorates. We do not believe that the current situation is tenable. In this day and age it is not appropriate for new Members to join this House solely as the result of a hereditary title. No doubt we will debate this in due course. As the gracious Speech made clear, we will be publishing draft provisions on comprehensive reform of your Lordships’ House. It seems self-evident that as we move towards a second Chamber more aligned with a modern democracy, it is unacceptable that one House should be supplemented with further hereditary Peers, however much we value—and we do—the contribution that the elected hereditary Peers continue to make to this place. The publication of a draft will also maintain the momentum towards comprehensive reform, to which the Government are as committed as ever. There is a more general point here. The Bill is before us at a time when it is more important than ever that we make every effort to rebuild trust in our democratic and constitutional settlement. Continuing reform of your Lordships’ House is at one with this priority. I therefore look forward to the debates on that Bill with some interest. I turn to the Bribery Bill, which was introduced into your Lordships’ House at the end of last week. It is part of a longer-term strategy for addressing bribery. The Bill is a revision of the draft Bill published in March, itself formed around a set of recommendations of the Law Commission and subject to pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee of both Houses. The Joint Committee on the draft Bill published its report in July. The Bill reflects the Government’s response to the report of the Joint Committee, which was published alongside the Bill last Friday. I record my gratitude to the Law Commission. We are also indebted to the Joint Committee, chaired by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for its thorough examination of the issues and its helpful recommendations for improving the Bill. I note that three of the members of the committee—the noble Lords, Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Williamson of Horton, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lyell of Markyate—are down to speak in this debate. We look forward to hearing from them on this matter if they choose to speak about it. Bribery is a global problem that is an insidious threat to ethical standards in public life and in the commercial field. The fight against bribery internationally is the fight for fair trade and overseas development, supporting access to justice and to open markets. In recent years, we have seen some progress in the fight against foreign bribery. The United Kingdom ratified the United Nations Convention against Corruption in 2006. The number of bribery investigations taken up by the SFO has increased, assisted by a properly resourced City of London Police overseas anti-corruption unit. We have seen recent successful prosecutions for foreign bribery of both individuals and corporate bodies. But there is no room for complacency here. As the challenges evolve, we need to develop the right tools to tackle them effectively. The Bill will provide a modern and consolidated criminal law of bribery, and I hope that it is supported on that basis. We believe that that law will provide our investigators and prosecutors with the tools they need to address bribery in business and public life and at home and abroad. Modernisation of the law in this field is a priority, not only to deal effectively with those who offer bribes on the one hand or accept them on the other in our business or public sectors, but also to reinforce transparency and accountability in our international business transactions. It is vital that we work with our international partners to eliminate the corruption that undermines economic progress and development around the world. The offences of bribery of a foreign public official and the failure of a commercial organisation to prevent bribery reflect these priorities. However, I argue that business has nothing to fear from these provisions—indeed, it has much to gain. Clarity of the law will assist commercial organisations in assessing the suitability of their systems and should bring efficiency savings through, for example, reducing the cost of risk assessments. The enhancement of the UK’s reputation as a consequence of our reforms should allow UK business to compete more successfully in international markets. The Bill sends out a clear message that the UK is taking the necessary measures to empower our investigators, prosecutors and courts to tackle bribery effectively wherever and in whatever context it occurs. I shall say a few words about the Third Parties (Rights against Insurers) Bill. This is a modest technical Bill, which replaces the current legislation covering that area that dates from the 1930s. The Bill will modernise and simplify the procedure by which claimants can recover money from the insurer of an insolvent wrongdoer. By agreement of the usual channels, the Bill will be introduced as the second Bill in the trial of the new procedure in this House for suitable Law Commission Bills. I am grateful to all sides of the House for their support for the use of that procedure for this Bill. The three main benefits of the Bill are: first, that legal costs and delay will be reduced by enabling the claimant to sue the insurer direct without first suing the wrongdoer; secondly, that claimants will have better rights to obtain information about insurance policies earlier in the process; and thirdly, that it will include a wider range of insolvency and insolvency-type situations than the present law allows for. This will be a short Session, and the legislation I have outlined today will give us plenty to get our teeth into. I have no doubt that the House will wish to consider and scrutinise the Bills that we introduce with its usual care and attention. But short though the Session may be, the legislation that we will introduce is part of vital reforms to continue our work of the past 12 years. We are attempting to make our communities more secure, enhance our democracy and rebalance how power is held and by whom. We look forward to hearing the contributions of noble Lords today and in our debates in the coming months. If I may pick out two speeches that we anticipate with more interest than any others, they are perhaps the two maiden speeches that we will hear today—the first from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol and the second from the noble Baroness, Lady O'Loan. We look forward to their speeches.