Release Under Investigation

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 5:10 pm on 5 February 2020.

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Photo of Andrew Slaughter Andrew Slaughter Labour, Hammersmith 5:10, 5 February 2020

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. I congratulate my hon. Friend Bambos Charalambous on securing a debate on this very important subject. As he has set out very clearly the concerns on RUI, which I think are shared on both sides of the House, I will limit myself to asking the Minister three questions, if I may.

First, what is the purpose of RUI as far as the Government are concerned? My contention is that it is a pressure valve to allow the police to cope with the lack of resources that they have, but I am sure that is not the Government’s view, so I wonder what is. That is not a flippant point. RUI is relatively recent, having come in under the Policing and Crime Act 2017, I think, and therefore having taken effect less than three years ago. I was not on that Public Bill Committee, but I understand that RUI was not debated at any time during its considerations. Therefore, we cannot go to Hansard to look for any clues about what its clear purpose was. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that.

Secondly, was it the Government’s intention that RUI should grow so quickly and replace police bail in the way that it has? We have heard some figures quoted already, but the figures that I have been given are that, across England and Wales, the number released on police bail went from 216,178 cases in 2016-17 to 43,923 in 2017-18. That is a dramatic fall, but it is compensated by 193,073 releases on RUI in that same year, of which 93,000 were for people suspected of violent or sexual offences. Was it really the Government’s intention that this should be such a dramatic change in the way that people under investigation are dealt with?

Thirdly, what about legal aid? At the moment, legal aid will be paid for police station time and for trial, but for nothing in between. That means nothing for those important pre-charge stages—or at least, it will only be paid much later in the day. They are important stages of investigation, and the defence has a role here as well in querying whether evidence is being gathered, for example.

If there is to be a period of years, as we have heard in serious cases, where no progress is made in the case as far as the defendant is concerned, there is a risk of procedures perhaps not being followed as diligently as they might be. There is also a risk that defence solicitors, who are already under a lot of financial pressure, will not be able to take cases where they are acting speculatively and have no prospect of being paid, perhaps for several years. Effectively, they are subsidising the criminal justice process. Perhaps the Minister will respond by undertaking to look at that and, if RUI is to continue, at whether the payment for defence solicitors in relation to legal aid needs to be reconsidered.