In praise of Dale Vince and Ecotricity: A green entrepreneur backing Labour

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Labour donor: Dale Vince Pic Credit: ecotricity

Labour donor: Dale Vince gave £250,000
Pic Credit: ecotricity

The disclosure that an entrepreneur has had the temerity to back Labour with a £250,000 donation has led to the usual  scramble in the national media to discredit the man and his company, Ecotricity. The Telegraph has recently done a thorough job  presenting the multi millionaire as a tax avoider, a greedy guzzler of state subsidies set up by one  former energy secretary, Ed Miliband, and owner of a castle. Presumably since Ecotricity doesn’t appear to advertise in The Daily Telegraph they felt brave enough to publish.

What is entirely missing from the article – and this  is surprising as the Telegraph champions competition –  is  support for a company challenging the energy monopoly. No mention of what his company does for ordinary people – which  you cannot get from the big six privatised and mainly foreign-owned giants who make millions from our gas and electricity bills.

I use Ecotricity for both my gas and electricity. One of my reasons is that I would rather spend my money with a company that has a real track record of investing in renewable energy than fossil fuels.

But take that aside – even though many on the right hate wind farms and believe global warming is a myth – Ecotricity has other plus points. Without wishing to act as an advertisement for Ecotricity – this site has no advertising – it seems to me, whatever faults Dale Vince may or may not have, at least his firm tries to offer the consumer a  better deal.

For a start the Telegraph ignores the fact that unlike any of the big six Ecotricity is  recommended  alongside other small companies by Which? as one of the better service providers.It came first for customer satisfaction as well.

Second it employs people in Stroud,its own HQ to deal directly with its customers.This compares with one of the big six I used in the past that had its call centre in India and lost my account when I moved house.. For nearly a year I wasn’t billed for electricity on my  new Berkhamsted home. When I raised this in India the officious   Eon/Powergen call centre worker demanded I sorted out all the paperwork myself – which I refused to do – and then desperately asked for an address   “any address ” he said to bill me. I was tempted to give him a false one in New York City to celebrate the follies of outsourcing and globalisation but honesty got the better of me.

Unlike the big six Ecotricity accepts direct debits for the actual amount of gas and electricity billed – you don’t have to pay a monthly overestimate for what you might use – a great scam allowing companies to take too much money off you for unused energy and use your loan to boost their own profits.

Fourth, Ecotricity is planning to cut prices by 6.2 per cent this May and promising more later in the year  – more than any of the big six and they never raised their prices in the last tranche either. This is something I have to remind the cold callers from the big six desperate for you to switch to them.

Fifth Ecotricity  gives you a good return on the money if you  invest in them.. It offered seven per cent  (7.5 for customers)before tax and its second issue offered six per cent gross (6.5 for customers) on its oversubscribed bonds – far more than the  four per cent  the” generous” George Osborne  is offering  pensioners in the run up to the election.

Some financial advisers have told me they can only offer these good rates of interest because of taxpayer subsidies. But it seems to me that the subsidies for cleaning up nuclear power waste – provide five times more money for the big six energy providers than the sums going to Ecotricity. Even the Telegraph acknowledges that.

But in a pre-election frenzy no right-wing paper  seems to want to acknowledge that anybody backing Labour can offer better value for money.

Child Sex Abuse: Green light for Goddard inquiry with caveats from MPs

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New Zealand dame Justice Lowell Goddard pic credit: http://www.teara.govt.nz/

New Zealand dame Justice Lowell Goddard pic credit: http://www.teara.govt.nz/

Dame Justice Lowell Goddard got a glowing  endorsement from Keith Vaz, the Labour chair of the home affairs committee, last week after she appeared before his committee in a pre appointment scrutiny hearing.

Although Theresa May, the home secretary, made sure the committee could only endorse not approve the appointment, MPs this time decided that the best decision was to end  the controversy which dogged the past two chairs of the child sex abuse inquiry who both had to quit.

As Keith Vaz said: “We were impressed by the outstanding credentials of Justice Goddard, and the open and transparent way in which she gave evidence to the Committee. We believe she has the necessary skills and dedication to carry out this complex task effectively.”…

“We are confident that Justice Goddard will establish full independence from the Home Office and that she will shape and lead the inquiry in the manner she decides, but with proper consideration for the survivors. This is an important moment for the Inquiry, first established 221 days ago, and is an opportunity to renew the process after two false starts. We wish her well.”

 The actual report by MPs was less favourable that Mr Vaz’s glowing testament and raised a number of issues that should be addressed.
For a start it pointed out that the decision not to appoint any survivor to the committee meant that the promised advisory survivors committee must be beefed up.
 As it said : ” We can see the logic of Justice Goddard’s comment that survivors did not need to be represented on the Panel, but only provided that a parallel Survivors’ Forum is established on a formal basis, with strong links to the Inquiry Panel. Its remit, status and relationship with the Panel should be clear from the outset and it should be properly funded to provide the necessary support to its members.”
 To my mind this means proper resources and also the same due diligence applied to new members of the panel to ensure those appointed to the advisory panel are suitable for a difficult job.
Second it raised the question of Home Office dominance of both the secretariat and the running of the panel and rightly insisted that more outsiders should be on the secretariat and the chair should be shown to be totally independent in panel member appointments.
 It also said that to provide continuity some existing members of the dissolved panel should serve on the inquiry and that perhaps it should consult more widely – citing the success of Hillsborough and Leveson in dealing with victims, which means Dame Justice Goddard should talk to both Lord Leveson and the Bishop of Liverpool about how they handled their inquiries. It is also right that its remit does include Kincora – which was a national not as purely Northern Ireland scandal – and makes sure there is proper liaison between the Scottish and English/Welsh inquiry investigations. It has been pointed out to me by a reader that the committee is silent on Jersey – where I am suspicious there has also been a big cover up of  child sexual abuse.
Frankly this inquiry has got to show it is really independent and not a Home Office creature before people can really trust it – after so many false starts.
The inquiry will also sit in a febrile atmosphere with more damning disclosures about what happened in Britain in the 1980s. I know from the work I and my  colleagues are doing on Exaro that we only have just begun to investigate the scale of the scandal and there is much more to come. And it probably going to take more than three years to unravel it.

NO survivors on the Goddard child sex abuse inquiry panel

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Justice Lowell Goddard giving evidence to House of Commons home affairs committee today. Pic credit: BBC

Justice Lowell Goddard giving evidence to House of Commons home affairs committee today. Pic credit: BBC

The Theresa May experiment to appoint survivors to the new inquiry into historical child sexual abuse is over.

Both  the new ” non establishment”  chair Justice Lowell Goddard in her evidence to the Commons home affairs select committee and Graham Wilmer,a former member of the panel, in a letter  disclosed today on Exaro confirm this.

As Lowell Goddard said: “There are inherent risks in having people with personal experience of abuse as members of an impartial and independent panel.”

Frankly the row and bitter campaign by some organisations, l am afraid like the Survivors Alliance, against people appointed to the panel has ended in excluding survivors voices in the writing of the report. They have shot themselves in the foot.

They will obviously be some appointed to an advisory panel – but no one should kid themselves – that they will have the same influence as a member of the panel. It will be up to the judge to decide how often and how much they will be consulted but up to her and her QC adviser, Ben Emmerson, to decide what  will appear in the report. A radical experiment in setting up an inquiry to deal with one of the nastiest and most persistent blots in British public life – the exploitation of children by paedophiles – has been killed  with the help of the very people who suffered that fate.

As Graham Wilmer wrote: “I wanted to inform you that I will not be making any application to be part of the new Goddard inquiry, either as a panel member or as part of any survivors’ advisory group, in whatever form that may take.

“My reasons are these: firstly, I am led to understand that the new panel will not include any survivors, so making an application would be pointless in any case.”

He also blames what he describes as “the clarion voices” of people who falsely claim to represent those who suffered sexual abuse in their childhood, “and the aggressive and abusive tactics of the lone-wolf campaigners, together with the questionable motives of some lawyers and others who claim to represent the interests of survivors.”

There will still be people appointed to the panel but it is now clear they will be professional experts none of whom have had any experience of child sexual abuse themselves.

In my view this a very great shame – it was very difficult to achieve. But survivors will be able to speak to the inquiry and also to the new People’s Tribunal now in the process of being set which has survivors on its steering committee.

Theresa May: The courteous assassin

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Theresa May: Pic courtesy: The Guardian

Theresa May: Pic courtesy: The Guardian

The description of how Theresa May handled the demise of the child sex abuse panel  – reported by me on Exaro at the weekend- shows the ruthless home secretary at her most combative and courteous rolled into one.

Determined to put months of indecision and  two mistaken  chair appointments behind her-  she took the most radical and surgical action she could do. She sacked the lot of the panel and started again. She had already.heavily hinted in her letter to the panel last year that this could happen.  But she softened the blow  with pleasantries and hand shakes and some genuine kind words.Never have so many people been so thoroughly stuffed in such a courteous way.

This streak of ruthlessness is why Theresa May is now  a serious contender for the leadership of the Tory Party.You can read a good profile of her here by Guardian journalist Gaby Hinscliff. Her famous statement that they were the ” nasty party ” may have stuck  a sour note with some supporters. But she know how to be nasty  and nice simultaneously.

She made sure they didn’t feel the blame ” You have done nothing wrong” she told them. But she didn’t spare them the pain – they heard they were going in shocked silence.She said they could re-apply but I will be amazed if any do. And it was followed up with the disclosure  after they left that Ben Emmerson, the QC to the inquiry, was staying and a tough email warning everybody on the panel to shut up or be sued.

In three months time there will be a general election. David Cameron may or may not win.But Theresa May already has her eye on the leadership. She is not yet in poll position – but she is making sure  she will be a challenger by secretly organising the ground work and also instructing her staff to keep very quiet about who will support her..Not even to tell a soul over a drink in the pub – so I hear.

Then I suspect her track record at the home office will be a big issue – taking on the police, setting up this child sex abuse inquiry and taking hard lines on popular right-wing issues like immigration.

If anyone knows how to wield a knife – while being kind and courteous to the victim – Theresa knows. David Cameron better watch his back.

Child Sex Abuse Inquiry: A very British legal coup at the Home Office

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Ben Emmerson Pic Credit: UN

Ben Emmerson
Pic Credit: UN

The appointment of Justice Lowell Goddard, the New Zealand judge, to head  a new statutory inquiry into child sex abuse yesterday is actually a very remarkable coup for the lawyer. Ben Emmerson, the QC, advising the now dissolved  independent panel.,

Theresa May, the home secretary, having been backed into a corner by Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the lord chief justice, who decided to refuse permission for any sitting British judge from chairing the inquiry, had a very unenviable task to find anyone to take up the challenge. The favourite, Lady Hale, was out of the running.

She could have chosen a retired judge- but given the length of the inquiry- this might not have been as good idea. She could have chosen a non judge- but people might have been worried whether they could find anybody with the status and authority to chair a statutory inquiry.

She also, as is becoming very clear, wanted a woman.

Step in Ben Emmerson,then QC to the chairless panel. In another role he is the UN Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights and is currently looking at the role of drones.. Here he would have come across Lady Lovell Goddard who in 2010 became independent export to the  United Nations Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture. Together the two are singing from the same civil liberties song sheet and Justice Goddard  has a strong  civil libertarian record in New Zealand. She also conducted an inquiry into child sexual abuse cases as chair of the Independent Police Conduct Authority.Theresa May could hardly overlook her if she was interested in the job.

In one go there was the possible solution for Theresa May. If you look carefully at the statement issued by Ben Emmerson himself accepting his new post you will find a big clue.

As well as announcing the changes he says : “I am also pleased to confirm that I have accepted an invitation from the Home Secretary to act as counsel to the Goddard Inquiry. In this capacity I have already had the opportunity to speak to Justice Goddard personally and to begin discussions with her about the challenges ahead.

And in The Guardian he was full of praise for her: “Justice Goddard has all the key qualities necessary to lead the inquiry’s work – absolute independence from the executive, a proven track record of holding state and non-state institutions to account and the forensic skills necessary to digest and analyse vast quantities of evidence.”

In one sense this a remarkable turn round for Ben Emmerson. Only last week he was before the Commons Home affairs Committee facing accusations that he was ” bullying ” a survivor member of the panel, Sharon Evans and in some trouble for the way he advised members of the panel to answer questions from MPs. Keith Vaz, the Labour chairman, even questioned whether he had the time to do  the work of a QC advising them as he is also the QC representing the widow of Alexander Litvinenko,allegedly poisoned by the Russians.

How little did he know that he was at the centre of appointing a new chair. Two Mps who met Theresa May last week told me that she was down to the last two candidates for the job. It would be then when the home secretary did a video interview with Justice Goddard.

Justice Goddard may now have the top job – but undoubtedly the most powerful person on the new inquiry today is Ben Emmerson – the man who may have  helped spare Theresa May having any more blushes over this long running and difficult saga.

Leon Brittan: Why Lawson is wrong and there is a real case to answer

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Leon Brittan

Leon Brittan

There has been anger  and disbelief among many of the late Leon Brittan’s friends that his name has become public in connection with the current Met police investigation into  historical child sex abuse dating back to the 1980s. In one sense it is understandable. Who would want to believe that the person they invite to dinner, meet in the House of Lords, have known for years, could be remotely considered a serial paedophile. So the reaction from Lord Deben ( better known as John Selwyn Gummer), Edward Garnier MP and David Cameron after his recent death is not unusual.

But the attack in the Sunday Times by Dominic Lawson, a former editor of the Sunday Telegraph, is a different matter. By taking the argument that those who say that he could be a paedophile – such as Tom Watson and Simon Danczuk  are part of a  frenzied Labour left-wing plot to get back at Tories close to Margaret Thatcher,he is way off the mark.

As an investigative  reporter  not only does this line of argument not stand up – but the facts of the case are against him.

For a start  he questioned whether “Nick’s ” account  about  Leon Brittan and others sexually abusing him was accurate. Yet ” Nick” has already been described by the  Met Police as ” a credible witness”. They do not do such a thing lightly. and they certainly don’t do it just because Tom Watson or Exaro News say so. They make up their own mind.

Second if he started to examine the known facts about  the allegations against Leon Brittan he might have pause for thought. ” Nick” is not the only person to make these allegations. Separate allegations have been made by more than a handful of other survivors and a number are still being followed up by the police because they involve other people.

As a journo if you want to establish the probability of a fact – one of the most compelling arguments is when two or more people who did not know each other give a similar story. So unless Dominic Lawson is going to argue that there is a wicked conspiracy among survivors across England to name and frame Leon Brittan for some unknown reason this does not stand up.

People also forget that the case against Leon Brittan is not only made by survivors – who as kids as young as nine or eleven would not easily recognise Cabinet ministers – but by members of the public.

The original reason why Elm Guest House was raided in 1982 was not initially because children complained about sexual abuse but because the residents in Barnes got thoroughly fed up with an unruly B & B in a  quiet street, with cars turning up at all times of night. It was a resident who allegedly said she saw Leon Brittan going there. Certainly the police from separate sources have established that Sir Cyril Smith went there.

And other people, not just survivors, are now coming forward saying at least there was one flat in Dolphin Square where young people were invited to gay sex parties.

Of course they may now be a clamour for the Met to stop investigating him – but the investigation is on going because they are people who were allegedly there with Leon Brittan who are still alive.

Finally if  some one is likely to be charged – the most likely person which both Leicestershire and Met Police say they are currently investigating – it is Lord Janner. Now unless Dominic Lawson knows something I don’t ,I can’t recall Lord Janner ever being in Thatcher’s Cabinet. He is a  former Labour MP and if his argument is that the sex abuse scandal is based on Leftie political revenge on the Tories – I have not seen Tom Watson or Simon Danczuk rushing to protect him for the sake of Ed Miliband.

Frankly the thesis of Dominic Lawson is a bit of old tosh – pressure for an overarching child sex abuse inquiry had all party support – Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green. It was precisely the idea of Conservative Mp, Zac Goldsmith, to do it this way – to prevent it becoming a party political matter.

In his frankly partisan piece Lawson – I suspect in grief for a friend he sees unjustly accused- has broken that. And shame on him for suggesting it.

I now see following the Times revelations today(July 23) that indeed the Cabinet Office did have documents which named Leon Brittan in connection with child sex abuse allegations but they were suppressed. I hope Dominic Lawson will reflect on the findings.

Lord Chief Justice blocks Theresa May from appointing serving judges to Child Sex Abuse inquiry

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Theresa May, home sercretary, blocked by the ;lord chief justice over the csa inquiry Pic Credit: conservatives.com

Theresa May, home secretary, blocked by the ;lord chief justice over the csa inquiry Pic Credit: conservatives.com

I have learnt from a reliable source that Theresa May’s plans to appoint two highly qualified  women judges on the short list to chair the Child Sex Abuse inquiry have been blocked by Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, Lord Chief Justice.

She originally wanted Lady Hale, who is deputy president of the Supreme Court or Lady Hallett, a senior court of appeal, as a preferred candidate for the post.

Lady Hallett turned down the post previously as it is likely to sit for five years and she is a potential candidate for the lord chief justice’s job in the future.

Lady Hale may have been more interested but the lord Chief Justice is not keen to spare Supreme court judges because of the growing case load of the court.

I understand however that  Lord Thomas has told colleagues that he wants no serving judge to chair the inquiry. Evidently the controversy surrounding the inquiry panel and its appointments has made him think the judiciary should steer well clear of it.

He may well have been influenced by a confidential report from Sir Stanley Burnton,the retired judge who resigned from the Daniel Morgan panel, which is thought to have raised a series of issues about the running of independent panels.

The lord chief justice is within his rights to refuse to allow a serving judge leave to chair an inquiry as he is responsible for the efficient running of the bench.

But he could not stop a retired judge being approached or if a serving judge felt so strongly that he or she decided to resign the bench to chair the inquiry.

But his decision has restricted the choice Theresa May has in finding a suitable candidate to met her own self-imposed dealing of announcing a chair by Friday. There must be further developments soon.

I

Revealed: How the Daniel Morgan Inquiry got nowhere for a year

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Daniel Morgan: A lesson for other inquiries

Daniel Morgan: A lesson for other inquiries

While the future of the child sex abuse inquiry dominates the news agenda the media has missed an extraordinary dispute that plagued another independent inquiry – the investigation into the brutal murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan.

The independent panel also set up by home secretary, Theresa May, has until recently been deadlocked for almost a year because of a fractious argument between the retired judge appointed to run it and the panel member responsible for examining the police.

As I report on exaro news  the saga ended with both the chairman and the panel member resigning from the inquiry but nobody in the media noticed even though the murder of Daniel Morgan has been one of the most high-profile scandals for years.It involved allegations of corruption by the Met Police, dodgy involvement of the media, and a bloody killing.

Despite five police investigations into the case, nobody has been convicted for Daniel Morgan’s murder. The co-founder of a private-detective agency, Southern Investigations, he was found with an axe in his head in 1987 in the car park of a pub in south London..

The dispute is significant because it is relevant to the problems facing the child sex abuse inquiry – and crosses a fault line, that if not corrected by the Home Office, will make the work of future independent panels very difficult.

Surprisingly when I contacted both the retired judge who resigned, Sir Stanley Burnton, and the panel member, Graham Smith,from Manchester University, both were willing to talk.

Graham Smith couldn’t believe that no one wanted to know his views which were blunt to say the least. He said “The panel was behaving like a lot of Sherlock Holmes’s, and wanted to re-investigate the murder rather than research the documents”…. it was “like working for a judicial inquiry without the safeguards of being held in public”.

The judge, while not wanting to go into detail about his resignation, made it clear that he  didn’t want to negotiate by himself with Scotland Yard about handing over all the files, he nevertheless wanted to establish some rules just like judicial proceedings.

He wrote in an email:“A possibility was to emulate the manner in which claims for public-interest privilege are dealt with in litigation, when disputes as to relevance and disclosure are determined by the judge.”

“I would not regard the refusal of the other members of the panel to agree to such a machinery as a resignation issue.”

It turns out both of them have complained about their experience. Graham Smith has written a strongly worded memo to Theresa May and the retired judge has written to the  lord chief justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, about running independent inquiries.

So here’s the nub of it. Appoint a judge and it is likely he or she will want to run an inquiry rather like a court – taking advice from expert witnesses, sifting through information and writing his or her own report.

Appoint someone else to chair a panel and the atmosphere will be more collegiate and the panel will discuss issues and have an input into the final report which is what the child sex abuse inquiry was supposed to do.

Melding the two views of an inquiry together is very difficult  and requires great skill – and in some cases like the Daniel Morgan inquiry it won’t work and it falls apart. I am sure  Sir Stanley and Graham Smith are decent people – but the way the Home Office constructed the inquiry did not work.

Fortunately a new head and new people have now been appointed and the hope must be that the Daniel Morgan inquiry – which has a huge duty to the distraught Morgan family to find out what really happened – can now get on with the job.

But a valuable year has been lost and lessons need to be learned before a new person heads the child sex abuse inquiry.It points to not having a judge to chair it.

The shameful silence of the Ministry of Justice about its commercial dealings with Saudi Arabia

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Chris Grayling last yearsigning the memorandum of understanding with the Saudis; Pic Credit: UsSembassy

Chris Grayling last year signing the memorandum of understanding with the Saudis; Pic Credit: US embassy

Last week I put up a blog revealing a proposal by the commercial wing of the Ministry of Justice (yes there is one, it’s not satire!) to sell  a £5.9m contract  to the Saudi prison service to provide training and better management for their repressive judicial regime.

The British government under the guise of Chris Grayling the Lord Chancellor, seemed to be falling over itself to get a deal to provide a profit for the ministry from a regime that beheads dozens of citizens a year and flogs many more – including Rafi Badawi, a liberal blogger  facing 1000 lashes and ten years in jail for running a liberal political  website.

The scandal was taken up by lawyer David Allen Green who blogs as Jack of Kent  on his site and  as David Allen Green at the Financial Times.

What has been extraordinary is the way the Ministry of Justice have behaved since the disclosure to both me and the distinguished lawyer.

After telling me it was ridiculous to equate the scheme with selling to a country that routinely flogs  and beheads people they refused to answer some basic questions from him.

He pointed out in a very detailed and useful blog which is well worth a read – link here– that Grayling also recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi government – for legal co-operation  at a time when the ministry – through Just Solutions International, its commercial wing,- wanted to start commercial contracts with the Saudi state.

He then asked them for some information – such as a copy of the memorandum of understanding, details of the £5.9m contract, details about Just Solutions International, and what it was going to do in Saudi Arabia.

Such as “For example, is JSi going to be challenging and seeking to prevent abuses when it comes across malpractice, and indeed what human rights safeguards and training are going to be built into any programme? “

The Ministry of Justice refused point-blank to provide any more information, release any details about the memorandum or the contract and when pressed added : ” “Sorry, we’re not going to give a running commentary on this.”

One wonders what the Ministry of Justice has got to hide. As Prince Charles and David Cameron dropped everything to pay their respects at  Saudi King Abdullah’s funeral last week,, it might suggest rather a lot and not just at the ministry of justice

Britain also has enormous defence and foreign affairs interests. Remember the  Serious Fraud Office dropping  the BAe Systems Saudi fraud investigation six years ago? And what about BAe speaking at Chris Grayling’s law summit as   tweeted: “To celebrate Magna Carta, Grayling is hosting with BAe speaking on “business and rule of law” . Given the Saudis put pressure on the British judicial  system to drop the rule of law, this is rather ironic Will Just Solutions International play a part?

The government and ministry of justice have a lot to answer – and they shouldn’t get away with it.

Last night The Guardian and the Independent became the first mainstream media to cover the story. See here and here.

Ministry of Justice:Flogging prison expertise to Saudi beheaders and floggers

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Chris Grayling: Selling British prison expertise to Saudi beheaders and floggers

Chris Grayling: Selling British prison expertise to Saudi beheaders and floggers

The nasty and brutal punishment (1000 lashes) being meted out to Saudi blogger Raif Badawi is rightly being condemned by human rights groups across the world.

What may not be so well-known  is that the British government is currently negotiating to sell prison expertise to the  repressive Saudi judicial regime to make money in order to cut the deficit for the taxpayer.

The man championing this move is none other than Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, well-known for wanting to deny prisoners books and an enthusiastic backer of longer prison sentences and tough prison regimes.

Quietly he has set up a commercial arm of the Ministry of Justice called Just Solutions International. You can download a glossy brochure here.

Mr Grayling is passionate about this. At the launch of the social enterprise he said:

“We are leading the world in our management of offenders and the reforms we are introducing will push us even further ahead of the pack. I’m proud that countries look to us when they want to improve and develop their own systems.”

“This social enterprise will build on our global reputation for innovation while getting best value, as any profits made will be put directly back into improving our own justice system, making it a win-win for hardworking taxpayers.”

What we didn’t know then was where Britain was selling this expertise. However just before Christmas the Ministry of Justice released an interim report on its progress.

It revealed as I report in Tribune :

” JSi submitted a £5.9 million proposal to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Ministry of Finance to conduct a training needs analysis across all the learning and development programmes within the Saudi Arabian Prison Service.

Also in August, JSi submitted a large-scale bid to the Royal Oman Police (ROP) proposing assistance for the design of a new prison. Discussions are currently taking place with ROP about further learning and development training programmes.”

The document states that Chris Grayling visited Saudi Arabia last September to sign a memorandum of understanding on judicial co-operation with the regime and promote British legal services and Doha in Qatar to promote co-operation. A junior justice minister, Lord Faulks, visited Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan during October, both also seen to be repressive regimes, and signed a memorandum of understanding on judicial co-operation in Kazakhstan.”

I put this to the Ministry of Justice. This was their reply: ” “It is ridiculous to suggest that providing overseas governments with assistance in the development of their criminal justice systems demonstrates support for such atrocious acts. It has been government policy for many years to work with overseas governments and help them develop their criminal justice systems.”

Really! Some people might think the Saudis will be taking comfort from such British support and personal visits from Chris Grayling while continuing these barbaric acts. Also is there not an ethical matter whether the British taxpayer wants the deficit reduced by making profits from a regime that tortures,  publicly beheads ( some 59 in first nine months of last year) and flogs people? It could be said to amount to blood money.

Frankly it suggests that Mr Grayling’s main aim is making money and he couldn’t care about the regimes who pay us and how they treat their own citizens. It also hypocritical. we are condemning ISIS for the same practices. Would Mr Grayling – if ISIS win – be happy to flog them the same British help for running their justice system in the Islamic state?

Also just how wonderful is the British prison system that we are selling. If you look at reports from the Howard League for Penal Reform we have huge problems with overcrowding, suicides and a repressive attitude by Grayling himself. Do we want to export that?

I am wondering how ridiculous the blogger Raif will think it is that the  system that incarcerates and flogs him benefits from British expertise to make money. I also wonder whether Mr Grayling – a  cold hard right Tory – was or is  a supporter of hanging and flogging himself.

Since this blog was published The Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, defended to the BBC the sale of British prisons expertise to Saudi Arabia.

Speaking to Andrew Neil one the Sunday Politics Mr Grayling said: “It is right and proper that we as a nation try to work with other nations to improve their systems.”

 Saudi Arabia has been widely criticised, including by the British Government, for sentencing the blogger Raif Badawi to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail.  Mr Grayling said he “completely condemns” the punishment.

He added: “This is something I am looking at very carefully.”

Amnesty International campaign poster for rasif Badawi

Amnesty International campaign poster for Raif Badawi