Latest news with #WillieWhitelaw
The Independent
01-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Legislation ‘forthcoming' to stop Adams internment compensation
Legislation is to be brought forward to stop Gerry Adams receiving compensation over being interred in the 1970s, the Northern Ireland Secretary has confirmed. Hilary Benn said that draft laws to address issues highlighted by the Adams case was 'forthcoming'. A Supreme Court judgment in 2020 paved the way for the former Sinn Fein president to secure compensation over his internment without trial in the early 1970s. Mr Adams won his appeal to overturn historical convictions for two attempted prison breaks, after he was interned without trial in 1973 at Long Kesh internment camp, also known as Maze Prison, near Lisburn. The Supreme Court ruled that his detention was unlawful because the interim custody order (ICO) used to initially detain him had not been 'considered personally' by then secretary of state for Northern Ireland Willie Whitelaw. At the time of the case, the previous government contended that the ICOs were lawful because of a long-standing convention, known as the Carltona principle, where officials and junior ministers routinely act in the name of the secretary of state. Mr Adams subsequently successfully challenged a decision to deny an application for compensation for his detention. However, the Legacy Act stopped such payouts to Mr Adams and other former internees. The Act retrospectively validated the ICOs to make them lawful and halted civil claims related to the orders. However, in February last year, the High Court in Belfast ruled that the provisions of the Act related to the ICOs were incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The Labour Government has not appealed that judgment and has tabled a remedial order in Parliament that will repeal various parts of the Legacy Act. The draft laws to be introduced by Mr Benn will aim to give effect the block on payouts to former detainees in a lawful manner. In a question to Mr Benn, Labour MP Chris McDonald asked 'what steps he is taking to address the issue of interim custody orders that were not signed by his predecessor' in relation to Mr Adams's case. Responding in a written answer on June 26, the Secretary of State said: 'The main issue here is the application of the Carltona principle in the context of ICOs. 'The previous Government's attempt to address this following the 2020 Supreme Court judgment in Adams has been found by the Northern Ireland courts to be unlawful and we need to find a better way of reaffirming this principle. 'The Government will therefore legislate to address this issue in forthcoming primary legislation.'
The Independent
18-02-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Politicians are guilty of turning our prisons into pressure cookers
The former deputy prime minister, Willie Whitelaw, used to talk about punishing criminals with 'short, sharp shocks'. Finally, one has been delivered to our prison system, by a former Tory minister. The Independent Sentencing Review is an extraordinary volte face for the justice system, upending decades of consensus by both main political parties that long sentences make not just for severe punishment but also lead to less crime. David Gauke, the former justice secretary, was commissioned by Keir Starmer to look at what is going wrong in our prisons. His clear denunciation of past decades is compounded by the shocking numbers who are held in prisons. Compare 1993, when the average prison population was less than 45,000, to today, when it is commonplace for two or three men to share one cell, and when suicides on the prison estate are rocketing. It may not seem as such to the world at large, but this is a remarkable document that could alter our approach to how we deal with criminality. Politicians who want longer prison sentences often tell us how important it is that wrongdoers are punished harshly, and forced to reflect on what they have done. So what comes next for the long line of former ministers whose chaotic management brought the criminal justice system to the brink of collapse, now that we know that their 'tough on crime' policies were to blame? Gauke's first report points to inconsistent, ill-considered and knee-jerk sentencing reform since the mid-1990s as being the root cause of a crisis that now leaves prisons and the probation service overwhelmed. If this sounds familiar, you may have read a report that was published by the Howard League last September, in which the most senior former judges in England and Wales called on the government to reverse the trend of imposing ever longer sentences. Our report explained how and why prison sentences have increased in recent decades and spelled out the impact that this has had. We did not single out any ministers as being personally responsible for this mess, but had we decided to, there would have been no shortage of candidates. We could have talked about Michael Howard, the former Home Secretary, who told the Tory party conference in 1993 that 'prison works' and embarked on a raft of criminal justice policies that set the prison population soaring and held the country back. We could have talked about Tony Blair, whose mantra of 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' took us from bad to worse, introducing counter-productive arrest targets for police and draconian measures such as sentences of imprisonment for public protection (IPP). His government also introduced Schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act, which haphazardly increased sentences for certain kinds of murder and then distorted all future sentences. If any one piece of legislation is at fault for the current mess, it's Schedule 21. In the 14 years between Howard's 'prison works' speech and Blair's resignation as prime minister in 2007, the prison population almost doubled, from 44,000 to 80,000, but that only begins to tell the story of the damage caused. Together, Howard and Blair set expectations against which future governments would be judged, and too few politicians have since found the courage to swim against the tide. So we could have talked about David Cameron, who gave an encouraging speech about prison reform in February 2016 but was out of Downing Street only four months later. In the end, his legacy in criminal justice amounted to even longer sentences, a dangerously overcrowded and understaffed prison system, and a catastrophic part-privatisation of probation – all under the watchful eye of Chris Grayling. Jumping a few more years ahead, we could have talked about Rishi Sunak, who was warned repeatedly that the prison system was in meltdown but responded only by doubling down on the punitive rhetoric that led us here. Urged to take sensible measures to ease pressure on jails, he called a general election instead. And that was that. Naming and shaming has become a central feature of this country's approach to criminal justice, but it does not get us very far. Whoever is to blame, we now have a huge problem in front of us and no time to lose. We have to grasp the nettle, change course and make decisions that are difficult – a reality that even Howard recognised, in an interview marking 30 years since his famous speech. For too long, criminal justice policies have been judged on whether they appear 'tough' or 'soft', when what really matters is whether they work. Making sentences longer and longer puts intolerable pressure on prisons and adds to the burden on a probation service that has been asked to do too much, with too little, for too long. Dealing with the consequences takes valuable resources away from preventing crime and supporting victims. We can start to put things right if we shift our focus away from the length of sentences and towards what people are doing while serving them. If someone needs support to move away from crime, locking them in a prison cell for hours on end with nothing to do is not going to help. The government has recognised that it can't build its way out of the current prison crisis. It is time that they levelled with the public about what prisons can and can't achieve, and led a sensible, evidence-based conversation about how to keep our communities safe. The answer isn't prison.
