Oral Answers to Questions

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. She will know how much we are doing on victim support, particularly in terms of sexual and domestic abuse. I would like to speak to her about this issue, and about parental responsibility in the family courts, so I think we should have a meeting. I ask her to write to my office after questions to arrange it.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

Last week, Colin Pitchfork, the double child rapist and murderer, successfully applied for a reconsideration of the Parole Board’s decision not to release him, on the grounds that the decision was irrational. I have issued a survey across my South Leicestershire constituency on Parole Board reform. Will the Secretary of State meet me urgently to discuss the Parole Board rules, as amended in 2019?

[Alex Chalk]

I certainly will meet my hon. Friend. He has been assiduous for many years in raising this matter on behalf of his constituents. The Parole Board does an exceptionally good job. There are two cases in which decisions appear to have been overturned because they were irrational, and that is why I am meeting the Parole Board tomorrow.

Sentencing Bill

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move, that the Bill be now read a Second time.

It is a privilege to move Second Reading of the Government’s recently introduced Sentencing Bill. The first responsibility of any Government is to protect the public. Levels of crime have come down by more than 50% since 2010. Violent crime is also down by over 50% in the last 13 years, and when it comes to reoffending, the rate is down by six percentage points since 2010. Indeed, His Majesty’s chief inspector of constabulary has said that

“England and Wales are arguably safer than they have ever been”.

The Bill builds on that record to put public protection at the heart of sentencing. It will enable us to remove from circulation those who pose the most risk and to follow the evidence on the most effective ways to reduce reoffending and cut crime.

Let me start with the most dangerous offenders. I am referring to those whose crimes are so appalling and who present such a high risk that sending them to prison for as long as possible is the only way to protect the public. As the House will know, following the Criminal Justice Act 2003, all prisoners given a standard determinate sentence were entitled to be released automatically at the halfway point, no matter their crime or the length of their sentence. I want to be crystal clear about what that meant. That meant that a rapist sentenced to 12 years was out of prison in six. They were released at that point and there was no power to detain them in prison for longer.

Through the Release of Prisoners (Alteration of Relevant Proportion of Sentence) Order 2020, we legislated to ensure that serious violent and sexual offenders sentenced to seven years or more had to serve two thirds of their sentence in custody, with the rest under strict licence conditions. In the same year, the Terrorist Offenders (Restriction of Early Release) Act 2020 ensured that terrorist offenders also served at least two thirds of their sentence or custodial term in custody and were not released without the agreement of the Parole Board.

We went further in 2021. A new type of sentence was created in the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021 that means that the most serious and dangerous terrorist offenders will now serve a minimum custodial term of 14 years. Just last year, we passed the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which put a stop to the automatic halfway release of other serious sexual and violent offenders who are sentenced to a standard determinate sentence of four years or more. The net effect is that they, too, should now serve two thirds of their sentence in prison. The Act also allows for the overriding of the automatic release date of offenders sentenced to a standard determinate sentence who are found to be dangerous while in custody, and for increased sentences for causing death by dangerous driving and causing or allowing the death of a child.

All those were sensible changes to sentencing that were designed to protect the British people from harm. Now, we go further. Under the provisions on whole-life orders, for the very worst offenders who kill in the most appalling circumstances, life really will mean life.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for giving way so early in his speech. Will he confirm that the proposals he is presenting to the House on the Government’s behalf will ensure that anyone who commits an offence like those committed by Colin Pitchfork, who brutally raped and murdered two young women, and who might very well be released tomorrow after the Parole Board decision on the matter, will likely spend the whole of their natural life behind bars?

[Alex Chalk]

Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to my hon. Friend. He has raised this issue on behalf of his constituents with such assiduity and so conscientiously, with me personally and, indeed, in the House. He is absolutely right to do so: that crime was truly abominable and utterly atrocious. At its very heart, this part of the Bill caters for precisely those sorts of offences, where there is murder accompanied by sexual or sadistic conduct, so that in such circumstances, when the offender hears the clang of the prison gate, that will be the last time that they breathe free air.

Let me turn to the very worst offenders who kill in the most appalling circumstances. Clause 1 creates a new duty for the court to impose a whole-life order in cases of the murder of a child that involve the abduction of the child, murders involving sexual or sadistic conduct, and murders carried out for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause. There will be judicial discretion in exceptional circumstances. The clause will also impose whole-life orders for the murder of a single victim that involves sexual or sadistic conduct, so that murderers like the killers of Sarah Everard and Zara Aleena will never enjoy the freedom that they cruelly denied their victims. The measures will ensure that severe punishments are available for those who commit the very worst crimes.

In my statement to the House on 16 October, I set out the Government’s intention to legislate so that rapists and serious sexual offenders serve their whole custodial terms. Again, the Bill makes good on that promise. Clauses 2 to 5 and clause 7 will mean, when implemented, that those convicted of rape or serious sexual offences will now serve every single day of their custodial term in custody, without the possibility of their case being referred to the Parole Board. That means that the custodial term handed down by the judge on the day they are sentenced will be exactly how long they initially spend in prison. They will then have a period on licence in the community after their custodial term ends. This will ensure that their victims get the justice they deserve and the public can be protected.

End-to-end Rape Review

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I take on board the proper points of the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. I do not have specific figures to hand, but I can tell her that the RASSO—rape and serious sexual offence—units have been working for a number of years, from right back before 2014, bringing the police and the CPS together. I think a couple of things combined to make the figures so alarming. Most notably, there were a number of cases towards the end of 2017—such as the Liam Allan case, which we remember—where there was a genuine concern on the part of those representing accused people that somehow there was an issue with disclosure and that disclosure was not being done properly and thoroughly. That has long been a concern of mine, and I initiated work as Solicitor General to improve the way in which the disclosure was effected. I think that has had a chilling effect upon the approach to many cases.

I do not think it is right for me to apportion blame to anybody—far from it—but there is no doubt that we need to move away from the swinging pendulum—either the perception that it is swinging too far in the direction of too many cases being brought without evidence, or too far the other way, where only the safest cases are being brought and not enough is being done in respect of the volume.

I will take on board the right hon. Lady’s points about arrests. I think she will be encouraged by the review, which is a clarion call for a change in culture and in a way that the police in particular deal with the early stages of the investigation, but I will be happy to engage further with her on the detail.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con) [V]]

Following the John Worboys outrage, the Secretary of State was given the authority, through the reconsideration mechanism, to request that the Parole Board reconsider certain decisions. He does not need to apply the same high threshold as in judicial review grounds of law to deem a case irrational. I welcome the future root-and-branch review of the Parole Board, but will the Secretary of State confirm that he will stand by his welcome numerous references to being firm on those who commit the most egregious sexual offences and murders against women, and will he refer the appalling decision to release double child rapist and killer Colin Pitchfork back to the Parole Board?

[Robert Buckland]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s assiduous campaigning on this most grave and disturbing case. The decision to reconsider is one that I am looking at very carefully. I am taking the fullest advice and will make an announcement within the 21-day period, which will be very soon.

Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Wednesday 9th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con) [V]]

The Government have been taking strong action to tackle violence against women and girls by delivering our landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021, legislating to protect women and girls from serious violent and sexual offenders and ensuring they spend longer behind bars, legislating to ban upskirting, and delivering additional support for victims during the pandemic, ensuring that organisations and victims have everything they need. I am proud of the strong measures this Conservative Government have taken to improve our criminal justice system, but today I want to concentrate on the appalling decision made by the independent Parole Board to release Colin Pitchfork.

Pitchfork brutally raped and callously murdered two innocent teenage girls in my constituency 30 years ago. The young lives of Dawn Ashworth and Lynda Mann were horrifically cut short in the most violent of ways. There cannot be any worse sexual offences committed against women than raping and murdering them. The horrific nature of those crimes has left a lasting and deep impression on the collective memory of my constituents, particularly those living in Enderby and Narborough where these brutal crimes took place. The families and friends of Dawn and Lynda continue to endure endless pain and nightmare memories.

The Lord Chancellor will recall that I campaigned and lobbied his predecessor very hard in spring 2018, at the time when Pitchfork was due to have his first parole hearing. At about that time the Parole Board made another awful decision involving John Worboys, which caused outrage across our country. The victims of Worboys were rightly disgusted with the independent Parole Board’s decision. There was a widespread belief that the Parole Board had completely failed to safeguard women’s safety and had acted manifestly irrationally in choosing to release Worboys. The flawed decision by the Parole Board to release John Worboys eventually led to a new reconsideration mechanism; the rules were presented to the House as the then Government’s response to avoid another Worboys-type situation.

The independent Parole Board’s decision on Monday to release double child rapist and killer Pitchfork has caused widespread alarm; I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan) for referring to the Pitchfork decision a few moments ago. The new Parole Board rules have very infrequently been considered, and in some respects the Pitchfork decision is a real test of the efficacy of the reconsideration mechanism rules.

There is a strong and compelling argument that the Lord Chancellor does not need to apply the same stringent judicial review grounds in law. He is acting as an applicant, not as an adjudicator. The decision for him to take is whether to refer the matter back to the Parole Board for it to reconsider, not for him to decide the issue in its place. I end with a plea to my right hon. and learned Friend to exercise a discretion that this House gave his office for cases of this sensitive nature, and not to allow the high threshold for judicial review to obfuscate his ability to refer the case back to the Parole Board for reconsideration.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Laura Farris will be the last speaker on four minutes. We will then go down to three minutes, to get as many people in as we possibly can.

Parole Board: Maintaining Public Safety

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effectiveness and transparency of the Parole Board in maintaining public safety.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I thank Mr Speaker for granting this debate, and I welcome the Minister to her place. I thank colleagues for joining me this afternoon to debate what is a pressing issue for our constituents and for the wider country in maintaining and ensuring public safety.

Although this debate will focus on the wider parameters and aspects of the Parole Board’s effectiveness and transparency, I would like to draw the House’s attention to a specific and notorious case, which is a matter of considerable concern to my constituents in South Leicestershire—the case of Colin Pitchfork. In 1988, Pitchfork was sentenced to life imprisonment for the brutal rape and murder of two young girls in my constituency. On 31 November 1983, 15-year-old Lynda Mann was raped and strangled by Pitchfork in the village of Narborough in Leicestershire, and on 31 July 1986, 15-year-old Dawn Ashworth was raped and strangled by Pitchfork in the nearby village of Enderby.

Although those crimes were committed over three decades ago, the murders of Lynda and Dawn continue to live long in the memories of my constituents. I regularly hear from those who still live in the villages of Narborough and Enderby who have fond memories of growing up with these two young women and will never forget their tragic and untimely deaths.

As hon. Members may be aware, Pitchfork’s case is not only notorious for these heinous and abhorrent crimes, which tragically ended the lives of two young girls; it is also known as a pivotal moment in English criminal justice history. He was the first person in the world to be convicted using DNA fingerprinting evidence pioneered by Sir Alec Jeffreys at the University of Leicester.

Following the tragic deaths of Lynda and Dawn, which made headline news across the country, Leicestershire Police conducted one of the country’s largest manhunts for the perpetrator. In an attempt to find those who were responsible, Leicestershire Police took the unprecedented and innovative step of blooding over 5,000 men—asking them to volunteer their blood and saliva for the purposes of DNA testing—in the hope of finding a match to the evidence that was left at the scenes of those awful crimes.

In a painstaking six-month process, the University of Leicester, the Forensic Science Service and Leicestershire police combed through the samples given by local men, but no matches were found. Only after he was overheard bragging that he had asked a friend to donate a DNA sample in his place was Pitchfork discovered, arrested and tried for his crimes, during which he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The brutal and callous nature of Pitchfork’s crimes raises questions as to whether such a person should ever be released from prison or could ever be truly rehabilitated. There is little doubt among professionals, among my constituents in South Leicestershire and in my own personal opinion that, had Pitchfork not been caught, he would have taken yet another young life; that Pitchfork wilfully deceived the authorities during their investigations; and that he continued to exercise his freedom and live his life when his victims could not—a further indictment on this individual’s character.

Mrs Cummins, I would like to inform you and the House of the representations that I have made to the Parole Board regarding Pitchfork’s case on behalf of my constituents and the families and friends of the victims. I also commend the Secretary of State for Justice, the Minister with responsibility for prisons—she is in her place today—and the chief executive of the Parole Board for England and Wales, Mr Martin Jones, for their work and assistance on this matter. Their willingness to assist my constituents and me, and their devotion to this particular case, should be commended. I would like to put on record my sincere thanks to them.

The Parole Board’s purpose is to carry out—independent of the Government, the legislature and the judiciary—risk assessments on prisoners to determine whether they can safely be released into the community. As such, it can be regarded as the final barrier between prisoners and us in wider society.

As I have mentioned, the Parole Board’s independence from the judiciary, the legislature and Government is key. For the most part, prisoners who have served their sentence and can demonstrate their successful rehabilitation should be properly assessed ahead of their release. Their eventual release, if granted, is a crucial part of their rehabilitation and sentence, so that they can go back into the community as a person who is changed for the better and who will be able to make a positive contribution to our society.

Rehabilitation is a cornerstone of our criminal justice system and a hallmark of our tolerant, forgiving society. Although our country has one of the highest prison populations in Europe, we are a freedom-loving, rules-based democracy and I accept the need for our country to recognise that a person’s historical actions do not define them for all time. A person’s historical failures do not mark them for the rest of their life. We, as a country or a people, do not lock up individuals and throw away the key. When we remove people’s liberty, we invest time and taxpayers’ money in prisoners under a duty of care to work with them to rehabilitate them, and to consider an avenue towards their potential future release, a new start in life and a return to being safe, productive members of our society.

Questions, however, will remain for those who are perhaps not capable of being rehabilitated. It is not my place to pass judgment on the suitability of an individual’s character or their ability to re-enter society as a changed person. The rates of further serious offences among those who are deemed to be safe and who are released by the Parole Board are so low that it is clear that the Parole Board has robust practices in place to make those judgments from a specialist point of view. It is tasked by all of us and by all our constituents to ensure that those it deems fit for release no longer present a danger to the public. To the Parole Board’s credit, it does not often get those decisions wrong, but if it does, the wider public pays the price.

[Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)]

I endorse everything that the hon. Gentleman has said thus far, and I congratulate him on securing the debate. The circumstances he outlines in relation to his constituents and the arguments he advances resonate strongly with me and with people in St Helens, particularly the village of Billinge, where Helen McCourt was murdered in 1988. Her mother has fought a successful campaign for the introduction of the rule that if a murderer does not give information about the whereabouts of their victim’s remains, that will strongly affect the criteria for their release by the Parole Board. I pay tribute to the Government for putting that on the statute book in recent months.

Picking up on what the hon. Gentleman said about when the Parole Board gets it wrong, Marie McCourt had to watch her daughter’s killer be released from prison under parole. I accept the argument about public safety, but this is about public decency, too. Releasing someone who murdered a woman and never gave information about her remains is an affront to public decency.

[Alberto Costa]

I entirely agree that it is at the very least questionable when someone who has not shown contrition for their crimes, and over decades of custody, has not assisted investigators but is deemed fit for release.

I ask Members kindly to cast their minds back to 2018 when it was reported that John Worboys, a man convicted of 12 serious sexual offences and suspected of approximately 100, was proposed for release by the Parole Board, having served 10 years in custody. His proposed release caused considerable and understandable outcry among the public, press and, indeed, parliamentarians. Worboys’s case was a watershed moment for much needed reform of the parole process. Victims were not advised of the proposed release, and little information was provided about the reasoning behind the decision, and the then Secretary of State for Justice acted swiftly to bring new, welcome levels of transparency to the system.

I was pleased to feed into some of those changes to the parole process, having a link to the Pitchfork case, and like others I greatly welcomed the changes that were made. The announcement of a new mechanism two years ago for victims and families to request that decisions be reconsidered, and for summaries of decisions to be issued to the public, helped to bring the parole system into the 21st century and, crucially, helped to provide victims and families with a greater say in the criminal justice process, to help them seek the justice they deserve. From being a detached and at times obfuscated process, the parole system appears largely to have learned its lessons from the Worboys case. It has become more open and transparent to those who matter most, but it must continue its challenging work of ensuring public safety.

The Parole Board must have all the necessary resources to arrive at the correct judgment. I encourage the Minister to continue to ensure that it has all the necessary resources to carry out its important task.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for introducing today’s debate. In 2018-19, there were 8,272 hearings that were not concluded at the time, including about 2,500 cases that were deferred on the day, or adjourned, because of a lack of sufficiency of psychologists’ and probation reports. Does he recognise that we need proper resourcing throughout the criminal justice system to ensure that victims in particular are not let down when hearings do not go ahead?

[Alberto Costa]

I agree that there is always a strong argument to be made for more resources. In an area such as the criminal justice system, and, specifically, the Parole Board, there is always a good argument to be made to the Minister, who I am sure is listening, about the need for more resources.

The Parole Board has, however, demonstrated its effectiveness in a majority of cases, with a most welcome low level of serious reoffending by those released. Through measures passed in the House, the system has given victims more of a voice, and a clearer view of the process and the decisions made in cases. I ask the Minister to consider how that process can be maintained, and indeed strengthened, to ensure that a balance continues to be struck between releasing those who are fully rehabilitated and halting the release of those who might still present a danger to my constituents and those of every other Member.

Civil Liability Bill [Lords]

Alberto Costa Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

At the outset, I refer Members to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a practising solicitor in England and I am still on the roll of Scots solicitors.

I do not practise in the field of personal injury, but I have in the past—in both Scotland and England. I represented “pursuers”, as claimants are known in Scotland, and claimants in England. I also represented defendants in England—Her Majesty’s Government, most notably.

This debate has excited a lot of passions. We heard the shadow Front Bencher make some deeply unwelcome comments about alleged friendships between Government Members and members of the insurance industry. We also hear outside the Simpsons-esque portrayal of ambulance-chasing lawyers—a poor reflection of the vast bulk of solicitors, barristers and other persons, regulated and authorised under the Legal Services Act 2007, who act in this area. We heard the hon. Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) outline her own valuable experience in this field.

What is this debate all about? I will concentrate on soft tissue injury—known as whiplash. Whiplash elicits much passion among people and is often undervalued as an injury, and I do not just mean that in the financial sense, in terms of quantum; I mean that it is joked about by members of the public—until, of course, it happens to them and they suffer an accident through no fault of their own, but through the delict, the tort, the negligence of another individual who has breached a duty of care towards them. It is right, moreover, in our mature and well-developed society that when one breaches a duty of care towards another, either through wilful intent or negligence, our system recognises it primarily by way of financial benefit, and that is the primary purpose of a mature and competitive insurance industry.

Back in February 2017, when I was a member of the Justice Select Committee, I questioned both the then president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers and the director of insurance policy for the Association of British Insurers. I put various questions to both, but in particular to the latter. I asked him whether he linked the number of whiplash claims with the high cost of insurance premiums, and he confirmed that that was the case, but I also asked him to confirm whether the use of the word “epidemic” was right, given that year on year we had seen a decrease in the number of whiplash claims. His response was that the insurance industry did use that word but that so too did others—namely, colleagues in the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers.

I then asked the director of insurance policy, given that he had accepted a link between the number of whiplash claims and the high level of car insurance premiums, and given the decline in the number of such claims, by what percentage car insurance premiums had declined—what concomitant decline in premiums had been witnessed—and there he stumbled. It was then that he revealed that he did not have an answer for the Committee but that he would write to it subsequently, which he did. When he did, he confirmed that the number of soft tissue injury claims had decreased by 5.8% in 2015-16, but there had been no corresponding decrease in car insurance premiums—in fact, there had been an increase in that year and the following year. The excuse he gave to the Committee was that, as the market cycle started to harden and insurers started to experience inflationary cost pressures from a number of sources, so premiums started to rise again.

I fully sympathise with Conservative colleagues who want us to do the honourable thing in society by allowing vulnerable people and in particular young people to be able to afford car insurance premiums, and it is right that the Government take every reasonable measure that could lead to a reduction in car insurance premiums, but we need to hold the insurance industry to the assurances it has been giving to the Government.

[Gareth Thomas]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alberto Costa]

I am afraid that because of time constraints I will not.

I welcome comments the Secretary of State made in answer to Opposition Members. He said several times that the insurance industry would be properly held to account. The Government will bring forward amendments to hold the industry to account for its assurances. On that basis, I feel able to support the Government on Second Reading—on the basis that, as the Bill progresses, those assurances by the insurance industry will be translated into words that we can approve in this place.

The Secretary of State rightly used the word “fraud” at the outset. This is where I differ slightly from the hon. Member for Cardiff Central when she talked about the ABI’s own figure that 0.3%, I think, of claims were fraudulent. It is my view that the insurance industry, as well as the enforcement agencies, including the police, has been reluctant to tackle fraud because of the cost and that therefore we are not seeing the real numbers for fraud.

There is unquestionably fraud, and wherever possible I have encouraged the insurance industry to tackle it more effectively, but we also need to acknowledge that there is a problem with claims management companies. I am talking not about regulated persons, like the hon. Lady, me and other hon. Members, but about cowboys—people who are not authorised persons under the Legal Services Act 2007 and who often act outside this jurisdiction. I have received numerous calls from individuals whom I suspect are based outside any of the UK’s legal jurisdictions—they use sophisticated telephony systems. I wrote to Ofcom, British Telecom, my own mobile service provider and the Information Commissioner’s Office to find out where the numbers originated, and I was told that they were spoof numbers. The problem is there is an industry of unregulated and unauthorised non-lawyers preying on vulnerable people and abusing the system. We have to recognise and tackle that.

Mindful of the time, I will make one final comment that I invite the Minister to consider. The changes that the Government propose that will benefit the British insurance sector will affect the Scottish and English legal systems differently. Let us consider someone with a car insurance policy. The Minister could be travelling from his wonderful constituency of Penrith to his family home in Perthshire, and the oddity is that if he has an accident in the middle lands, as he termed them once, he might get a certain amount of money for a soft tissue injury from a particular insurer, and yet just a couple of kilometres along the road, under the Scottish legal system, the same insurance company might have to pay out considerably more. I ask him to bear in mind the imbalance that that might create in the insurance industry.

Privately Financed Prisons

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

There are, as the hon. Gentleman points out, two different types of scanner. There is a straightforward x-ray scanner, which will generally pick up on bits of metal and things outside a body. Then there is a millimetre wave scanner, which is able, in certain of our prisons, to detect objects inside the body. These are expensive pieces of kit: in certain cases, they can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. We are now beginning to roll them out across the estate. I absolutely agree that that is the technological future and we will be piloting them in 10 prisons to see that they do what we both believe they should do.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

Glen Parva prison is in my constituency, and I commend the Minister for his welcome announcement yesterday with regard to investment. He said at the Dispatch Box that he welcomes quality and diversity of supplier. May I invite him to speak with his officials to ensure that, wherever possible, local suppliers are invited to bid not just for the construction, but for the maintenance and ongoing supply, of Glen Parva prison?

[Rory Stewart]

As right hon. and hon. Members are aware, in tendering for public procurement contracts we can look at social aspects, including local supply. I very much look forward to sitting down with my hon. Friend, who is a real champion for local suppliers in his constituency, to see what we can do to make sure, in this and in other contracts where we are putting a prison in a local area, that local businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, have a fair chance to participate in those contracts.

Upskirting

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I thank the hon. Lady and I would be delighted to meet her to discuss the legislation, so that we can work together to ensure that as many women as possible are protected.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

On Friday evening, I was at a constituency event, and Councillor Guy Jackson of Blaby District Council was aghast at how an arcane procedure of this House stopped what would have been a very important piece of legislation. Can I say on behalf of Councillor Guy Jackson and my constituents in South Leicestershire how welcome it is to have the Minister at the Dispatch Box today making the proposals that she is?

[Lucy Frazer]

I thank my hon. Friend very much. I am pleased that we are able to bring in this legislation as soon as possible.

Worboys Case and the Parole Board

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I accept that hon. Members are perfectly entitled—indeed, it is our responsibility—to make many of these points. When it comes to the assessment of risk—is someone safe to be released?—that is the job of the Parole Board in these circumstances. Somebody’s behaviour after they are imprisoned is clearly relevant, and such a consideration should be taken into account.

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

For more than two years, I have raised with Ministers, and raised in this House and indeed in the Justice Committee, the issue of the lack of transparency in the case of Colin Pitchfork, who brutally raped and murdered two schoolchildren in my constituency in the 1980s. It was an unprecedented case because it was the first time in English criminal history that an individual—he pled not guilty—was convicted on the basis of DNA evidence.

I strongly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement, and I fully understand the reasons he has given for not raising a judicial review procedure. It would have been ludicrous to ask for a judicial review against the Department for which he is responsible. May I, however, ask him for a simple assurance that he will ascertain the timing of the Parole Board for Colin Pitchfork, so that I and my constituents can understand whether the procedure will be the current one or the new one that he is proposing?

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend is a tireless campaigner on behalf of the families of the victims of Colin Pitchfork, and I will see what information I can glean on the particular case. As I have said, when it comes to transparency, I hope that we will be in a new position in a handful of weeks’ time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alberto Costa Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alberto Costa (South Leicestershire) (Con)]

9. What steps he has taken to ensure that the Parole Board takes account of public safety in its decision on releasing a prisoner.

[The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr David Gauke)]

Public safety is the primary consideration in Parole Board decisions on releasing a prisoner. The law requires that the Parole Board may direct release only if it is satisfied that continued detention is no longer necessary for the protection of the public. Parole Board members are selected on account of their experience and ability to assess risk. Their decisions are based on a comprehensive assessment of the ongoing risk posed by the offender, using detailed reports produced by risk management professionals. More broadly, I have already announced that my Department will be carrying out a full review of the relevant processes and procedures in place for victims relating to Parole Board decisions, and we will consider whether they should be improved.

[Alberto Costa]

I welcome my right hon. Friend to his post. Both of us worked in the same City firm—Richards Butler—at different stages over a number of years. In light of the recent John Worboys case, my constituents have raised similar concerns with regard to the release of Colin Pitchfork who brutally raped and murdered two teenage girls in my constituency and pleaded not guilty. He was only found guilty as a result of DNA evidence, which was a first at the time. What assurances can my right hon. Friend provide for the safety of my constituents and others who have not been fully considered in this matter? Will he assure us that the Parole Board will take into account the safety of our citizens in regard to Mr Pitchfork’s release?

[Mr Gauke]

I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks. The safety of the public is the Parole Board’s overriding concern in considering whether a prisoner should be released, and that will be the Board’s concern when it comes to reviewing Pitchfork’s detention. I can confirm that the families of Pitchfork’s victims are receiving regular contact under the Probation Service Victim Contact Scheme. Specifically, they have been given the opportunity to submit a victim personal statement to the Parole Board and to make representations regarding licence conditions for any upcoming parole hearing.