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Lord Warner: My Lords, we like to go about this work thoroughly and conscientiously.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the Minister said that there was a "thing called devolution", which his Government were proud to have introduced. In view of the fact that people south of the border get less than the people north of it, have not the Government of those south of the border bogged it?
Lord Warner: My Lords, the Government are administering the NHS with great efficiency.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, does that efficiency include the cost of the national appointments computer rising from £6.5 billion to £20 billion?
Lord Warner: My Lords, the central contract for the NHS computer Connecting for Health was set at £6.2 billion; it remains at that figure, as the National Audit Office report showed last week.
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Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, given the results of devolution to Scotland and Wales, will the Government now consider some devolution to England?
Lord Warner: My Lords, that is a little wide of the mark in terms of this Question.
Representation of the People (Form of Canvass) (England and Wales) Regulations 2006
Representation of the People (Form of Canvass) (Scotland) Regulations 2006
Collection of Fines (Final Scheme) Order 2006
3.19 pm
Lord Evans of Temple Guiting: My Lords, I beg to move the three Motions standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the draft regulations laid before the House on 25 May and 7 June and the draft order laid before the House on 20 April be approved. [25th and 29th Reports from the Joint Committee] [Considered in Grand Committee on 19 June].—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Mobile Homes Act 1983 (Amendment of Schedule 1) (England) Order 2006
Lord Bassam of Brighton: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 24 May be approved [28th Report from the Joint Committee] [Considered in Grand Committee on 19 June].—(Lord Bassam of Brighton.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Parliamentary Costs Bill [HL]
3.20 pm
The Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor (Lord Falconer of Thoroton): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time.
The Bill is a consolidation measure. It will bring into a single statute provisions from six mid-19th century Acts relating to the costs of proceedings on private Bills of Parliament. These are: the House of Commons Costs Taxation Act 1847; the House of Lords Costs Taxation Act 1849; the Parliamentary Costs Act 1865;
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the Parliamentary Costs Act 1867; the Parliamentary Costs Act 1871; and the House of Commons Costs Taxation Act 1879.
The Acts concern the regulation of the costs of the parliamentary agents, who are the legal advisers authorised by Parliament to act for the parties on proceedings on Private Bills. The Acts also deal with the settlement of costs between the parties. The Bill includes provision to give effect to the handful of recommendations made by the Law Commissions for some minor technical changes to the law which they consider necessary in order to produce a satisfactory consolidation. My department has consulted on the Bill and the Law Commissions' recommendations.
As always, I am very grateful to those at the Law Commissions who have worked on the Bill and to those who responded to the consultation on its content. If your Lordships are content to give the Bill a Second Reading, it will be referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills in the usual way. I commend the Bill to the House.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble and learned Lord—
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I must put the Question first.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Falconer of Thoroton.)
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, I apologise to the noble and learned Lord. Perhaps I may ask him why the Bill comes down in the name of the Lord Falconer of Thoroton and not in the name of the Lord Chancellor.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, because that is my name and the Lord Chancellor has to promote consolidation Bills.
On Question, Bill read a second time; and referred to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.
Jubilee Line Case Review
3.22 pm
The Attorney-General (Lord Goldsmith): My Lords, I wish to make a Statement in relation to the review of the investigation of criminal proceedings relating to the Jubilee Line case.
On 22 March 2005 the case of Regina v Rayment and Others was terminated at the Central Criminal Court after it had been running since June 2003. The prosecution announced its decision not to oppose a defence application to discharge the jury and subsequently offered no evidence. The defendants were then acquitted.
Immediately afterwards I announced that I was referring the matter to the Chief Inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service under Section (2)(1)(b) of the Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate Act 2000. I asked the chief inspector: to review the circumstances surrounding the prosecution commonly known as the
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Jubilee Line case; to ascertain the factors leading to the decision to terminate; to consider what steps the prosecution could have taken to avoid that outcome; and to make recommendations aimed at preventing this happening again. The chief inspector's final report has today been published. Copies have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
The report contains a detailed, but not comprehensive, analysis of the case. The constraints imposed by the remit of Her Majesty's Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate means the report inevitably focuses on the role of the prosecution, whilst aiming to give as balanced a view as possible of what occurred. The chief inspector also requested Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary to provide expert advice and analysis on the police work in this case, particularly the investigation. The work they did was used to inform the report which is published today. Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary will also be publishing separately its own stand-alone report.
The review team was also able to conduct individual interviews with 11 jurors in the case, and a group interview with eight of those jurors. They were assisted in this task by Professor Sally Lloyd-Bostock and Dr Cheryl Thomas of Birmingham University, who have conducted previous research into juries. This enabled the review team to obtain the benefit of the jurors' experience, whilst at the same time ensuring a proper distance between the jurors and the inspectorate.
The report concludes that the collapse of the trial was the cumulative effect of mistakes and shortcomings by a number of agencies and individuals responsible for the case, which tested the adversarial system, as well as the jury system, beyond breaking point. The review also concludes that the decision to end the case was inevitable and correct in the light of legal authorities, having regard to the circumstances prevailing at the time. The report highlights three specific issues which it sees as having had a major contribution towards the termination of the proceedings: the decision to include count two, conspiracy to defraud London Underground Limited; the slow and disjointed nature of the proceedings; and the illness of one of the defendants.
I very much welcome the valuable and detailed analysis by the chief inspector and his team. I pay tribute to the thoroughness of their work. I note the important conclusion that the decision to terminate the case was correct.
Views may differ as to what conclusions are drawn from the analysis on, for example, whether we should always have a jury in a case of serious and complex fraud. I will return to that subject later.
My overriding purpose in establishing the review was to ensure that we have done, and continue to do, all we can to ensure that there is no repetition of the events which led to the collapse of this case, particularly so far as the prosecuting authorities are concerned.
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Investigation and subsequent prosecution of this case was spread over a long period, from 1997 to 2005. Some key decisions made at an early stage had a significant impact on the future handling of the case and, with the benefit of hindsight, can be seen to have created difficulties. I accept that there is justified criticism of some aspects of the prosecution.
Because, as I have said, the review report inevitably focuses on the CPS, and I am the Minister accountable for the CPS, it is right for me to draw the House's attention to the steps which have been taken to improve the handling of these cases within the CPS, as well as changes in the external environment. I accept the report's conclusion that fraud work within the CPS has not always been recognised as requiring a degree of dedicated resource and expertise. That is now being rectified, with the establishment of a separate and specialist fraud prosecution division within CPS London, a move welcomed by the report.
A wider issue is that of the case management and review arrangements which were in place during the duration of the Jubilee Line case. When I was appointed Attorney-General, it became apparent to me that the arrangements for supervising lawyers who had day-to-day control of serious and complex cases, and of reviewing the quality of their decisions, were not adequate. In particular, the culture had evolved where it was believed that only a lawyer who had read all—and I mean all—the papers could take a decision on the case. The disadvantages of this approach had already been the subject of discussion between my predecessor as Attorney-General and the then DPP, now Mr Justice Calvert-Smith. I signalled a new approach in a Written Parliamentary Answer on 27 February 2003. This enabled more senior lawyers within the CPS, including the DPP, to be involved in the decision-making process, or to take decisions on the basis of detailed briefing and consideration of the key material but without having to read all the often very voluminous papers. The effect of this change would be, as I said in the Answer, to enable greater input by senior lawyers into the most critical decisions that the service faces.
In addition, and after discussion with me, the current DPP has established a system of greater review by senior management of prosecuting decisions. In particular, he has established a system of case management panels. These are held on a monthly basis and enable a panel of senior lawyers to act as a "critical friend" to the lawyers handling a case. The panels, which have been in operation since September 2005, have already proved their worth in strengthening the presentation of cases, identifying any potential weaknesses and, in some cases, shortening the predicted trial lengths. This is especially important given the report's criticism that the Jubilee Line case was allowed to run without such senior management control. The CPS is also developing a new case management and case quality assurance system, particularly for serious and complex cases.
More widely within the criminal justice system, Ministers and the judiciary have agreed the criminal case management framework which clearly sets out the
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responsibilities of all those involved in trials; and the then Lord Chief Justice issued a protocol on the management of heavy and complex cases in March 2005. These developments, combined with revised disclosure protocols and my own revised guidelines to prosecutors on disclosure, combine to make a very different system from that which was in operation during the Jubilee Line trial.
The report makes 11 recommendations. They are set out in detail in the report and I will not take time repeating them. They have been considered by Government and the agencies involved. The substance of all the recommendations are accepted, save for recommendation 10, which will require further discussions between Ministers and the senior judiciary.
Earlier in my Statement I said that I would come back to the issue of jury trials for serious and complex fraud cases. We have had extensive debates in this House and in the other place about the Government's established policy that there should be the opportunity in some serious and complex fraud cases for those trials to be heard without a jury. The Jubilee Line report concludes that the circumstances of this case were so unusual that it cannot be relied on directly to support the case either for dispensing with, or retaining, juries. It also concludes that the case was not intrinsically of such seriousness or complexity that it would necessarily have been accepted by the Serious Fraud Office as falling within its criteria for taking on cases, nor that it would necessarily have met the conditions set out in Section 43 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
I should say that I take a different view. I am very clear that no blame for the termination of the case should fall on the shoulders of the individual jurors; rather, they are to be commended for their commitment and attention. Nevertheless, I believe the case illustrates a good deal about the challenges of presenting long and complex cases in front of a jury.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
3.30pm
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