Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Friday 24th May 2024 Commons Chamber

Consideration of Lords amendments

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is engaged by Lords amendments 33, 44, 56 to 60, 63, 64 and 142. If those Lords amendments are agreed to, I will cause the customary entry waiving Commons financial privilege to be entered in the Journal.

Clause 15

Guidance about independent domestic violence and sexual violence advisors

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

I beg to move amendment (a) to Lords amendment 35.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss:

Lords amendment 35, and Government amendments (b) and (c).

Lords amendment 46, and Government amendment (a).

Lords amendment 32, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendment (a) in lieu.

Lords amendment 33, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 47, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 54, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendment (a) in lieu.

Lords amendments 98 and 99, Government motions to disagree, and Government amendment (a) in lieu.

Lords amendment 106, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Lords amendments 1 to 31, 34, 36 to 45, 48 to 53, 55 to 97, 100 to 105, and 107 to 143.

[Edward Argar]

It is a privilege to open this debate and bring the Victims and Prisoners Bill back to this House, slightly larger and more robust—a description that I fear, after nine years in this place, could apply to my physique too. A series of amendments were made in the other place that we believe strengthen the intentions behind the Bill.

At the outset, I express my gratitude to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), and to the usual channels for their work in a very short timeframe to ensure that we are able to proceed with the Bill today. It is a pleasure to serve opposite the shadow Minister. He knows not only the huge respect but the fondness I have for him. Notwithstanding the six weeks of to and fro that I suspect we may have during the election, I want to put it on the record that I genuinely wish him very well for the future.

On Report in the House of Lords, we strengthened measures on victims to make it clear that compliance with the code is not optional and to bolster measures to hold agencies to account for its delivery. We also introduced measures to give a stronger voice to victims of offenders whose conditional release is considered by the mental health tribunal, to make it clear that victims who have signed non-disclosure agreements can make disclosures to much-needed support services without fear of legal action, and to raise the threshold for the disclosure of counselling notes for victims so that they can now only be disclosed where they are of substantial probative value.

We also tabled an amendment in the other place yesterday to create a new ground within article 17 of the UK general data protection regulation specifically for the victims of stalking and harassment to request deletion of personal data related to false allegations. The amendment will help protect victims from further distress caused by the retention of such data. I put on the record my gratitude and tribute to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) for raising the issue and campaigning on it, and to my friend the noble Baroness Morgan of Cotes for pursuing it in the other place.

I turn to Lords amendments to part 3 of the Bill relating to infected blood. I am grateful, and I know this country will be grateful, to the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) for her tireless campaigning in seeking to expose and tackle this national scandal and ensure that those who have been victims of it receive the support and compensation they deserve.

The Lords amendments do three crucial things. They impose a duty on the Government to establish a UK-wide infected blood compensation scheme within three months of Royal Assent; they establish a new arm’s length body named the Infected Blood Compensation Authority to deliver the compensation scheme; and they impose a duty on the Government to make interim payments of £100,000 to the estates of deceased infected people where previous interim payments have not been made.

--- Later in debate ---

This is my last time at this Dispatch Box in this Parliament, and my last time speaking in this Chamber as the Member of Parliament for Charnwood, because the seat that I have been proud to represent for nine years is being abolished in the boundary changes, although I hope to be returned as the Member for the new Melton and Syston constituency in the general election. May I take the opportunity to thank all colleagues? I particularly thank my constituents in Charnwood and my fantastic staff, Steph Bradshaw and Fred Seaman, who do so much for my constituents, day in, day out. With that, I commend these measures to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

This is the last time that I intend to speak from the Dispatch Box in any Parliament. Actually, I have one more statutory instrument to do, so that may not be quite true.

Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you very much for calling me to speak. I thank you for your service to this House in many different capacities over the entirety of my parliamentary career. I hope it does not cause offence in any other quarters if I say that you are my favourite Deputy Speaker, and I am sure that others share that opinion. That is in no way casting aspersions on the quality of your colleagues, but we have known each other and been friends for many years. I wish you good fortune in whatever you do after you leave this place.

I extend equal thanks to the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar) for the way he conducts himself as a Government Minister. The way that he deals with colleagues from across the House—with shadow Ministers, Back Benchers and others—is exemplary. He is a class act in that regard, and a model of what many of us should aspire to. I have been a Minister, and I know what a difficult job it is, and what a difference it makes to have a Minister in a Department who takes Parliament, and what Members of Parliament say, seriously; does their best to accommodate opinions and measures suggested by other Members of Parliament; and does not think that the Government have a monopoly on wisdom, or on measures when they bring a Bill to this House. The Minister is prepared to engage in debate and consider amendments, and I thank him for the way in which he conducts himself in this place.

As she is in her place, I will mention the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken). Some Members may be aware that many years ago she was a pupil at Radyr Comprehensive School when I was a teacher there, so I did not think that she would leave the House before me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman is right, as he often is. I completely endorse his remarks. I thank him for the £50 he will pay to charity after losing a bet with me that there would be a referendum on Scottish independence by the end of this Parliament. I put that on record, not because I do not trust him but because I said that I would send him the name of the charity after today’s debate. He is a man of honour and a man of his word, so I know he will pay up.

On a serious point, I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution on this important issue. His background in the trade union movement means that he will always be thoughtful about the essential job of helping the weak against the strong, which is what we are trying to do in this place.

I should also pay proper tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North. A few months ago, her amendment to hold the Government’s feet to the fire on this issue caused them to suffer possibly their only defeat in this House during this Parliament, which is quite an achievement.

To echo Sir Brian Langstaff, we must tackle the lack of “openness, transparency and candour” that has left victims suffering for decades. We welcome the movement towards this important milestone, and we look forward to seeing victims get the financial redress they deserve sooner rather than later.

I should say that Les, the husband of my constituent Sue Sparkes, died in 1990 as a result of receiving infected blood.

There has been a lot of discussion and work, involving colleagues from all parties, to recognise the considerable concern surrounding sentences of imprisonment for public protection. IPPs are and were a stain on our nation’s criminal justice system, and we have acknowledged our role in the past. It is right that IPP sentences were abolished, and we share the concerns that lie behind many of the proposals suggested by colleagues, both here and in the other place, in relation to these sentences and prisoners.

We have continually sought to work on this issue constructively and on a cross-party basis, wherever possible, which is why we are pleased to support multiple Government concessions on this matter, including Lords amendments 103 and 107, agreeing to a new annual report and provisions for those sentenced to detention for public protection. I pay tribute to our colleague Lord Blunkett, who has done a great deal of work, perhaps to underdo some of the things he might have been responsible for many years ago.

Progress for those remaining on IPP sentences and on licence in the community is pivotal. We want to ensure that any solutions proposed are robust and assessed with public safety properly in mind, as the Minister rightly said. In government, Labour will work at pace to make progress and will consult widely to ensure that our actions for those on IPP sentences are effective, in their interest and based on the evidence in front of us.

On the MAPPA issues in the Bill, we are glad to have agreed on an overdue and important change in the arrangements in place to protect victims and the public from the terrible blight on our society that is domestic abuse. When the Bill passes, offenders sentenced to more than 12 months for the offence of controlling or coercive behaviour will now be automatically included in the multi-agency regime that exists for violent and sexual offenders. That follows strong support in the other place for more rigorous safeguards in such cases, where too often we see women in particular left to face repeating and escalating patterns of abuse within the relationships where they should be most safe. Labour has big ambitions in government to tackle violence against women and girls in particular—far beyond the commitments in the Bill—but we are nevertheless proud to have put this marker down and to support this measure.

Labour’s commitment to reforming the criminal justice system to ensure that victims are more than just bit players is unwavering. We are pleased to have supported and helped to improve the Bill. Our essential additions, from empowering the Victims’ Commissioner to introducing a duty of candour for public bodies, have highlighted our commitment to the rightful place of victims at the centre of the justice process.

We welcome the Government’s movements in the right direction on pivotal issues such as IPPs and on the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, notwithstanding the remarks I made about the slowness of movement to get compensation out to victims. I thank the Minister for his openness in accepting some of these changes. I look forward to the Bill’s conclusion—very shortly, I hope—and hope that the Act will be a step towards a new era of transparency and advocacy for all victims of crime.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, as we leave the House together, may I start by wishing you the very best for the future? I remember, as a keen young Opposition spokesman, being your shadow when you were Local Government Minister, and I could never have had a more charming or skilful opposite number. I learned a lot from that.

I see sitting behind me two of my oldest friends in politics: my hon. Friends the Members for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) and for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken). We have been around the block—literally—in various local government campaigns in London over many years. It is a certain irony that we have all decided to depart at the same time; that will probably be cause for a good lunch at some point. I have not forgotten that I owe the Minister one as well.

I pay tribute to the Minister for his approach. I totally agree with the shadow Minister, to whom I am also grateful—he has been a good friend in relation to this and to issues about the performing arts and music, which we have both championed in this place—as well as the SNP spokesman.

The Minister has been exemplary in his approach. We are fortunate in the team of Ministers that we currently have at the Ministry of Justice, including him and my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor—although he is not here today, his name is on the amendments—who is a quite exceptional lawyer, a quite exceptional Lord Chancellor, a star in this Chamber and somebody whose integrity and commitment to the legal system will be long recognised.

These are improvements to the Bill—I am glad about that. May I also thank the Ministry of Justice officials? I have dealt with many of them over the years. I am sorry that they have had to put up with some of the things that the Justice Committee has lobbed at them over that time, but there has always been a great, constructive spirit. In that context, I particularly welcome the fact that the Government have taken on board a number of the Select Committee’s recommendations in relation to our pre-legislative scrutiny of what was then simply the Victims Bill and became the Victims and Prisoners Bill, as well as some, although not all, of our recommendations in relation to IPP prisoners; more on that in a moment.

The scrutiny of the Victims Bill was particularly led by the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), who served as my deputy on the Committee before she was rightly recalled to the Opposition Front Bench. I thank her too for the support she gave me on the Committee and the particular work she did for her constituents and for a better and fairer approach for victims in these cases. I also congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), whom I first met when we were both elected to the London Assembly in 2000, for the exceptional work she has done in relation to infected blood. We can work cross-party on these matters and she has performed a great service.

--- Later in debate ---

Those were Simon’s words. He will be pleased, up wherever he is, to have heard the words from the Minister that there will be movement, but I hope that one day we will return to the Simon Brown memorial amendment, the resentencing exercise amendment. That exceptional person, who inspired me and many others, and his family will deserve that, because if it is possible to be both a lawyer and public figure and a great human being, Simon Brown epitomised that, and that is something we can perhaps all learn from.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Chris Stephens]

It is a pleasure to follow the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. and learned Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), and I wish him all the best for the future and thank him for the work he did as Committee Chair. One of his memorable moments in the last few months was to chair the Committee sitting in which I and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) were pushing the issue of the Horizon postmasters in Scotland and what that meant for us. That was a very intelligent session, with many legal experts, and he chaired it in an exemplary way that allowed the debate to continue. I have always found him to be one of the more interesting Members of the House, when it comes to discussing such matters, and very fair. I wish him all the best.

I also wish you, Madam Deputy Speaker, all the best for the future. Like the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), I am going to name you as my favourite Deputy Speaker. You always used to tease me that I have a glint in my eye before I am ready to speak in the Chamber, and I would always be coy when you suggested I was going to be speaking next. I genuinely give you my good wishes, and thank you for all the kindness you have shown me as an individual and all the encouragement you give all hon. Members of the House in carrying out our duties, both to our constituents and here in the Chamber.

What an amazing week it has been. It was suggested that this Bill might not make the wash-up. If that had been the case, there would have been an almighty furore from the infected and affected community. I think pressure was applied by Members in this House, Members in the other place, and indeed the campaigners, to ensure that we got the Bill over the line. I am going to confine my observations to the amendments relating to the infected blood compensation scheme and setting up the Infected Blood Compensation Authority, which I welcome. I also welcome, as I did earlier in the week, the excellent appointment of Sir Robert Francis as head of the authority and of the compensation board.

Like many other Members, I am here to fulfil a constituent commitment, in particular to Cathy Young and her two daughters, Nicola and Lisa. It was one of my first constituency cases: Cathy Young came to see me at Darnley community centre. I had known a bit about the issue—in Scotland we had the Penrose inquiry, which was untidy to say the least—but I got more and more interested, and more and more passionate, because it was a clear injustice. As the hon. Member for Cardiff West suggested, I am a great believer that when it is time for an election, you do not shy away from it, but I do think that some of the events of the past couple of days have been a pity.

On Monday, when my constituent Cathy Young was down here in London, along with her daughters, I think some people in the Government knew that the general election was going to be called two days later. I do not believe that the Paymaster General did, but when he was on his feet delivering a statement about what the compensation scheme would look like, I believe that some people in the Government knew that the election was going to be called the very next day. We are in an unfortunate position, in that there are now a lot of questions that need answered and clarified before Parliament is dissolved. I am going to raise some of them in my speech, because we do seem to be in a bit of flux, which is a pity. I am going to take this opportunity on behalf of my constituents and the infected blood community, who have taken Members of this House to their hearts, as we have taken them to our hearts.

First, according to the scheme and the discussions that have taken place with the Cabinet Office, it looks as though the parents of a deceased infected child will receive the same amount as those of a living infected child. That does not seem right to me, and I think it needs to be clarified. There is also no mention of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease infection among all this paperwork.

A lot of clarity is needed on the confusion between what is a widow’s payment and what is an estate payment. The expectation appears to be that widows will distribute the money paid as an estate payment, but unfortunately that might be difficult, given the sad reality of life that some families do not speak to each other, for all sorts of reasons. It is suggested that widows would receive £16,000, which seems to be less than they receive at present. The Government are also suggesting that the support scheme payments will end, which is leaving a lot of people distressed and very worried about losing those monthly payments. We need clarity and more discussion with the infected and affected blood community to ease some of those concerns.

We also need clarity about individual heads of loss for the infected, because, frankly, we all seem to be in the dark. The uplift for psychological effects has also been omitted. Will that be covered by the injury impact award? At the moment that is not clear, so that is something else that we would want to discuss. There needs to be a discussion about what psychological support services there should be going forward, because this has been a difficult and emotional week for many people. Lastly—this is very important—if people accept the interim payment of £210,000, does that mean they are accepting all the compensation values that are currently on the UK Government website?

It seems to me that we need a lot of clarity and a lot more discussion. I welcome the fact that the authority has been set up and that this place has forced the Government to move on the issue. This has been the House at its best—just as many Conservative Members voted for the amendment tabled by my good friend the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) as did Members in other parts of the House. This is a collective, cross-party attempt to address this injustice. I hope that those questions will be answered, either in writing or in discussions with the infected and affected blood community, because we are all here to make sure that they get the justice they so richly deserve. Any further delays will mean justice denied.

--- Later in debate ---

Do I need to curtail my remarks, Madam Deputy Speaker?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am conscious of the fact that the debate must finish at 12.51.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I absolutely agree with everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West has said about the questions that still need to be answered. One point that I want to raise concerns Sir Robert Francis and the engagement that will take place in the next few weeks. Legal representation is needed so that people can engage fully with that process and ensure that they are feeding in the issues about tariffs, which have caused a great deal of concern and worry. We also need to get on with providing psychological services in England. We have them in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but we now need them in England, and I hope the Minister will take that message back. The other key issue is that of support payments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am afraid the Minister will not have time to sum up, but I am sure that he will be in touch if there is anything he wishes to add.

One hour having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings on the Lords amendments, the debate was interrupted (Order, 23 May).

The Deputy Speaker put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair (Standing Order No. 83F), That the amendment be made.

Government amendment (a) made to Lords amendment 35.

The Deputy Speaker then put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded at that time (Standing Order No. 83F).

Government amendments (b) and (c) made to Lords amendment 35.

Lords amendment 35, as amended, agreed to.

Government amendment (a) made to Lords amendment 46.

Lords amendment 46, as amended, agreed to.

Lords amendment 32 disagreed to.

Government amendment (a) made in lieu of Lords amendment 32.

Lords amendments 33, 47 and 54 disagreed to.

Government amendment (a) made in lieu of Lords amendment 54.

Lord amendments 98 and 99 disagreed to.

Government amendment (a) made in lieu of Lords amendments 98 and 99.

Lords amendment 106 disagreed to.

Government amendments (a) and (b) made in lieu of Lords amendment 106.

Lords amendments 1 to 31, 34, 36 to 45, 48 to 53, 55 to 97, 100 to 105 and 107 to 143 agreed to, with Commons financial privileges waived in respect of Lords amendments 44, 56 to 60, 63, 64 and 142.

Ordered, That a Committee be appointed to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing with their amendments 33 and 47;

That Edward Argar, Scott Mann, Aaron Bell, Paul Holmes, Chris Elmore, Andrew Western and Chris Stephens be members of the Committee;

That Edward Argar be the Chair of the Committee;

That three be the quorum of the Committee.

That the Committee do withdraw immediately.— (Joy Morrissey.)

Committee to withdraw immediately; reasons to be reported and communicated to the Lords.

Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 26th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nickie Aiken]

I completely agree, which is why I am fully supportive of the objectives of the Bill.

I also agreed with the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) when she said in Committee that

“this Bill creates equal partners in the Commonwealth, rather than the more outdated model where the UK takes the leadership”.––[Official Report, Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and International Committee of the Red Cross (Status) Public Bill Committee, 6 March 2024; c. 6.]

The Bill provides the necessary delegated legislation-making powers for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the International Committee of the Red Cross to be treated in a manner comparable to an international organisation of which the UK is a member. Due to the powers under the International Development Act 2002 and the International Organisations Act 1968, which is even older than I am, the Government have not been able to treat the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association or the International Committee of the Red Cross as international organisations to which they are party, because neither organisation is an intergovernmental organisation. Instead, both have their own unique constitutional arrangements, reflecting their specific international priorities.

Therefore, it is absolutely necessary to establish special powers to enable the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the International Committee of the Red Cross to operate in the United Kingdom. It is welcome that the Bill is supported by parties from across the House. It will provide the International Committee of the Red Cross with more protections for its work. The Bill will ensure that the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association can continue to strengthen democracy and encourage cross-party work. I look forward to supporting the Bill through its stages and once again congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke on her outstanding work to get us where we are today.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

As ever, my right hon. Friend is right. Therefore, subject to the passage of this legislation and prior to those regulations being introduced, until they come into force, they do not come into force. We will work closely with those organisations so that when those regulations are laid and approved, hopefully there will be no surprises in them because they will have worked collaboratively with us to draw them up.

The arrangements will detail the day-to-day management of the privileges and immunities granted to both organisations on a functional need basis, and other facilities. Furthermore, administration of the arrangements will be resourced from the existing resources responsible for managing privileges and immunities with international organisations in the UK.

The Bill strengthens our commitment to the work of the Commonwealth and our support of democratic legislators through our work with the CPA. It will also support the FCDO’s global humanitarian objectives, ensuring that the UK remains at the heart of an unrivalled global network for economic, diplomatic and security partnerships through our work with the ICRC.

Hon. Members raised a couple of points, which I will turn to before concluding. I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for a wide ranging, informative and typically well-informed contribution. Craving your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I take just a minute, as I am conscious that my hon. Friend has announced that she will not seek re-election at the next general election, and who knows whether I will get another opportunity at the Dispatch Box? Let me put on record my gratitude to her for everything she has done. She and I served together as fellow ward councillors on Westminster City Council before I was elected to this place and she was subsequently elected. She is a fierce champion for what she believes to be right for her constituents and her community, and she has demonstrated that as a councillor and leader of the council and now as a Member of Parliament. She will be hugely missed by her constituents and by this House.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sara Britcliffe) asked what support His Majesty’s Government will give, beyond this legislation, to both the organisations that we are debating. His Majesty’s Government give the ICRC £48 million of core funding annually, and up to £100 million in bilateral donations. We have a long-standing and robust relationship with the ICRC and a track record of supporting it. My understanding is that we fund CPA International to the tune of £196,000, and we give CPA UK £235,000. We support them through not only this legislation and what we say in this House but tangible financial support.

In an ever more challenging global context, His Majesty’s Government and my right hon. Friend the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Secretary remain committed to working with and supporting the work of the CPA and the ICRC. This Bill gives both organisations the status in legislation that they need and deserve to continue their international operations without impediment; it reflects our commitment. I once again congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke. The Government continue to support the Bill, and I commend it to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

With the leave of the House, I call Dame Maria Miller to wind up the debate.

Sentencing Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Just before the Secretary of State takes an intervention, I wish to remind hon. and right hon. Members that if they are going to intervene on a speaker, it is polite to stay to the end of the speech—as well as to be there at the beginning. I believe that the Secretary of State was about to give way to Neil O’Brien.

[Alex Chalk]

Yes, I give way to my hon. Friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

We are here to debate the Second Reading of the Sentencing Bill, but it is impossible to consider the Bill properly without acknowledging what lies behind it: the prison capacity crisis. If prisons in this country were not at crisis point, I doubt the Government would have proposed the Bill.

The prisons crisis is very much the elephant in the room, and something that the Government are loth to discuss in detail—I notice it did not feature in the Secretary of State’s opening remarks—not least because, I imagine, they do not want to admit their failure over 13 years in government. This will not surprise the Secretary of State, but I cannot let him get away with that.

The true story of the Bill and its measures on short sentences and home detention curfew is that it is a rushed response to the Government’s own failure to manage the prison capacity crisis. The Bill is about reducing numbers, first and foremost, and not about getting the criminal justice system to function more effectively or reducing reoffending. There is a case for careful consideration of how best we reduce reoffending and make rehabilitation a true success story of our criminal justice system, but acting primarily because you are worried about the numbers and are about to run out of prison places is a very different exercise. The Government are acting out of desperation, not principle, and the public deserve better.

On the Government’s watch, we have now reached 99% capacity in the prison estate. Of the 20,000 prison places that we were supposed to see by next year, fewer than half are on track to meet the deadline, and the total will not be delivered before 2030. That has happened despite more than a decade of warnings that the demand for prison places was on course to exceed supply, from everyone from the Justice Committee to the National Audit Office. The situation has been so bad for so long that earlier this year, the previous Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), wrote to judges to make them aware of the significant population in prison, so that they could take it into account when passing sentences or deciding whether to remand people in custody.

As far back as 2016, the Government had pledged to build 10,000 new prison places by 2020. They did not get anywhere near that figure. In fact, the Public Accounts Committee found that they had managed to add only 206 places by that point. In November 2020, the Government pledged 18,000 new prison places, but still with no real plan for delivery. A year later, they said that they would make it 20,000 by the mid-2020s. According to the latest figures, no more than 8,200 places are set to be built by the end of 2025. That represents a shortfall of 60%.

That is an abysmal record—a total failure to deliver by the so-called party of law and order and by a Government who cannot seem to get anything built. Our prisons are completely full and now the Government have run out of space and time. As a result, we have the reforms on short sentences.

As the Secretary of State said, the Bill will introduce a presumption that sentences of 12 months or more will be suspended and instead served in the community. According to the Government’s own impact assessment, the reforms will mean that nearly 7,000 fewer offenders go to prison, and yet these are exactly the same proposals that the Secretary of State’s predecessor’s predecessor—there have been many—told us four years ago were not “the right way forward”. What has changed, Secretary of State? Does he expect anyone to believe that it is nothing at all to do with the prisons crisis?

The Government say today that these measures will aid rehabilitation and break the cycle of reoffending. They are right to say that the reoffending rate for those leaving prison after serving less than 12 months is 50% and for those on suspended orders with conditions it is 22%, but if that were truly their priority and if there were a newfound zeal to deal with this problem—it is, I acknowledge again, a real problem—perhaps they would have done something before now about the 80% of offenders who have a previous conviction or caution. And even if I were to believe the Secretary of State and accept that this desire to cut reoffending is entirely unconnected to the fact that he has run out of prison places, the truth is that the Government are introducing these changes without any thought-through or proper consideration of the infrastructure and resource that would support programmes such as suspended sentences.

The truth is that the Government will not break the cycle of reoffending without a functioning probation service. It is therefore astonishing that there is nothing in the Bill or any accompanying document that prioritises or appropriately resources the probation service. Under this Government, we have seen the botched privatisation of the probation service. In fact, it was so disastrous that the Government then had to renationalise the same service. Only these Conservatives could manage to make an absolute mess of both.

Today our probation service is understaffed, undervalued and overstretched. Workloads are soaring, almost 50,000 working days among probation staff have been lost due to stress and nearly 20% of the new trainee probation officers that the Government boast about recruiting have already quit. We have a probation service under huge pressure, and the problems of chronic understaffing point to a demoralised workforce and overstretched probation officers. In fact, the probation service is in such a poor state that in the 31 inspections since it was reunified in June 2021, only one has received a report of “good”. The rest were rated either as “requires improvement” or “inadequate”. The Government are simply failing to keep the probation service properly staffed, and these shortfalls could have dangerous consequences. Further pressures caused by the measures in the Bill and the end-of-custody supervised licence scheme have the potential to make matters much worse, and the Government’s strategy appears to be to take the pressure off the prison service, only to transfer it to the probation service instead. That is not good enough.

The Secretary of State has previously claimed that he is giving an additional £155 million a year to the probation service, but he knows—and I know, and this House will know—that that is not new money. It was announced in 2020 as part of the reunification of the probation service, to help the service at that point to recruit staff, bring down caseloads and deliver better supervision of offenders in the community. It is fair to say that that money has not yet resulted in a service that is functioning as well as we would all, I am sure, want to see, and now there is to be a huge increase in its workload as a result of the measures in this Bill.

The Government have provided no new funding, no new resources and no action plan to deal with the significant additional workload for the probation service. That is not credible, not reasonable and not safe. We will be tabling amendments in Committee to push the Government on their plans for the probation service, to ensure that it is working effectively and can deliver these new changes in a way that does not compromise public protection. We have all been witness to the tragic outcomes when the probation service fails, and it is paramount that the staffing and capacity issues in the service are urgently addressed before its workload is hugely increased by the measures in the Bill.

Let me turn to how the suspended sentences will work. In theory, both suspended sentences and community sentences should involve robust conditions that work to protect the public and change offenders’ behaviour, such as a curfew or being prohibited from doing a particular activity or going to a particular area, as the Secretary of State explained in his opening remarks. The Government have been particularly keen to talk up the benefits of unpaid work requirements such as cleaning up graffiti. None of this is new. These types of sentences have existed since the last Labour Government, but we have plenty of evidence that 13 years of Conservative neglect have completely squandered their potential, because we know there has been a huge decline in the use of community sentences during that time, reportedly because judges do not have confidence that conditions such as unpaid work will actually be delivered.

Let us look at the Government’s most eye-catching attempt at a rebrand, the so-called “rapid deployment” unpaid work pilots. These are just the latest example of the Government’s failure to deliver on justice and law and order. This scheme was supposed to see offenders, some of whom are on suspended sentences, deliver 20,000 hours of unpaid work in six months. Four months in and, according to the Ministry of Justice’s own management information, the scheme has managed just over 2,000 hours.

Given the Government’s track record, how can they reasonably expect the public to believe their promise that more suspended sentences will lead to meaningful, properly enforced community payback? Just as we will be pressing the Government on their plans for the probation service, we will also seek to push them to return to the House with proposals to make community sentences effective in respect of both reducing reoffending and, crucially, ensuring public protection.

I am surprised, and I believe the public will be too, that the Government are not specifically excluding any offence from the new presumption that short sentences will be suspended—not stalking, not domestic abuse and not even sexual offences. The main safeguards on which the Government are relying seem to be that the presumption will not apply in cases where an offender has breached an order, or where the court believes that suspending the sentence would put a particular individual at significant risk of harm.

We do not believe that is good enough. It does not protect the next partner of a known domestic abuser—an abuser she has not yet had the misfortune to meet—nor does it protect the many potential future victims of sex offenders and stalkers. We do not believe the courts should effectively be strongarmed into keeping out of prison people who commit predatory and abusive crimes in which vulnerable women are most often the targets. Again, we will return to this in Committee, having tabled amendments to ensure that the courts are free to send these potentially dangerous offenders to prison without having to shoehorn them into the arbitrary and inadequate exceptions that the Bill currently provides. I note with interest that some Conservative Back Benchers would like to see other exclusions in this Bill, and I am sure we will return to that debate in Committee.

We only have to look at media reports to know that not exempting domestic abusers from these proposals could have serious consequences, and I will put two recent examples before the House. Under these new measures, violent offenders such as Brendan Dugan, who launched a torture attack in which he bit his partner on the nose and strangled her until she thought she was going to die, could avoid being locked up. After a disagreement with his girlfriend, Brendan became violent. He threw objects around their home and then started his attack. He pinned her down on the bed with his knees and put a pillow over her head before she pushed him off. He then got on top of her again and strangled her for about 30 seconds, while telling her that he was going to kill her. This man received a 10-month sentence and, under the Government’s proposals, he could avoid prison time altogether.

Similarly, Lee David Smith was jailed for harassing, headbutting and threatening his ex-partner with a knife, as well as for threatening to burn down her house. He received a sentence of eight months and he, too, could avoid jail time under these new proposals. We think such cases are a good reason for further strengthening the Bill, and we look forward to those discussions in Committee.

Although the Government’s recently announced end of custody supervised licence scheme is not included in the Bill, I must take this opportunity, which I believe the Government have been seeking to avoid, to bring some much-needed scrutiny to this emergency measure that is already under way. We now know that the Government are letting thousands of people out early on so-called compassionate grounds. Compassion for whom? Stalkers, domestic abusers and other dangerous offenders. People whom a court has decided should be in prison. All of this, yet again, without a word on how the probation service is supposed to manage the flurry of new demand. I have already written to the Secretary of State to express my concerns about the Government’s absence of transparency on this matter.

The end of custody supervised licence scheme was announced to Parliament and the public in a statement to this House on 16 October, but without a word on when it was expected to start. It has emerged through media reporting and written questions in Parliament that the scheme in fact began the very next day. No details have been published on the workings of the scheme, including in which prisons it is operational, exactly which offenders are eligible and how the risk to the public is being monitored. No numbers of prisoners released under the scheme or of those recalled for breaching their licence conditions in the weeks that it has apparently been in use have been made available.

The Labour Government, unlike this Government, were clear and transparent out of respect for both this House and the public when they introduced the end of custody licence scheme in 2007. The then Justice Secretary announced, from the place where the current one now sits, that he had written to prison governors that day, and he in turn published the guidance that they were using for all to see and scrutinise. However, we have been told by the Minister with responsibility for prisons, probation and parole—the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar)—that there are no plans to publish the guidance issued to prisons. This is an astonishing failure, and the lack of transparency in this matter is a huge mark of disrespect to Parliament, the whole of the public and, indeed, victims of crime. Justice will not be delivered if men who have done real harm are quietly let out when a court intended that they should still be behind bars. Justice cannot be delivered in secret. The Secretary of State has had the chance to come clean on this issue for weeks, but instead he is hoping that no one will notice.

The Opposition believe that prison is where sex offenders, stalkers and domestic abusers need to serve their time, instead of in the community, where the risk to their victims and future victims is simply too high. Under Labour, courts will never be required to suspend the sentence of an abuser or predator who receives a custodial sentence. These offenders will not be allowed out of prison before their intended release date, nor will potentially thousands of offenders be released into our communities without Members of Parliament even knowing it is happening. Again, we will seek to amend the Bill in Committee to make that a reality.

The Bill also introduces measures to let serious offenders—those on sentences of four years or more—go home up to six months early on electronic monitoring if they are deemed “suitable”. Once again, we are assured by the Government that violent offenders, sex offenders and domestic abusers will continue to be excluded, but they have not told us exactly who this will include. What exactly does it mean for a person who is guilty of such a serious crime that our independent courts have judged that only a sentence of four years or more is appropriate to be considered suitable for release perhaps just 18 months later? What does this mean for victims? At the very same time that the Government are assuring them that their rights will be enhanced by the long-delayed and inadequate Victims and Prisoners Bill, victims can no longer be assured that people who have seriously harmed them will serve the prison term they were sentenced to. Once again, there is not a word from the Secretary of State on how the probation service is supposed to cope with all this.

The proposals for whole-life orders are in line with our commitments to tougher sentences for those who commit the most truly heinous murders, and ensuring that those convicted of rape and serious sexual offences serve more prison time. Those are measures that we will support as the Bill progresses. However, let us be clear that those provisions are not the main point of this Bill, and the Government should expect that we will stay focused on the short sentence reforms and early release provisions, as the Bill progresses.

We will not vote against the passage of this Bill today, even if we do believe that the Government owe it to this House and, more importantly, to all our constituents and victims of crime to be more honest about the real reasons why this Bill is before us. These are emergency measures dressed up as principled reforms, and the Government’s own failures have forced their hand. We have grave concerns that too many dangerous offenders have been kept in scope for suspended sentences and early release, and that the vital public protection work of our probation service has been overlooked, with potentially disastrous consequences.

We will be pressing the Government in Committee and beyond to ensure that this Bill has a plan for an effective probation service, that they make sentences in the community truly effective and that the courts will in no way be fettered in their ability to send domestic abusers, stalkers and sex offenders to prison, which is exactly where I am sure all of us in this House agree they all belong.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

Hillsborough: Bishop James Jones Report

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

This statement is intended to respond to the 25 points of learning in Bishop James Jones’s report. Of course, because of the delay, which I have been pretty candid was too long, there has been a development in thinking thereafter, but the three of those points that were identified in particular by Bishop James Jones—the Hillsborough charter, the equality of arms and the police duty of candour—have been fulfilled, and I think they have been fulfilled in a way that massively advances the state of our country. Of course people want to have further discussion—I respect that and will of course accommodate them—but it is important to note that in terms of what was requested, very significant changes have been made.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Lord Chancellor for his statement.

Violence Reduction, Policing and Criminal Justice

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected amendment (r) in the name of the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), which will be moved at the start of the debate, and amendment (h) in the name of Stephen Flynn, the Scottish National party leader, and amendment (k) in the name of Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, which will both be moved at the end of the debate.

Colleagues will know there is significant interest in the debate, so they should expect an early—if not immediate—time limit, which is likely to be five minutes. I want to give warning of that so that people can adjust their speeches accordingly. If they no longer wish to speak, they should let me know.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. As soon as the Scottish National party spokesperson has sat down, I will impose a time limit of six minutes on speeches. It may go down from that, but we will see how we get on.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Friends of mine will know that I run an occasional series on my social media about “Westminster weirdness”. Given what has happened in the past week, I really do not know where to start, but I congratulate the Secretary of State on still being here to deliver his speech. That, I suppose, represents some progress for him, if not for his colleagues.

I tend not to speak too much about justice in this place, because that is largely for the Scottish Parliament to determine, but some aspects of the legislation proposed in the King’s Speech bear some relation to what is happening in Scotland. I note in particular the draft Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill. I hope that the Government will engage closely not just with the Scottish Government but with local authorities in Scotland, which may have an important role to play in the implementation of such a Bill. Given the way in which the existing licensing regime works for venues and premises in Scotland, they may have something to add that might work quite well in Scotland.

I am sure that Ministers will want to work closely with the Scottish Government on the Investigatory Powers (Amendment) Bill. I note that certain provisions of the Criminal Justice Bill will apply in Scotland, and I look forward to getting some clarity from Ministers on precisely which provisions will apply there. I will mention some of these things later on.

It was shocking at the weekend to see the attacks on the police happening outside this very building—attacks that were encouraged in many respects by the rhetoric coming from this Government. In many cases, the signal that Ministers and their colleagues have been putting out has not been a dog whistle but a foghorn. To see the far right out on the streets, bursting through the police, claiming police helmets as if it were some kind of war victory and taking those trophies home, was appalling. The further fallout from this of the Islamophobic attacks on women at stations in the city was appalling and shocking. I hope that those who perpetrated all those attacks will be identified and brought to justice. Likewise, those who have been making antisemitic attacks against our Jewish communities need to feel the full force of the law. The Scottish Government recently brought in hate crime legislation in Scotland, and I am sure that it will be used wherever it can be to hold those who perpetrate such hate crimes to account.

Recorded crime in Scotland remains extremely low. The most recent crime statistics show that recorded crime is at one of its lowest levels since 1974. The overall number of crimes recorded for the year ending June 2023 was 4% lower than the pre-pandemic level in June 2019, according to the latest statistics. Remarkably, Police Scotland has a 100% homicide detection rate, meaning that every one of the tragic murders that have been committed since the inception of the single service has been solved. Further to that, a significant number of cold cases committed many decades ago, prior to the inception of Police Scotland, have been detected using modern technologies and brought to trial, including the murders of Brenda Page in 1978 and Renee MacRae in 1976. There is a lot still to be done to ensure that those who have perpetrated crimes are brought to justice, however, and no one can rest until the loved ones of those victims see the justice that those they have lost deserve.

We need to do a good deal more on violence against women and girls. The Scottish Government have led in this area in many respects. The Equally Safe strategy has worked well, but there is always more that we need to do. The recently published “Vision for Justice” delivery plan includes actions to address long-standing challenges in the system faced by victims of sexual offences, as well as the continued modernisation of the prison estate. We are setting out an ambitious programme of reforms that goes up to March 2026. The plan puts a fresh focus on early prevention to prevent and reduce crime and to make communities safer. It can never be just about locking people up; prevention is incredibly important too.

The Criminal Justice Bill that the Secretary of State mentioned talks about cracking down on things, but cracking down on things just means locking more people up. For young people in particular, that will change their life chances dramatically and have an impact on the rest of their life and their family’s lives. The work of the violence reduction unit in Scotland over many years has taken a preventive approach to violence in young people, and violent offending in young people has gone down significantly as a result. This work recognises that young people—particularly in this era, with the impact of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis—are really struggling with their lives and need intervention all the more.

Youth work can be powerful in changing young people’s life chances. I pay tribute in particular to PEEK—Possibilities for Each and Every Kid—and the Youth Community Support Agency in Pollokshields, which have done a huge amount of work over many years to tackle the issues facing young people in our communities.

However, we cannot be complacent. We need continual work and investment in these services. The violence reduction unit also wishes to highlight the work that has been going on around the promise for care-experienced young people in Scotland, who we know from the statistics are sadly more likely to end up in the criminal justice system. We need to continue to work with this group, and to learn from them and their experiences to ensure that their life chances are improved and that the promise is delivered upon.

Another piece of work that has been going on in Scotland, further to the hate crime legislation that came before, is Baroness Helena Kennedy’s work on the introduction of a misogyny Bill to create new offences relating to misogynistic conduct. Any woman in this place will tell you about the scourge of misogynistic conduct, whether it is the growing swell of hatred against women online, the challenges of social media and the attacks on women there, or the way in which young women are drawn into things that put them in harm’s way, perhaps through sexual experiences online or through the way in which these things are dealt with in our society. A lot more work needs to be done to tackle misogyny in our society.

A national system will be rolled out in Scotland to digitally transform how evidence is managed across the justice sector, which will benefit victims and witnesses and support the quicker resolution of cases. We are also aiming to expand the availability of mediation services in civil disputes, because it will save people time, stress and money if these things can be resolved at an earlier stage.

I want to touch briefly on drug policy, because there has been significant progress in Scotland in recent years. Yes, we have our challenges and we acknowledge those challenges, but we are putting significant efforts into tackling them. I welcome the mention of pill presses in the Criminal Justice Bill, because street Valium has been a particular scourge on the streets of Scotland. It is being sold at very cheap prices and with indeterminate strength. It has been implicated in many deaths, so we need to tackle it at source. Again, this is a public health issue. We are not tackling the people who are taking those drugs; we are tackling those who are forcing them on to the streets.

On the UK’s approach, I would continue to urge the UK Government to do something with the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. It is an entirely outdated piece of legislation that criminalises and harms people who have a health issue. It is disappointing that the King’s Speech did not see fit to tackle that, and that the UK Government have responded so poorly to the strong, evidence-based report that the Home Affairs Committee produced on drug policy in the UK. We need to learn from these things, not continue to be guided by outdated and harmful ideology.

In Scotland, we have invested £141 million in drug and alcohol services and made huge strides in the increase of residential rehabilitation facilities, which are incredibly important. We have opened the first national family drugs treatment service in the new mother and child recovery house in Dundee. We have also made a huge amount of progress, as was acknowledged in the Home Affairs Committee report, on medication-assisted treatment standards, which will help people to get that treatment straightaway when they need it.

We are increasing the uptake of residential rehabilitation placements and the availability of lifesaving naloxone. I encourage all Members to go for naloxone training, as I and my office team have done. I had staff from the Scottish Drugs Forum come into my office and deliver training to me and my staff, and the staff teams of colleagues, on how to administer lifesaving naloxone. It is a simple thing to do, and it can save a life. As we are all aware in our communities, it seems sensible to be able to do this. If we are taught cardiopulmonary resuscitation, it makes sense to do something of this kind with naloxone. The Scottish Government have very much been a leader in that.

We have implemented an enhanced drug treatment service, which will deliver heroin-assisted treatment to a small group of people. It has been incredibly well received and successful for those who have been through the programme. Those who completed it have seen huge benefits, and I look forward very much to the opening of the safer drug consumption facility in my constituency next year. It is not yet open, but I very much believe that it will do an awful lot to reduce the antisocial behaviour of people taking drugs on the streets, in bin sheds, and on closes, back lanes and waste ground, and to bring those people inside where they can take drugs under medical supervision. Not one person has died in any of these facilities where they have operated in 100 cities around the world, and I hope that its introduction will lead to a harm reduction approach in Scotland and help people to get on the right track to staying safe and improving their lives.

Amendment (h), which was tabled by me and my honourable colleagues, calls for an immediate ceasefire in the middle east. I struggle to cope with the scenes of horror that are on our television screens every night. The horror of 7 October shocked us all, as has the devastation since for the people of Gaza. Both of these things are incredibly difficult to process. How can people behave in this way towards their fellow human beings? I do not think I have ever received as many emails, even on Brexit, as I have received these past four weeks. Overnight, I had 500 emails from constituents who are desperately worried about this situation and are demanding a ceasefire now.

Both of these things are incredibly difficult to process. How can people behave in this way towards their fellow human beings? I do not think I have ever received as many emails, even on Brexit, as I have received these past four weeks. Overnight, I had 500 emails from constituents who are desperately worried about this situation and are demanding a ceasefire now.

I had to update the figures in my remarks, because the death toll has of course risen. At least 4,506 children in Gaza have been killed—that is one child every 10 minutes, and more than 100 children every single day. A further 1,500 children remain missing under the rubble of bombed-out buildings and are presumed dead. The number of children killed in a single month of conflict in Gaza is more than eight times the number of children killed in Ukraine during the entire first year of the current war with Russia.

Many of the children who have managed to survive so far are sick or at risk of falling ill due to the lack of clean food and water. Oxfam has reported five-hour queues at bakeries and a very real risk of starvation. Nowhere is safe from the airstrikes, not even medical facilities, which are protected under international law. Only one hospital in northern Gaza is still operational, with very minimal service. The Al-Ahli Hospital, where my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) has worked, is struggling to keep going. She awaits news of whether her colleagues and the people she knows have survived and of the current circumstances.

Riham Jafari of ActionAid has commented on the concept of a humanitarian pause:

“What use is a four-hour pause each day to hand communities bread in the morning before they are bombed in the afternoon? What use is a brief cessation in hostilities when hospital wards lie in ruins and when roads used to deliver medical supplies and food are destroyed?”

ActionAid has also talked about the situation facing pregnant women giving birth under bombardment. Giving birth does not fit into a neat four-hour humanitarian pause. Women are giving birth and having caesareans without anaesthetic, and babies are being born into chaos and death—they cannot be guaranteed a ventilator to keep them alive.

Waseem, an Oxfam staff member in Gaza, has said:

“Prices have trebled. The market is almost empty. There is a major shortage of essential foods and essential items. No bread, no dairy products, no salt, no milk, no canned food, no blankets or mattresses. Access to basic services is very limited. No electricity, no water, no gas, no health system and no education. We feel trapped.”

Civilians, who have done nothing wrong, ask us, “How long can this go on?”

Vivian Silver, the 74-year-old Canadian-Israeli peace activist who founded Women Wage Peace, was confirmed murdered in the 7 October attack on kibbutz Be’eri. She was identified by her DNA. She had worked her whole life for peace. When the attack happened, she was having a discussion on the radio from her safe room before the phone cut out. She was challenged on her views on peace in the middle east and, even when an attack was happening and she was in her safe room, she said, “We can talk more about this if I survive.” We should listen to her bravery and commitment to peace this afternoon. Her sons, who have lost so much, are seeking a ceasefire, because they know that this cannot go on. We should commit to peace and understanding in her memory.

How does this end? All conflicts, at some point, end—there is an armistice, an agreement and papers are signed. The question for all of us in this place is how long this current phase of conflict continues. When does it end?

The UK is always keen to talk up its position as a P5 member of the United Nations Security Council, but what is that worth when we do not back the UN Secretary-General when he calls for a ceasefire? In what reasonable circumstances should António Guterres have to go to the Rafah crossing to plead for aid to get through? Why are we not standing behind the Secretary-General and the United Nations?

If we do not strive for peace, we condemn yet another generation in Palestine and Israel to a cycle of violence, to death and destruction beyond our imagination. We commit ourselves to a two-state solution, to justice and to peace. We will vote on the King’s Speech tonight, and we will vote on these amendments. It will not end the 70-year-old conflict, but it gives us a place to begin.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. Those are the arguments that have been used for most of my lifetime: the idea that recidivism is caused not by punishment, or by retributive justice; that somehow this is less important than the fact that, as he said, the people who commit crimes have somehow been failed. For a long time this has been the prevailing view in criminal justice, yet it has brought no decline in recidivism—rather, the opposite.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before the hon. Gentleman comes back on that, I must point out that if those who are trying to catch my eye later intervene before they have spoken, they will be moved down the list.

HMPPS Update

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before we come to the statement, I remind the House that the individual in question has been charged with criminal offences, and that the House’s sub judice resolution applies to those charges. Members should therefore take care to avoid referring to the details of those charges or saying anything that assumes the guilt or innocence of the individual concerned.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. With your permission, I would like to make a statement on the escape from HMP Wandsworth yesterday morning, Wednesday 6 September, of a prisoner by the name of Daniel Abed Khalife.

Daniel Khalife was remanded in custody at HMP Wandsworth on 28 January this year, having been charged with offences alleged to have taken place in 2021 while he was serving in the armed forces. As you have already indicated, Madam Deputy Speaker, the House will understand that, while a live criminal investigation is in progress, there are limits on what I can properly say. Daniel Khalife will be caught in due course and will face a trial. Nothing should be said in this House or elsewhere that might prejudice those proceedings, so let me assist the House with what I can say.

At approximately 7.30 am yesterday, a vehicle that had made a delivery to the prison’s kitchen left HMP Wandsworth. Shortly afterwards, local contingency plans for an unaccounted prisoner were activated and, in line with standard procedure, the police were informed. The prison was put into a state of lockdown while staff attempted to determine Daniel Khalife’s whereabouts. The vehicle was stopped and searched by police after the alert was raised. Strapping was found underneath the vehicle, which appeared to indicate that Daniel Khalife may have held on to the underside of it in order to escape. The search is under way. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service is giving every assistance to the Metropolitan police’s operation to recapture Daniel Khalife and return him to custody. As has been made clear by the Metropolitan police, there is no reason to believe he poses a threat to the wider public.

Yesterday, when I was first briefed on this grave security breach, I spoke to the governor of HMP Wandsworth and senior HMPPS leaders to establish what was known about the escape and seek assurances about the immediate measures being taken to ensure the security of the prison. I made clear then, and I reiterate now, that no stone must be left unturned in getting to the bottom of what happened. Who was on duty that morning, and in what roles, ranging from the kitchen to the prison gate? What protocols were in place, and were they followed? Secondly, I have ordered an investigation into the categorisation decision by HMPPS: were all relevant matters taken into consideration in determining where in the custodial estate Daniel Khalife should be held? In both cases, I have asked for the preliminary findings to be with me by the end of this week. An assessment will then be made of what can properly be put into the public domain. I have also decided that there will need to be an additional independent investigation into this incident, which will take place in due course.

I now turn to the wider prisoner cohort held by HMPPS. In the light of these events, I have ordered two urgent reviews: first, into the placement and categorisation of everyone held in HMP Wandsworth and, secondly, into the location of all those in the custodial estate charged with terrorism offences.

Let me turn now to the issue of prison security. As the House will no doubt be aware, escapes from prison are extremely rare and the numbers have declined substantially in the last 10 to 15 years. This has been due in considerable part to sustained investment in improved physical and intelligence security. That includes investment of £100 million in the period since 2019 on measures, such as enhanced gate security with X-ray body scanners, which has driven up the finds of drugs, weapons and other contraband, including tools that could be used to aid an escape from prison. HMPPS has also enhanced intelligence and anti-corruption operations in prisons, working more closely than ever with partners, including the intelligence agencies. This has involved productive initiatives, such as setting up the joint counter-terrorism prisons and probation hub.

Daniel Khalife will be found, and he will be made to face justice. I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Chalk]

I begin by welcoming the hon. Lady to her place, and I will try to address the points she raises. I was pleased to hear her remarks about not wanting to prejudice a future trial, because we must keep in mind that escape is a criminal offence. She asks whether there will be inquiries into the staff on duty and the quality of training. Absolutely; that is precisely what I have asked to take place. She asks whether additional expertise is in place. Yes, that is already in place in Wandsworth at the moment, assisting with the investigation. As I indicated in my opening remarks, I want to know who was on duty in the kitchens and at the gate, what protocol was in place, and whether it was applied. If it was not applied, why not? Those are all questions I have asked, and she can be assured that they will be answered.

On timing, I have already indicated that I want to have the preliminary answers on my desk by the end of this week. I will then be able to make a decision, considering all relevant information, about what can be put into the public domain. However, we have to proceed carefully and on the basis of evidence. I say that because the hon. Lady raised a question that was factually incorrect. She asked why Daniel Khalife was “moved from Belmarsh”, but he was never in Belmarsh. With respect, it is important that we do not proceed on the basis of misinformation, and I hope I make that point clear. I absolutely understand the proper public interest and points that are being raised. That is fine, but if the hon. Lady needs to ask me any questions about matters of detail, she has my number and she can call.

On who is held on the category B estate, that is exactly what I have asked of the inquiry that has been set up. I mean no discourtesy, but I think the hon. Lady may have misunderstood what I was suggesting by means of an inquiry. This is not an inquiry into the number of prisoners in Wandsworth, which is a matter of public record; this is about whether the right people are in Wandsworth, and whether those Wandsworth prisoners should be there or elsewhere. That is what needs to be answered.

On the independence of the investigation, of course that is right, and that is precisely why I have ordered it. In summary, this is a grave incident—the hon. Lady is right about that, and plenty of the points she raises are perfectly legitimate and we will get answers as quickly as possible. But we need to proceed on the basis of evidence, coolly and calmly, so that when Daniel Khalife is caught, as he will be, he will be brought to justice and justice will be done.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, for his courtesy in giving me notice of it, and for the characteristic thoroughness and care with which he has approached this matter. He is clearly going into the detail in a careful and measured fashion, which is the right approach. I also congratulate the shadow Secretary of State and welcome her to her post.

First, the Secretary of State has accepted the need for an independent element, and the Justice Committee has more than once referred to the need to avoid the Prison Service marking its own homework. Will he bear in mind in that regard the work that has already been done by His Majesty’s chief inspectors of prison and probation in relation to Wandsworth and other prisons? They have real expertise, and I hope he will avail himself of it.

Secondly, in relation to his wider inquiry into the prison situation, when on the face of it there has been a significant improvement in gate security, the failure of gate security on this occasion is all the more alarming. It is a matter of record that there is an issue with staffing at Wandsworth and with retaining experienced staff across the Prison Service. We have a large number of comparatively inexperienced staff. Evidence submitted to the Justice Committee’s inquiry on the prison workforce demonstrates concern over levels of training in some establishments. Will the Secretary of State make sure that those points are fully taken on board as part of a serious review of prison workforce on the back of this?

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to these matters. As I have indicated, the inquiry must take its course and the issue of staffing will no doubt be considered. Necessarily, we cannot go into a huge amount of detail, but what I can say is that in all prisons staff take on different roles. On the specific issue of staffing at the security end of the prison, the positions were staffed and the security posts were occupied. The question is whether protocols were applied, and indeed whether people did what was expected of them under those protocols. We need to get to the bottom of that urgently.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. My party hopes Khalife will soon return to custody. Leaving aside the extraordinary manner of the details of the escape, some more immediate questions arise. Mr Khalife may have been believed to pose a low risk to members of the public, but he was clearly thought to present a considerable risk to his service colleagues and to national security. As such, it will strike people as extraordinary that he was being held under category B conditions, rather than category A, pending any trial.

What is more extraordinary is that prison inspectors reported concerns in January last year about the measures in place at Wandsworth to prevent escapes, after finding what they believed to be potential shortcomings in physical aspects of security locally on site. It was also alarming to hear the former head of security at Wandsworth, Ian Acheson, on the radio this morning saying that, on any given day, some 30% to 40% of frontline staff are unavailable for duty at the prison.

The Prison Officers Association has highlighted that some £900 million has been stripped out of prison budgets in England and Wales since 2010, which will leave more prisons than just Wandsworth overcrowded and under-resourced. The Prison Officers Association’s national chair has called this morning for an urgent review of how prisons across England and Wales are run. I appreciate that the Secretary of State has announced two separate strands of inquiry from the Dispatch Box, which I am sure will be welcomed, but will he expand the scope of his questioning to allow for that inquiry into how the Prison Service across England and Wales is run, in the light of the concerns that have been expressed?

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

First of all, I pay tribute to all those who have spoken in this important debate. We have heard powerful speeches and personal testimonies from those who have shared their extensive knowledge and experiences of how the criminal justice system has failed victims. I pay particular tribute to those who have spoken about their personal experiences: my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum), who is not in her place, and the hon. Member for Burton (Kate Kniveton) and my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), who both spoke powerfully.

We heard from the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler), who lost a friend in the Hillsborough disaster; the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) paid tribute to Peter Brooke, and I extend my condolences to his family and friends. We heard the strong voices of my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips), for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) and for Lewisham East (Janet Daby)—strong women speaking powerfully for the victims they represent and speak out for. I look forward to working with them as the Bill progresses. I hope the Government will listen to their proposals in Committee.

It is great finally to be here after so many years as the Government bring forward the victims Bill—I am sorry, my mistake: the Victims and Prisoners Bill. The Government almost succeeded in delivering what was promised, but they could not quite let victims be the sole purpose of the Bill—they now share the stage with prisoners. I fully support much of what the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), eloquently said in his powerful speech: adding in that part with no pre-legislative scrutiny, engagement or consultation with the sector is reckless, to say the least, and belittles the Bill for victims.

It has taken us eight years and eight Justice Secretaries to get to this point. I appreciate that the Government have been a little preoccupied with tanking the economy and forcing people to choose between heating and eating, but victims should never have dropped so far down the list of this Government’s priorities. The Bill is weak, has no teeth and is a colossal missed opportunity to introduce the vital change desperately needed to protect victims. We have heard today that everyone on the Opposition Benches knows that, as does everyone on the Government Benches.

Only last Friday, I was at the victim support hub in my constituency, answering calls on their 24-hour helpline. The line was inundated with calls. The staff there do incredible work, but it is clear that victims repeatedly return to that service because they are not supported throughout the justice process. I saw the real human impact of the criminal justice system on its knees—a direct result of 13 years of successive Tory Governments.

Let us look at what that has led to: almost half the courts across the country have closed; the court backlog stands at 63,000 cases; over a third of victims said they would not report a crime again; fewer than two in 100 reported rapes lead to a charge; for those that do lead to a charge, there is an average wait of three years for the case to be heard; nearly two thirds of rape survivors drop out of the system; antisocial behaviour victims are denied support because of the Government’s refusal to acknowledge them as victims; and the Victims’ Commissioner role has been vacant since September last year, allowing the Government to avoid scrutiny entirely throughout the Bill’s introduction.

But that is all fine, because now we have this ground- breaking Bill to address all those issues, and we have a Government plan to tackle the court backlog, increase charges for rape perpetrators, and ensure victims’ rights are upheld and supported throughout the system. However, none of that is in the Bill. As it stands, the Bill is a tick-box exercise for the Government, allowing them to say they tried. Currently, there are no defined rights for victims, the Bill states only that agencies “should” comply with the four overarching principles of the victims code, and the Government have failed to address the issue of non-compliance with the code. How is the code enforceable? Where is the accountability when it is not upheld?

One survivor who I spoke to was raped as a teenager. Sophie was not told about her entitlement to an ISVA for eight months after she reported the crime to the police. After two torturous years of uncertainty and neglect, she finally had her day in court, but she said she felt as if she was treated like a criminal on the stand, while being forced to look at a picture of the perpetrator that caused her to have a panic attack, reliving her trauma. The witness assistant, trying her best, told Sophie to “pull herself together”, but there is absolutely nothing in the Bill that would have improved Sophie’s experience. Without an enforceable victims code, it is nothing but words on a page.

Survivors such as Sophie are not the only victims who will suffer if the Bill in its current form is passed. The families of the victims of the disasters at Hillsborough, Grenfell and Manchester Arena will have nothing more than a Conservative puppet if the Government go ahead with their proposed idea of an independent advocate. The role of public advocate needs to be filled by a fully independent, permanent figure who is accountable to families and survivors. I pay tribute to the campaigners who are continuing to work towards that, particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood who made a powerful argument, clearly and robustly, in her speech. Labour would introduce a robust Hillsborough law and ensure those families who have endured so much would see justice delivered and not denied.

Labour’s plan would ensure that victims of rape are fully supported, providing free legal advice to rape survivors. One victim I spoke to, Molly, was raped at a party by a boy she believed was her friend. When she reported it to the police, she was treated like a suspect, and subjected to questions about her clothes, alcohol consumption and sex life, all while traumatised from the night before. Nothing in the Bill will change what happened to Molly, but free independent legal advice would have helped her feel supported through one of the scariest things she would ever do. When five in six women who have been raped do not report it to the police and prosecution rates are at an historic low, free legal advice is essential to protect the victim, and also to ensure that those rapists are caught and charged.

We welcome today’s Government announcement on stopping the use of third party material in a court case. Labour has been calling for the past year for the protection of third party material, such as counselling records for rape and sexual violence victims, so I am glad that the Government have finally listened and introduced that, and heeded our calls on the issue. But how many victims would have been saved the torment and how many sexual predators would have been imprisoned if the Government had listened to us sooner? We have yet to see the Government’s policy detail, and the thresholds remain unclear. I look forward to scrutinising the proposal in Committee.

Labour will recognise the devastating toll it takes when someone feels unsafe in their own home and will recognise victims of antisocial behaviour for what they are—victims. My own constituent, Sarah, came to me having suffered a miscarriage due to the stress she had undergone from repeated antisocial behaviour against her home. It was that traumatic. She was singled out and targeted. How can the Government say that Sarah is not a victim? That issue must not be omitted from the Bill.

Unlike Government Members, we believe independent scrutiny to be a vital part of democracy, so we will strengthen the Victims’ Commissioner role—in fact, we will have a Victims’ Commissioner in the first place. We will grant them the necessary powers to enforce the victims code and lay an annual report before Parliament. The Government would have to respond to the report within the allotted timeframes, in contrast to their current practice. I understand that the Domestic Abuse Commissioner is still waiting for a response to their “Safety before status” report three months after the deadline.

Finally, campaigners such as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), who tabled his own victims Bill way back in 2016, and London’s Victims’ Commissioner Claire Waxman, have campaigned for a victims Bill for a decade and more. This legislation is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to enact meaningful change that will improve the lives of thousands who have experienced some of the worst crimes imaginable. However, this weak Victims and Prisoners Bill catastrophically fails to do that. Victims such as Sophie, Molly, Sarah and many more we have heard about today, who have to relive their trauma every day while trying to move on with their lives, will not find comfort in the Bill. The Bill must truly place victims at the heart of the criminal justice system and not simply pay lip service.

We will not seek to divide the House on Second Reading, but we want an extended and more robust version of the Bill, preferably with our proposed changes placed in statute during the Committee. The human cost of the Government’s callous neglect of the criminal justice system cannot be understated. The Government have a genuine opportunity here, and victims across the country are watching.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I call the Minister, I want to say how important it is for those who have participated in a debate to get back into the Chamber in good time to hear the wind-ups. If nobody came back, Opposition Front Benchers would be speaking to an empty Chamber and the Minister might well be in the same position. Some who participated are still not here, and I hope that the message will be passed back that it is really important for Members to get back in good time. If they do not do so, it is discourteous to the Front Benchers.

Probation Service: Chief Inspector’s Reviews into Serious Further Offences

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I call the Minister, I point out that, with regard to the forthcoming statement, I understand that an appeal against sentence has been made in the case of Jordan McSweeney. That means that the case is covered by the House’s sub judice resolution. Given the importance of the issues raised, I am content for the statement to go ahead, but I ask Members not to refer specifically to sentencing issues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

I thank the shadow Minister for what he says and the questions he has put. Everyone who has heard the horror of these brutal crimes has been deeply affected, and I know that the hon. Members for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and for Ilford South (Sam Tarry) and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) have been closely involved. Their whole communities have been deeply shaken and our country shocked. It is right that the shadow Minister asks the most exacting questions, and he is right to identify staffing challenges.

I absolutely acknowledge the fact that there have been staff vacancies in the service and case load matters. We are recruiting at pace, with extra funding of £155 million a year. We have boosted our staff complement over the past couple of years to a historic high, with 2,500 people having come into post and another 1,500 coming into post over the course of this planning year. To be clear, in any scenario and any staffing situation, these were unacceptable failings that I have outlined. I want the shadow Minister to know that the increase in resource and staffing is happening right now. Specifically to London, we have put some particular measures in place for London area probation around prioritising staff. Given the particularly high rates of vacancy in London, those measures are important.

The chief inspector does not link the failings that we have been talking about today in outlining these two awful cases with the transforming rehabilitation programme that the shadow Minister mentions. We think it is right to unify the service. Over many years, the probation service has gone through a number of different structures and forms. The voluntary and independent sector is still involved in aspects of service delivery, and we think that is right, but that is not really connected with the failings we are talking about in this case.

The shadow Minister mentioned the number of serious further offences, and every serious further offence is a serious matter. Mostly they are not of this order, of course, but they are still serious matters. I am afraid, given the cohorts of people we are talking about, that these serious further offences happen every year, regardless of who is in Government. It is incumbent on us to do everything we can to bear down on that number and to stop these terrible crimes happening. I take a moment to pay tribute to the thousands of dedicated staff working in probation offices up and down the country for whom that is their daily mission. We owe it to them, too, to make sure we make every possible effort to support them, and to make sure that systems and procedures are in place so that these terrible crimes cannot happen again. They are senseless killings that will be forever fixed in our minds, and I know that this House is united in our determination to protect women and girls and to stop these appalling crimes being repeated.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

May I thank the Minister for his statement, for his courtesy in letting me know about it, for the tone he has adopted and for his swift action in relation to these dreadful and appalling cases? Perhaps the House will permit me to say that this is particularly frustrating for me, because in the Justice Committee’s April 2021 report on the future of probation we listed a number of risks, including failures of information sharing, over-reliance on inexperienced and overworked officers, risks around transition with the policy of reuniting the service—that policy is absolutely correct, but those risks were there—and concerns about the quality of reports made available to the courts and of information available to sentencers and for monitoring. All those risks were being set out then, and sadly the service did not act on them.

In light of that, as well as the steps that the Minister has taken, will he consider these things? Will he strengthen the abilities and resources of His Majesty’s inspectorate of probation to enable it to follow up on its recommendations in the same way as the resources of His Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons were increased to have dedicated follow-up teams to ensure that recommendations are swiftly acted on? Secondly, will the Minister make a special point of looking at a comprehensive workforce strategy for probation to ensure not only that we retain experienced officers, but that those who are recruited into this worthwhile and rewarding role are given support and training? Finally, will he also look to move away from the practice of having meetings between probation officers and clients by video? That was understandable during the pandemic, but it cannot be acceptable now, and it is one of the failings highlighted in this case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

Data management goes to the heart of record management. We have talked a lot about how we share intelligence and information, and how to make it better. Of course, how we manage it internally is also very important and something I take a close interest in. The systems we use should be straightforward to use and not overly onerous. Ideally, a record-keeping system should also make us think as we use it and should raise questions. I am told that the systems do that. I am sure there is more we can do. I mentioned some changes we are making to OASYS, to ensure that it includes information specifically about risks to children.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Minister for his statement.

Bill Presented

Climate Education Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Nadia Whittome, supported by Philip Dunne, Mr Robin Walker, Darren Jones, Greg Clark, Caroline Lucas, Layla Moran, Mhairi Black, Rebecca Long Bailey, Zarah Sultana, Clive Lewis and Jeremy Corbyn, presented a Bill to require matters relating to climate change and sustainability to be integrated throughout the curriculum in primary and secondary schools and included in vocational training courses; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 March, and to be printed (Bill 233).

Powers of Attorney Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 9th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the shadow Minister.

Community Payback

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Owen]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I ask the Minister to correct the record. He inadvertently misled the House by saying that I had said that rape is legal. That is clearly not the case. I find it particularly distasteful that the Minister is seeking to put responsibility for prosecuting rapists on a woman Opposition MP. I offer him the chance to correct that at the Dispatch Box, if not in Hansard.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her point of order. Obviously, it is not for the Chair to interpret what Ministers or other Members may say. She has put her concern on the record and the Minister will have heard it, so I suggest that we move on, unless the Minister wishes to say something.

[James Cartlidge]

indicated dissent.