The Bishop of Manchester spoke on the topic of criminal justice during the King’s speech debate on 24th July 2024, welcoming the government’s focus on community policing and policies to introduce a duty of candour for public officials:
The Lord Bishop of Manchester: My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my former boss.
As a trustee of the Clink Charity, where we help prisoners build skills for employment in the catering industry, I too welcome the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, and congratulate him on a powerful and hopeful speech. He might wish to know that the Clink restaurant at Styal prison won the Cheshire Life restaurant of the year award earlier this week. If his team can draw my remarks to his attention, I hope he will accept an invitation to dine with me there later this year, so he can see for himself. However, as my right reverend friend the Bishop of Gloucester has spoken eloquently about prisons already, I will focus elsewhere.
As co-chair of the national police ethics committee, I am deeply committed to the principles that Sir Robert Peel set out two centuries ago. Our police are civilians in uniform, not paramilitaries; they are servants of the Crown and society, not tools of government policy. Those distinctions have not always been clear in recent years, not least during the Covid pandemic. Hence, if we are to recover the levels of confidence in policing that Peel’s vision requires, visible neighbourhood policing and responding to every crime is vital. I welcome measures in the gracious Speech to those ends. I also welcome efforts to divert young people away from the criminal justice system at an early stage, and a focus on violence against women and girls.
One mark of a mature society is that it is willing to listen and learn when things have gone badly wrong. Hence, I am pleased to see proposals to extend the duty of candour. This, as the Minister has said, was a cornerstone of the report which the former Bishop of Liverpool produced in response to the Hillsborough tragedy. I will never forget meeting bereaved families at the stadium, as a young priest, seeking to offer such comfort as I could. I will also be supporting measures to improve safety at public events, and especially Martyn’s law, named, as we have heard today, after a victim of the Manchester Arena attack. I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart of Dirleton, who addressed the point about proportionality for voluntary and faith community venues in that regard.
Meanwhile, there are other past failings that we need to consider. I would be pleased to hear Ministers indicate how they wish to take forward the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. I would further urge His Majesty’s Government to set up the long-needed inquiry into the events that took place at the Orgreave coking plant during the miners’ strike—it was the parish next door to my own—so that we can guard against attempts to politicise policing in future.
I applaud the ending of the Rwanda scheme. Setting aside any moral concerns, I hope we will never again see a Bill before this House that the responsible Minister cannot confirm to be fully compliant with international law. Meanwhile, I and many others will continue to argue for safe and legal routes, so that genuine refugees who have firm reasons why Britain is the best place for them to begin rebuilding their traumatised lives can do so here. Given that refugee numbers remain a small fraction of net migration, I am confident that we can do this within the total migration numbers that Britain can absorb. Mindful of the skills that many refugees bring, I urge His Majesty’s Government to allow those who have spent months—or longer—waiting for a claim to be processed to contribute to our economy by taking paid employment.
On a wider matter, I welcome the commitment to ban conversion practices. I welcomed its appearance in the previous Government’s programme, not long after the Church of England General Synod had called by a huge majority for such a ban. Progress stalled, of course. I have met too many people suffering lifelong damage from such abuse. I and others stand ready to help frame a law that will outlaw these disgraceful practices while not criminalising medical practitioners and registered therapists, or private non-coercive prayer.
Finally, I am delighted to be followed today by the noble Lord, Lord Goodman of Wycombe, who will make his maiden speech. I remember, during my time as Bishop of Dudley, when he was in the other place, he came to visit my diocese. I was so impressed by his work supporting faith communities. I look forward to the significant contributions that he will make to your Lordships’ House, both immediately following my speech and in times to come.
Extracts from the speeches that followed:
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD): I close, finally, by saying that on these Benches we are greatly encouraged by this Government’s clear commitment to the rule of law, including international law, as stressed by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, and in particular to the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act, which I for one regard as one of the finest triumphs of the Labour Party. We hope that in Government we will have some more.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con): The loyal Opposition will work with the Government. We will of course also scrutinise the legislative programme to the best of our abilities. In terms of the crime and policing Bill, it is to be regretted that the previous Government did not have the time to pass our Criminal Justice Bill, which contained important measures, including on anti-social behaviour, assaults on retail workers and deepfakes, among many others.
I join my noble friend Lady Bray in applauding the intention to focus on neighbourhood policing, but I also note that the previous Government delivered on our promise to recruit 20,000 more police officers.
Indeed, this country has more policemen now than ever before. Unfortunately, it is not just about numbers. As I am sure the noble Lord has already found out, it is also about culture, so I welcome the Government’s intention to sort out the many cultural failings that we have seen in the police. Police leaders have a job to do in rebuilding public trust, not least because they owe that to the vast majority of good men and women who serve. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, made some important points on accountability, which were reinforced by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester and, very powerfully, by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab, Home Office): We have looked in a big debate today in this House at the whole issue of reoffending. The noble Lords, Lord Carter of Haslemere and Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, the noble Lord, Lord Farmer, the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, and the noble Lords, Lord Lucas, Lord Moynihan, Lord Patten and Lord Waldegrave, focused on a whole range of issues around the really important question of how we reduce reoffending. I know that we reduce it, as my noble friend does, by providing housing support, training, action on substance misuse and support on jobs, just as much as we do with the prison or community-based experience. We need to look at how we can reduce reoffending by giving offenders who are leaving prison the tools to move away from crime. That is a key issue that we will both look at jointly. We need to ensure that we tackle the intergenerational offending to which Members have also referred.
There is a need to look at a whole range of issues, in particular—I know that it is a difficult issue—that of releasing prisoners early. If the prison places are not there, we have to look at mechanisms for doing that. The Government’s temporary reduction in the proportion of certain custodial sentences from 50% to 40%, with important safeguards, is to try to ensure that we keep prison for serious violent offenders and that there is availability for that. But we are managing that transition, in that short period of time and on that temporary basis, with some of the safeguards that I know the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove, wanted to have. I can give her the assurance that there will be victim input into the release scheme, and that the victim contact scheme will be available for all the usual information and updates about developments in their own case. I know how much this means to her, and she can have my assurance that the Labour Government will do that in due course.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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