Attorney General's Office

Attorney General: keynote speech Stephen Lawrence Memorial Lecture

The Rt Hon the Baroness Scotland of Asthal QC

I'd like to thank you all for inviting me to give a speech at the 9th Stephen Lawrence Memorial Lecture. I would also like to thank Brenda for my introduction.

This year is of course the 10th anniversary of the publication of Stephen Lawrence Inquiry report into the events of Stephen's murder. It is a time to reflect on how far we have come and to identify what more we need to do to achieve a fairer society, and in so doing promote and secure a quality of justice for all our citizens, whatever their background.

During the last 10 years the Government has led what can be described as an ambitious programme to transform our performance on race equality across the public sector and the criminal justice system. Much has been done but there is still a long way to go yet.

The transformation over the last 10 years has shown us that we have the ability to differentiate between what works and what does not, and to use that knowledge to bring about real and visible change. This is a really complex area. There is no single solution. The Government cannot do it on its own; but together as a society we can speed up the pace of change.

I'd like to echo the Equality and Human Rights Commission when I say that equality is not a minority interest: a fairer society benefits everyone in terms of economic prosperity, quality of life and good relations within and amongst communities. The responsibility for building a successful society rests with all of us. And I want to tell you how we are I think doing our bit to achieve this.

If I may, I would like to take you all and, in particular the students here today, back in time to what I see is the foundation stone towards building a stronger community: The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report.

1993- Stephen Lawrence murder

The racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 was a horrendous attack on a young man, who aspired to become an architect. His murder had a devastating impact not only on his family and friends, but it really rocked the wider community too.

The shock and horror of his murder was felt in every home. Families of all complexions, religions and social background identified with the pain and suffering which was written large on Stephen's family's faces. The emotions felt by so many irrespective of their background were: "this could have been my son," or "what if this had been my son?" This was not a dysfunctional family, this was a good, honest, decent British family which had been ripped apart by racism. Here, in London, on our streets, in 1993 and with one voice the people of London said no; not in this day and not in this time. Their voices found their echo in every corner of our nation.

Denial was from asunder, there was nowhere to hide, racism was here and we as a whole community had to stand united against it.

The publication of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report in 1999 was really a watershed. It provided an insight on how we were tackling racist hate crime at that point in time. It set out a huge challenge to the Criminal Justice System and the wider public sector. It contained 70 specific recommendations, with an overarching message to the public sector institutions that it was incumbent upon them to examine their policies to guard against disadvantaging any sections of the community. It was like a lightning rod - it was real, it was here and it had to be dealt with.

Looking back, in the late '90s there was:

o significant workforce under representation, especially at senior levels across the public sector institutions;
o No concerted prosecution leadership on the approach to hate crime as a whole;
o No witness care units, no direct communication with victims and no victim and witness care strategy;
o Very little contact or engagement with communities that we serve;
o There was no systematic equalities monitoring or monitoring to check for potential bias or disproportionality in the prosecution process or employment.

It is really important therefore that we remember how it was.

Where are we now?

Where are we now? What building blocks have we placed towards ensuring effective prosecution of racist hate crime, ensuring a workforce that is representative of the communities we serve and demonstrating beyond any previous power, that we monitor and tackle evidence of race disproportionality in our prosecution decisions?

The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry 10 years ago set out the roadmap to achieve the improvements in policy and practice that we need and which we have striven to put in place ever since.

The report led directly to the creation of the Race Relations Amendment Act 2001, a crucial piece of legislation that placed obligations on every public body in England and Wales to scrutinise how they tackle racism and to take action against it. This resulted in a framework for taking sustained action. For example, many police forces and CPS areas appointed Equality and Diversity Champions right across the country. I want to pay tribute tonight to the Rt Honorable Paul Boateng who is here today - he is a standard bearer who made people take note - we need our leaders to challenge.

In preparation for today, I had another look at the Macpherson report and was struck again by its sheer breadth. Many of you will know that the recommendations from that report have shaped the fundamental changes this government has put in place to support victims and witnesses in playing their part in our criminal justice service. Some might say that we have made too much of the role of the victims, but perhaps it is easy to forget that in the 1990s victims were barely acknowledged. Now we are fully recognising the vital work victims and witnesses play. Prosecutors can now speak to victims and witnesses directly; something unheard of and indeed prohibited in 1993. In April 2006 the first Code of Practice for Victims of Crime was introduced. This Code sets out standards of service that the police and other criminal justice agencies are legally obliged to provide to witnesses and victims of crime. An equivalent non-statutory Witness Charter for witnesses has been developed and was rolled out earlier this year.

In 2003, witness care units, jointly staffed by the police and CPS were set up right across the country. Now fully established Witness Care Officers provide a single point of contact and individually tailored support for each witness to help them give their best evidence. So, if you are a victim of crime a Witness Care Officer will manage your care from the point of charge until the conclusion of the case.

One of the proudest things I have been entrusted with as Home Office Minister was putting the victims and witness units in place. They have and continue to do a tremendous job.

More recently the CPS and Victim and Witness Care Delivery Unit developed best practice advice on monitoring victim and witness care commitments to ensure appropriate and effective delivery.

Many of these victim and witness developments have their origins in the Lawrence Inquiry report. It is a testament to the Inquiry's impact that it has helped transform victim and witness care services for all witnesses.

In the fight against hate crime there have been significant developments. As a direct result of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry the Government introduced racially aggravated offences in the Crime and Disorder Act 1999 and enhanced sentencing provisions in the 2003 Criminal Justice Act.

I lead a cross-governmental hate crime programme, called Race for Justice; this brings government, CJS agencies, academics and victims groups together to ensure we move forward in a coherent way. Race for Justice has already delivered significant improvements including a common definition of hate crime which is shared by now all agencies. This has allowed us to set in place improvements to data collection which has significantly improve our understanding of the nature of hate crime that helps to inform local decisions to reduce the incidence of such crimes.

Race for Justice has now expanded to include representation from other strands of Government. We work with the Department of Health to ensure we effectively serve victims of disability hate crime which remains one of our greatest challenges when we compare recorded crime to what research tells us is the actual experience of people with a disability. Another example of the cooperation across Whitehall is our work with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to facilitate work with other States to counter the significant threats presented from, for example, the expansion of Neo-Nazi groups and the use of the internet to promulgate illegal hate material. We are using the influence of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in international organisations to seek cooperation to ensure these threats do not lead to any increase in hate crime.

We have commenced work to examine how Criminal Justice agencies protect people from hate crime. Race for Justice has carried out a widespread audit of responses from all agencies and has created a toolkit to allow Local Criminal Justice Boards to examine their own local performance.

This audit complements the ground breaking CPS Area Hate Crime Scrutiny Panels which I hope many of you have heard about. What they are doing is opening up our performance to community scrutiny. For the first time hate crime cases are jointly reviewed with the community, identifying lessons learnt that are then disseminated. Recently the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has spoken of the benefits which have already been harvested from this bold first engagement. I for one think that is a good thing. We are learning new lessons every day and we are implementing change.

As a consequence of all these changes, our handling of racist and hate crimes has improved since the Stephen Lawrence murder. In the four years ending March 2009, over 45,200 defendants were prosecuted for crimes involving racist or religious crime. Convictions rose from 74% in 2005-06 to 82% in 2008-09. So we're getting better at it. We're making a difference and we are protecting people.

After the racist murder of another young black man, Anthony Walker, in Liverpool in 2005, Anthony's mother Gee was interviewed by my Race for Justice Independent Advisory Group. She commented on the way the Criminal Justice Service helped her deal with the tragedy. She singled out the comments of the sentencing Judge where he gave a ringing condemnation of the murder but importantly he clearly set out how he had calculated the offenders' sentencing, and that they were enhanced because the crime was motivated by racism. Gee Walker and I feel that this sends a clear message to communities and importantly racist offenders that the State will not tolerate such racist crime. I was also really touched by her total support of prosecutorial and investigation teams. She said whatever happens I know that everything that could have been done has been. This is a great testament to Doreen and the work she has done to try and make sure no-one else goes through the same experience as she and her family have done.

The improvements in service we saw in this case, from all strands of the Justice system, were a stark contrast to the experience of Doreen and Neville Lawrence in 1993. But it is a testament to their perseverance and our determination to ensure no other family has that same experience, has enabled us to change and change radically.

Whilst we can be rightly proud of our progress we must not be complacent - we still do get it wrong on occasions. We know that many hate crimes go un-reported, particularly if the victim is from an isolated part of the community such as an asylum and refugee communities or from Gypsy or Traveller communities. We face similar challenges where we do not respond in a way that is sensitive. We need to address the sensitivity appropriate to the victim , including sensitivities which address when the victim is transgender or disabled. It is vital that we do not create any hierarchy of hate. Protection from bigoted abuse is a fundamental human right in any free and just society and one which is shared by every citizen regardless of their origins and lifestyle.

But it does not end there. With regard to tackling equality in employment we have set targets to secure more representative workforces in the criminal justice system and wider public sector.

Again, the CPS recognises that race equality in the prosecution process and race equality in employment are firmly linked. They know that if they are to have the confidence of all communities they need a skilled talented workforce whose diverse contributions are valued and a workforce which reflects the communities it seeks to serve.

The under-representation of Black and Ethnic Minority staff outside London and the impact this has had on community confidence remains a challenge.

Some of you may know that Anthony Walker aspired to become a lawyer before he was murdered. Last year the CPS launched the Anthony Walker Law Scholarship Scheme. Its aims are to assist Black and Minority Ethnic students to further their legal studies and gain experience of the CPS. I am proud to say that the first award was made in July 2008 and the recipient of this year's award is due to be announced very soon.

We have to and are dealing with race disproportionality. This is one of the key messages from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry - unjustified race disproportionality can be the systematic effect of earlier unfair treatment and undoubtedly adversely impacts on the confidence of Black and Minority Ethnic communities.

Our Government will tackle unjustified disproportionality in the Criminal Justice System. We have a new public service agreement which requires Local Criminal Justice Boards:

'to better able to identify and explain race disproportionality at key points within the Criminal Justice System and will have strategies in place to address racial disparities which cannot be explained or objectively justified'.

This may seem a wordy way of expressing it but it is important. What it is saying is that we must identify where service is not equitable and we must take action to put it right. The work is producing real results:

• The representation of BME groups working for Criminal Justice System agencies is improving. In 2006/7 the Police, Prison, Probation, Magistracy, Judiciary, Independent Monitoring Boards, Victim support, Youth Offending Teams, and Legal Profession all recorded an increase in the number of BME staff.

• Perceptions of fair treatment by the Criminal Justice System and its agencies amongst Black and Minority Ethnic communities (as measured by the Citizenship Survey) continues to improve, with 28% of people from those communities perceiving worse treatment by the CJS than white counterparts in the year to March 2008, compared to 33% in 2001. So it is going in the right direction.

We have introduced the Minimum Data Set (MDS) to ensure that consistent and comprehensive ethnicity data is available to Local Criminal Justice Boards and all criminal justice agencies. This enables them to performance manage their local CJS, identify issues of concern and work with communities to develop local solutions

We recognise that disproportionality can arise from a number of factors. And that agencies need help to determine the causes of that disproportionality, those that can be justified and those which cannot. To do this we have developed a series of diagnostic tools. These tools we believe will enable LCJBs to:
o deal with the issues and take ownership at the local level;
o to critically analyse local ethnicity data in order to identify unfair disproportionality and;
o to develop evidence-based responses to address the issues locally.

The CPS affords the highest priority to delivering prosecution decisions free from bias, including racial bias. Ensuring fair treatment of suspects and appropriate prosecutorial decisions is amongst the most important prosecution roles. As a consequence the CPS has commissioned a series of equality and diversity impact assessments to prosecutors charging decisions going back to 2004-05. The CPS is bound by the Race Relations Amendment Act to ensure that it monitors its decision making for evidence of race disproportionality and takes action where necessary. CPS charging decisions are core to its service and that is why it prioritises research to ensure that the question of disproportionality is monitored and guarded against.

However there are also some enduring challenges. Public confidence is not at a level we would want. Racist crime outcomes, whilst improved, need to improve further. We do not have fully representative workforces yet across the whole country. There is still disproportionality in the system. We cannot be complacent when the Walker family, in the aftermath of their son's murder and the subsequent successful trial, said they experience the system as still '99% for the defendant and 1% for the victim'.

Nothing is perfect, nothing will ever be perfect. There is still a lot of work to do but we are in a vastly different place to where we were before. So where next?

Where are we going?

Well, the Government has introduced a new Equality Bill. This Bill will strengthen the law as well as create a new single Public Sector Equality Duty. This new duty will continue to cover race, gender and disability but will be extended to cover for example age, sexual orientation religion or belief. Unless and until there is equality, we have not taken it far enough. We will do all we can to take it as far as we can.

For the first time a Charter for the Bereaved will be introduced. This Charter will describe services that bereaved persons can expect to receive from the coroner service and sets out the rights of redress if those services are not delivered.

The Home Office will soon be publishing a cross governmental hate crime action plan. This programme of work brings together various government departments ranging from the Department of Health, Department of Children, Schools and Families to the Home Office and CPS. The Action Plan will demonstrate the Government's commitment to tackling the life cycle of hate crime in various stages; that's prevention, reporting, victim support, prosecution, sentencing and probation. I am really delighted to say that Race for Justice and the CPS contributed to it in a really fine way.

However, the Government cannot bring about all the necessary changes on its own. Changing the just the law is not enough. As individuals and as members of the communities we need to continue to work together to bring about change more quickly.

Many of us in this room, including myself, are in a position where we can make a real difference. We are in a position where we can inspire others to achieve what they want to achieve. As a community we can work together by building a fairer society.

As Attorney General, as well as being Chief Legal Adviser to the Government I am both guardian of Public Interest and a Minster for Criminal Justice. It is with this in mind that I will be launching the Attorney General's Youth Network, to help and promote youth aspirations and potential. Part of its potential will be to inspire the children to feel that they can become lawyers if they want to, whatever their backgrounds. But my aspirations go further. Through the Network I want all children to become aware of and be able to defend their rights. Children must know they have a voice and that they are entitled to form and express their own views about the society in which they live. I want them to know that the Rule of Law and the right to Justice is theirs to own. And they will own it, whether or not they choose to become lawyers.

That is what I have done. However I want each and every one of us here today to think 'what can I do to help speed up and bring about the change that is required to build a fairer society?' I want each and every one of us here today to think how can I as an individual and as a member of the community inspire and help others and then take action on it.

Conclusion

We are here today to remember a young man who had dreams. He dreamed of becoming an architect. Architects design houses and structures that individuals and communities want to live and work in and be proud of. Stephen Lawrence's dream made me think about what it takes to build that vision that I have talked to you about today.

When designing homes and structures there are always challenges to overcome. It could be the environment or the sheer ambition/difficulty of designing and building it. Or it could quite simply be opposition from neighbours or the local community.

As every architect knows, to build a home requires teamwork. Every individual in the project: architect, builder, carpenter, project manager, engineer, planning officer, utility companies, lawyer, fulfils their role working together. These individuals and communities are diverse both in their background, skill, experience, and the knowledge they bring. Together they harness those differences to overcome all those challenges, to build homes and structures that we as a community are proud to live and work in.

Well it is no different for us. If we want to build our dream home of a fairer society then we must work together as a diverse team to build it. We have already built the frame and the brick walls are slowly but surely going up. But we still need to complete the house. The roof needs to be tiled. The windows need to be installed. We still have a long way to go before our dream house is finished and we can enjoy living in it.

Stephen Lawrence's death made us look at what we were doing, how we were tackling race and hate and dealing with it and acknowledging it as a crime. Doreen and Neville Lawrence's tireless campaign led to the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. This provided a positive foundation and roadmap to achieve the improvements in policy and practice that we need and have been able to put in place since. What better way for us to celebrate his memory.

He has been an architect but one of an entirely superior nature. His architecture will benefit the rest of society, far beyond that, that he will ever know.

Thank you Doreen for your tireless efforts over these last 9 years to bring this important issue to such prominence.

Thank you