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Column Number: 795
Standing Committee B
Tuesday 4 February 2003
(Afternoon)
[Mr. James Cran in the Chair]
2.30 pm
Resolved,
Mr. John Heppell (Nottingham, East): I beg to move,
That the Order of the Committee [17 December] be further amended as follows—
(1) in paragraph (6), by leaving out '4.55 pm on Tuesday 4th' and inserting '5. 15 pm on Thursday 6th'; and
(2) by leaving out paragraph (7) and inserting—
(7A) the proceedings on Clause 204, Schedule 11, Clauses 205 to 209, Schedules 12 and 13, Clause 210, Schedule 14, Clauses 211 to 216 (so far as not previously concluded) shall be brought to a conclusion at 11.25 am on Tuesday 11th February 2003;
(7B) the proceedings on Clauses 217 to 219, Schedule 15, Clauses 220 to 242, Schedule 16, Clause 243, Schedule 17, Clause 244, Schedules 18 and 19, Clauses 245 to 248, Schedule 20, Clauses 249 to 251, Schedule 21, Clauses 252 to 257 (so far as not previously concluded) shall be brought to a conclusion at 11.25 am on Thursday 13th February 2003;
(7C) the proceedings on Clause 258, Schedule 22, Clauses 259 to 261, Schedule 23 and Clauses 262 to 264, Clause 35 and Schedule 3 (so far as not previously concluded) shall be brought to a conclusion at 11.25 am on Tuesday 25th February 2003;
(7D) the proceedings on Clauses 49 to 61, Clauses 265 and 266, Schedule 25, Clause 267, Schedule 26, Clause 268, Schedule 24 and Clauses 269 to 273 (so far as not previously concluded) shall be brought to a conclusion at 11.25 am on Thursday 27th February 2003.
The amendment is made in response to requests by members of the Committee to ensure that adequate time is available for the items being discussed today, and recognising that some future programming allocated too much time. We have tried to rejig the programme, and I think the amendment has the support of all parties. This is in line with what we discussed through the usual channels.
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield): I thank the hon. Gentleman. The flexibility that has been shown in this Committee is a model of its kind.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 137
General limit on magistrates' court's
powers to imopse imprisonment
Amendment moved [this day]: No. 614, in
clause 137, page 77, line 40, at end insert—
'(9) A magistrates' court, if satisfied that failure to pay a fine or part thereof is due to wilful refusal or culpable neglect, may pass a custodial sentence of up to 12 months on a fine defaulter.'.—[Mr. Malins.]
Mr. Humfrey Malins (Woking): The amendment is about fine defaulters. One might imagine that when a
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court imposes a fine, there is a realistic prospect of its being recovered from the person on whom is levied. However, the answer to a parliamentary question that I tabled shortly before Christmas gives a much clearer picture. In 2001–02, the magistrates courts in the Greater London area imposed fines of about £77.64 million. I wondered how much of that was recovered. There is a procedure whereby fines can either be written off—that is, the court takes the view in colloquial language that it is a dead loss—or they are remitted, which is another coded way of writing them off: again, the magistrates think that it is a dead loss. Of the £77 million of fines imposed in 2001–02, just over £42 million was written off by one of those methods.
That means that if one is fined before the courts in London, one has, in effect, a 60 per cent. chance of never having to pay the fine. Where are the courts' powers? They have changed a little over the years as a result of over-regulation and of directives to the court in relation to the treatment of fine defaulters. There was a time when it was relatively straightforward. A magistrate, if satisfied that the person was not paying through wilful refusal or culpable neglect, could impose a custodial sentence forthwith—and did. It was usually a short one. Fines are imposed for all sorts of reasons. One of the heavier ones is for having no insurance on a motor car. The fine is often four or five times the value of the car, and can be unrealistic, particularly for those of small means. However, those who sit in London have learned over the years to be very sceptical about defendants' expressions of inability to pay a fine.
We now have a difficult procedure. Let me take the Committee back to meet a former metropolitan stipendiary magistrate of my acquaintance. With a means list—that is to say, fine defaulters—in his court, and 30 people were waiting outside to find out what happens about paying their fines, he called the first one in. After three or four minutes, he said, ''This is stuff and nonsense: seven days—take him down.'' He did the same with the second. By that time, word had got round outside, and he said, ''I shall now adjourn for 20 minutes because a number of people might want to make phone calls.'' And they did. Generally, everybody had paid their fines by 4 o'clock that afternoon. It was a broad-brush approach.
Today's procedures are very different. Now, when somebody is fined, say, £300 for an insurance offence, and does not pay, he is summoned in on a means inquiry. What then happens? The court is obliged to go through a very complex procedure in order to try to enforce the fine. There are various boxes to be ticked, each after a thorough investigation by the court, well before any consideration of a more draconian sentence.
The first question is whether to apply an attachment of earnings order. That is rarely relevant, in that many people come before the court and say that they are out of work. Such people often find their mobile phones ringing in their pockets—giving rise to even more scepticism on the bench. Goodbye to an attachment of earnings order. What about a deduction of benefit, if somebody admits to being on benefit? First, the
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maximum that can be deducted is £2.60 a week, and secondly, the procedures involved are so absurd as to beggar belief. The third option is to send in the bailiffs on a distress warrant. That very rarely has any practical use at all. On being given ample warning of a visit by the bailiffs, people ensure that any items of value that they have are nowhere near the property.
How about sending the case to the county court and issuing proceedings for a judgment? That is a problem, too. The magistrates court has to pay the fees of the county court in relation to any summonses. What about a money payments supervision order? If anybody on the Committee has the slightest idea what a money payments supervision order is, I should be grateful to hear about it. In truth, that means that the court shuffles the problem over to the probation service, which then writes a letter to the defendant saying, ''By the way, there's a money payments supervision order. We'd like to supervise your payments to the court. What are your plans?'' Answer came there none.
What about the under 21-year-old? There is the draconian step of issuing an attendance centre order, requiring him or her to attend at an attendance centre for specified hours. The experience of magistrates who have imposed such orders is that, far from being a draconian punishment, they entail the young person merely attending at the centre, playing chess, draughts or computer games for an hour and a half, and then going home without any money having come from him or her.
On the procedure, when there is a list of 30 defaulters in front of one, each one can take 15, 20 or 30 minutes to go through. No wonder the courts are tearing their hair out about the prospects of recovering any money. In the old days—some would say the good old days—the magistrate would properly say, ''I don't believe that you've got no money on you. I'll have you searched. Take him down. Search him.'' That is out of fashion now, because article 6 of the European convention on human rights discourages such an approach. Something that was quite often effective some years ago has gone.
What about the prospect of saying, ''I don't believe a word you're saying. This is due to culpable neglect or wilful refusal. I happen to know that, because you've told me that you smoke 20 cigarettes a day, which is £28 a week,''—unless one is on the Council of Europe, in which case they are much cheaper. The magistrate might continue, ''How much do you drink a day?'' The reply might be, ''I have a couple of pints most nights.'' ''Fine,'' the magistrate might say, ''that's another £28. That's £56 a week. How much of that are you going to put in towards the fine?'' The answer could be, ''Well, it's hard to say. I've got a lot of outgoings. Why should I pay?'' That is happening to the courts.
The position has got worse. Back in 1999, in the inner London magistrates court area—a slightly different area, admittedly—£54 million was imposed by way of fines, and between only £13 million and £14 million was written off or remitted, which is not bad. Even in 2000–01, the position was again not too
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bad, although matters get worse year by year. I shall be interested to see the figures for 2002–03, because the rate of unrecovered fines is rising by a number of percentage points a year.
Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North): Is one way around this either for the court to benefit from collection or for it to suffer a penalty if it does not collect its fines?
Mr. Malins: Yes, I take the point, but it would be unfair for the court to suffer a reduction in funding for not being able to recover its own fines when it does not have the weapons. That is my point. The court today does not have the weapons to act efficiently. If 60 per cent. of fines in the last year for which figures are available are uncollected, what will the position be in a couple of years' time? Is the system not utterly in disrepute? That is the background to the amendment. Although not very well drafted, proposed new subsection (9) focuses on the problem.
The Government should first accept that there is a major problem. That must be true if courts are saying goodbye to 60 per cent. of fines. Secondly, do the Government think that the trend towards non-recovery will continue? Thirdly, do they accept my proposition that the laborious methods that must be gone through in the court are utterly censurable? Fourthly, what will they do about that? I can tell the Minister that the current law is that if culpable neglect or wilful refusal is found, a custodial sentence can be imposed. However, to find that that is the case tests the spirit and forbearance of any bench, because of the length of time that it takes and the procedural obstacles that are put in the way. A conclusion that could be reached frightfully quickly can be reached only after immense wastage of time and money.
2.45 pm
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