CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND LICENSING (SCOTLAND) BILL: STAGE 1

Speech delivered on Thu 26th Nov 2009

I commend Bill Aitken, the Justice Committee convener, on his comments on behalf of the committee. I do not always agree with him, but on this occasion I agreed with pretty much every word that he said.

The Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill is long and complex, with many separate and largely unconnected strands. As we have heard, some of its proposals are highly contentious. It is a tribute to my colleagues on the Justice Committee that we were able to produce a report that was the subject of only one formal vote. I say that given the differences of emphasis or expertise in the committee membership. That consensus gives added power to the broad themes of the stage 1 report. I hope that the Government will listen and respond appropriately-indeed, the cabinet secretary indicated that he will do so.

I will indicate the Liberal Democrat position on some of the central issues. This stage 1 debate is taking place in a different financial climate from that which pertained when the Scottish Prisons Commission reported and the bill was conceived. That must influence our approach. We must ask whether particular proposals are essential or just useful.

I say immediately that the Liberal Democrats are clear in principle that those most important sections that aim to reduce short-term prison sentences and replace them with tough, speedy and effective community sentences are absolutely vital and must be properly resourced. Frankly, aiming to reduce such short-term sentences is a no-brainer. The public is funding prison places at up to about £40,000 a year per prisoner. Some prisons are housing minor criminals in grossly overcrowded conditions from which they routinely leave worse than when they went in, the underlying causes of their offending not having been addressed and the family or employment supports that are key to their rehabilitation having been fractured.

The public are equally entitled to know that the punishment that is meted out by the state is the most effective possible in stopping their local community from being troubled by violent disorder, vandalism, the consequences of alcohol or drug addiction, and repeated crimes of dishonesty-all of which cause huge annoyance, worry and fear to law-abiding citizens. The Government must adequately fund community payback orders if the public are to have confidence in such measures. In fairness to the cabinet secretary, he has responded specifically to Liberal Democrat concerns on the issue by providing an initial sum of £2 million and a further £5.5 million over two years to bring existing community sentences up to scratch. Despite what members have said in the debate, I know from my visits to community justice authorities that the money is having an effect: sentences are being speeded up and sharpened up.

However, we all know that the quality of different projects is patchy and that, in moving to the new form of community orders, it is a fundamental challenge to ensure that they are started immediately, managed and supervised with both skill and authority, and allowed not just to produce visible payback to the local community, which is hugely important, but to turn around the offender. As the Justice Committee said, the presumption against short-term sentences will lead to basic costs increasing by 10 or 20 per cent, according to the Government's estimates-about which there are issues. There will also be additional costs for the Scottish Court Service and for the voluntary sector bodies that will be involved in delivering the new CPOs. The conditional requirements that will often accompany the orders may require drug or alcohol addiction treatment, mental health treatment or literacy support, all of which cost money.

James Kelly: Does Robert Brown accept the evidence of Government officials to the Finance Committee that releasing prisoners on short-term sentences will not save any money from prison budgets?

Robert Brown: I do. There will be longer-term savings, if we get CPOs right, but achieving short to medium-term savings will be a challenge. That is why bridging finance is an important issue in this area, as in so many others. Community justice authorities gave evidence that the unit cost figures that were used to calculate the costs of community orders may not be adequate. Liberal Democrats are clear that current resource levels will be inadequate and that the Government will need to find additional resources if the new CPOs and, more particularly, the presumption against short-term prison sentences are to be more than tokenistic and are to make the substantial difference to crime levels that we believe they are capable of making.

Liberal Democrats offer a partial way forward-to apply the presumption only to sentences of under three months, at least in the first instance, which would reduce the organisational and financial pressure. However, there is a difference in a broad sense between the pattern of crimes attracting sentences of less than three months, which looks more like that of those attracting community sentences at present, and the pattern of crimes attracting sentences of three to six months, which tend to look more like more serious crimes. As other members have said, why, for goodness' sake, does the SNP not rethink its lamentable and short-sighted decision to abandon the Glasgow community court project-one of a growing number of projects that have not been properly assessed but have been binned by ministers who are too often hung up on administering the smack of firm but, in this instance, inadequate Government decision making?

I will say a word about the opposition on this general issue from Labour and the Tories. With respect, I say to Richard Baker that resource is a smokescreen for Labour-as he indicated in his response to my intervention, they are against the changes in principle. They operate on the principle that no press release should go out and no new policy should be announced that does not say that they want tough penalties or tough action, which implies that the only respectable sentence for any crime is to lock up the culprit and throw away the key. That used to be the preserve of Tory conferences, which rapturously received demands for the restoration of the death penalty or bringing back the birch. Since 1997, however, new Labour has positioned itself in such a way that no one can outdo it on being tough on crime. I say to Richard Baker and the Labour Party that the difference is that they know that short-term sentences do not work but are desperate to give the impression of ceaseless activity in fighting crime, to ensure favourable headlines in the tabloids-not least those owned by Rupert Murdoch, new Labour's erstwhile but, it turns out, fair-weather friend. Richard Baker knows that demands for tough action on crime are a political spin-doctor's invention and substantially irrelevant to the real issues that we face in fighting crime.

Richard Baker: Mr Brown's accusation that we are seeking support from Rupert Murdoch is behind the times and gives the lie to the outrageous politicking of his statement, which is entirely wrong. Does he accept not only that we pioneered community sentences when we were in government with the Liberal Democrats but that we have looked for further alternatives to custody during this session, including alcohol treatment and testing orders, which we have pressed for in the context of the bill? The member's statement was extremely unfair and misrepresented our position.

Robert Brown: I pay tribute to Richard Baker for some of the policies that he mentions, but I am making a general point about positioning, right down from the Labour Government in London to Labour members in the chamber.

It is no coincidence that about 80 per cent of young children of five or six who come before the children's panel as being in need of care and protection are back before the panel or the court at the age of 16, 17, or 18 for offending. One third of those entering prison are assessed as having an alcohol problem on admission, and 50 per cent as having a drug problem. If they do not have a drug problem when they go in, they are pretty likely to have one when they come out. Sadly, no less than 70 per cent have some form of mental health

problem, with huge proportions having literacy or numeracy challenges. I mentioned the Polmont young offenders institution to John Lamont. I do not know what sort of percentage he requires to be persuaded on these matters, but 91 per cent seems pretty high to me.

I want to take a sideways glance at the issue of women in prison. Staff at Cornton Vale tell me that their main job is to try to rebuild shattered and fragile lives, to make up for the devastating fact that women are taken away from their children and homes and that their self-respect is at rock bottom, their mental health fragile and the likelihood of a suicide bid high. To all intents and purposes, those women are there mostly for their protection rather than for that of the public. It is not obvious that we are too soft on their crimes-in fact, it is totally clear that society has failed those women, that life has been extraordinarily tough for them and that there is a high chance that their children will be among the next generation of offenders.

In my view, the £1 million annual running costs of the proposed Scottish sentencing council are not justified in the present climate. It could be a useful body; however, if the cabinet secretary goes ahead with the proposal, he should for goodness' sake pay heed to the judiciary's justified concerns and square the circle by having the council's proposals, influential as they will be, endorsed or amended by the appeal court, to ensure that there is separation of powers.

I conclude with a brief word about children. We need to sort out the age of criminal responsibility, in line with the report of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. We must also look at DNA issues, in the way that the Justice Committee recommended. The children's hearings system was not set up to deal with legal issues of that kind, and it is almost impossible to define the cut-off point between serious and not serious crimes. The number of cases would be modest, and many would go to the sheriff anyway for a finding on the referral. Such cases should be referred or should go to the sheriff.

This is an important bill, but a great deal of work remains to be done to get it right. We expect to see our concerns addressed as the bill proceeds. For many people, failure creates despondency, aggression and more failure. The high challenge for the bill is to help to break the cycle of failure, to support the work of the violence reduction unit, early intervention and diversion from crime, and to build a system in which reoffending rates are not 91 per cent in Polmont or 75 per cent in prisons generally and the current 42 per cent for community sentences is bettered by as much as possible. That is the prize. If we succeed, our country and society will be much the better for it. Alas, we cannot say that for the position advanced by Labour and the Tories in the teeth of the majority of evidence that witnesses gave to the Justice Committee. They have generations of abysmal failure of so-called tough policies on crime to explain away. Liberal Democrats members will support the bill at stage 1 tonight.

To read the debate in full please click on the link below:

Related Link:

Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill : Stage 1.