Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Alex Chalk
We have altered the sentencing regime such that the courts can take into account what can be quite significant gaps between the sentencing regime that applies to a 17-year-old and that which applies to an 18-year-old. The courts now have additional discretion to ensure that if somebody is very close to their 18th birthday, they can be treated as more mature, which can mean, in appropriate cases, that the punishment will be more severe.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Almost two thirds of children on remand in youth detention do not go on to receive a custodial sentence, and 17% are acquitted, meaning that they were freed from a criminal charge altogether. It costs between £129,000 and £306,000 per year to keep just one child on remand in youth custody. Does the Minister view that as the best use of public money, or does he feel that it could be managed in a more efficient and effective way with an alternative remand provision?
Alex Chalk
There are several questions in there but the answer to the first question is no, that is not correct. The point about legal advice is very important: people should get legal advice so that they can make their points. That is why we are investing heavily: when the Illegal Migration Act 2023 comes into force there will be a 15% uplift; we have invested £1.5 million to reaccredit senior caseworkers; and we are also paying for travel time. We recognise that; the legislation is necessarily robust and we are also ensuring people get the legal advice they need.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I listened with great interest to that answer. My hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) and for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) and I have constituents who have been removed from Scotland to England and threatened with deportation. Can the Secretary of State answer this question: why are MPs being denied access to their constituents? It seems outrageous. Does he not agree that this is unacceptable and that lawyers and their elected representatives should not be impeded by arbitrary barriers when accessing constituents who are threatened with deportation?
Alex Chalk
If someone is the victim of a “crash for cash” scam, they are likely to be the victim of an offence under the Fraud Act 2006 or, potentially, under the Road Traffic Act 1988. We have quadrupled the funding for victims of crime, who are entitled under the victims code to be kept updated about the crime, to be notified about compensation and to be offered special measures if the case gets to court. Regardless of whether someone is the victim of “crash for cash”, theft or any other crime, the state should be there to provide the support they need.
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)
This week the chief inspector of prisons found that, at HMP Lewes, the Government’s early release scheme is undermining safety and risk management. In one case, a high-risk prisoner was released early despite being a risk to children, having a history of stalking and domestic abuse, and being subject to a restraining order. Is this the Secretary of State’s idea of putting public safety first?
Alex Chalk
The hon. Lady is right to say there are prisons where the standards are not where we want them to be. There are something like 120 prisons in the estate, and we are the party that created the urgent notification system so that these matters can be drawn to the attention of the Government, but I will make the following point. There are prisons that have failed in the past, and we have turned them around. Take HMP Liverpool, which I went to. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who is Chair of the Justice Committee, will remember that in 2017 there was a scathing report about the prison, which has been turned around. It is safe, decent and rehabilitative, and prisoners are doing excellent work. Or take HMP Chelmsford, which had a UN and has been turned around. We take this issue incredibly seriously, and we are the party that is investing record amounts in our estate. In government, Labour boasted that it would bring in three Titan prisons, but it brought in one.
Mr Speaker
Order. Secretary of State, this is topicals. I have to get your colleagues in, and I am sure you would not want them to miss out.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Alex Chalk
We have increased capacity in the system. We have opened 20 Nightingale courts, including Cirencester Crown court in my county of Gloucestershire. We have increased the number of judges by 1,000. We have put up to £141 million into legal aid. We have raised the retirement age. And we are ensuring there is support for victims, including through independent sexual violence advisers and independent domestic violence advisers, and by introducing a rape support helpline, and so on. We are doing everything we can to support victims, to increase capacity in the system and to heal the damage caused by covid.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor will know that there is particular concern about the growth of the remand population in our prisons, which causes great disruption. He will also know that the senior presiding judge and others are taking innovative measures to list remand cases, but will the Lord Chancellor confirm that, to support that, there will be no financial cap on sitting days in the Crown courts?
Alex Chalk
Anybody who appears in court, but particularly prosecutors, must be mindful of their solemn and sacred duty to disclose material to the defence that might reasonably be considered capable of undermining the case for the prosecution—that is literally the most important rule. If they failed in this case, I would expect the appropriate authorities to take robust and prompt action.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(8 months ago)
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Alex Chalk
The hon. Member is right: it is of course really important that we tackle drugs coming into prisons. We have rolled out £100 million in prison gate security, to ensure that there is airport-style security. There are scanners, including body scanners with very high resolution, so that people coming into jails can be scanned for illicit contraband that may be being transported internally; that is important. We are also rolling out additional technology that can scan mail for psychoactive substances impregnated into the paper. That is just one of a suite of measures that we are taking—plus there are the drug abstinence wings.
May I take this opportunity to say that I misspoke earlier? Ian Coates was the third victim of the Nottingham attacks.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend’s comments about the progress made on tackling reoffending, but he will be aware that it remains stubbornly high. We are in an unfortunate position: we imprison more people than most of our neighbours in Europe, but still have higher rates of reoffending. Does that not posit the fact that we need to make more intelligent use of prison, and of alternatives to custody, as parts of a joined-up system? Would he agree that the Sentencing Bill is particularly valuable in this regard, and can we hope for its swift return to the House?
Alex Chalk
I thank my hon. and learned Friend for his excellent point. He says something with which I passionately agree: strip out the emotion and follow the evidence. The evidence shows that there are tools available to this generation of politicians that were not necessarily available 10 or 15 years ago. I am talking not just about GPS tags, which we have doubled, but alcohol tags, with which there is a 97% compliance rate. The reoffending rate among those who live with the sword of Damocles hanging over them can be much lower than for those who spend a short time in custody.
Alex Chalk
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. When I was in practice, I had to listen to the then Labour Home Secretary say that he was going to cancel the three Titan prisons that he had boasted he would open. Not one was built. We have opened Five Wells and Fosse Way, and Millsike is under construction. We have more cells coming online in Birmingham, Liverpool and Norwich. We have rapid deployment cells, and we have new houseblocks in Guys Marsh, Rye Hill and Hatfield. This is the party that is delivering. We will be tough on crime.
Mr Speaker
May I gently say that there a lot of people I need to get in? If we could shorten the answers, that would be helpful.
Alex Chalk
Resolution does exceptionally important work, and in the Budget the Chancellor announced an additional £55 million of support for separating parents, including £12 million to deliver a new pilot. We are working with Resolution and other organisations to implement the pilot, which we aim to launch in September this year.
Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)
This Conservative Government promised 20,000 prison places by 2025, but so far they have only delivered under 6,000. The Justice Secretary is letting violent offenders out up to two months early because, as we found out from press briefings about dire warnings to No. 10, he has literally nowhere to put them. Instead of focusing on what happened 14 years ago under the last Labour Government, will he level with the public about the true scale of the prisons capacity crisis that is unfolding on his watch?
Alex Chalk
Many people in this House will have heard about some appalling cases, but this case is truly one of the most shocking and upsetting that any of us will have encountered. I of course pass on my deepest sympathy to Cindy Legg for the tragic loss of her daughter Victoria. I can indicate that I did enter an overarching view opposing release, and I can announce that he will not be recommended for release. I hope that will be of some comfort to the family. In the Victims and Prisoners Bill we are introducing an additional safeguard: specifically, a power for the Lord Chancellor to order a second check on the release of the most serious offenders to keep the public safe.
Prisons and Probation: Foreign National Offenders
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a statement about criminal justice in England and Wales.
Keeping our people safe requires a relentless focus on cutting crime, cutting reoffending, and making sure that those who pose the greatest risk are imprisoned for as long as necessary to protect the public. That is why it is welcome that crime has fallen significantly over the last decade, in particular with falls of over 50% since 2010 for offences of violence and burglary. In addition, the reoffending rate has fallen over the last decade from 31% to 25%. That has happened not by accident, but as a result of prioritising measures ranging from the tagging of acquisitive offenders post-release, to giving the police the powers they need such as stop and search.
At the same time, to take the worst offenders out of society for longer, we have taken action on sentencing, and those committing the most serious crimes are being sentenced to 40% longer behind bars. That is because, first, we acted to end the injustice of automatic release at the halfway point for the worst offenders. Instead of getting out at the 50% mark come what may, serious sexual and violent criminals must now serve at least two thirds of their sentence in custody. Rapists are now serving nearly three years longer on average than they did in 2010, and we are going even further by legislating to ensure that rapists service their whole term behind bars.
Secondly, we have increased sentence maximums for the worst offenders, such as those who cause death by dangerous driving or who cause the death of a child; and, as a result of our reforms currently before the House, those who kill in the context of sexual or sadistic behaviour will in future expect to spend the rest of their natural lives behind bars. Life should mean life for those who commit the most heinous crimes.
Thirdly, we have introduced a power to enable the Secretary of State to block the release of offenders such as Robert Brown, where release would pose an unacceptable risk to society.
Meanwhile, we are pushing ahead with the biggest prison building programme since the Victorian era. We are on track to deliver 10,000 new prison places by the end of 2025 and are committed to building 20,000 places overall. Today I can announce that we are going even further to make sure that we have the prison places we need to continue locking up serious and violent offenders for longer. I want to focus in particular on foreign national offenders, whom I will call FNOs.
The number of FNOs has increased over recent years to 10,500—around 12% of prisoners—in England and Wales, at an average cost to the taxpayer of around £47,000 per prisoner per year. These foreign criminals are not only putting a strain on the public purse but reducing the capacity of the prison system. We believe that they should, wherever possible, be removed back to their countries of origin, and we have made progress: last year the Government returned from prison and the community nearly 4,000 foreign criminals, which is a 27% increase on the year before—and we are going further.
In October, I set out in the House our plan to reduce the FNO population. We have extended the early removal scheme from a maximum period of 12 months to 18 months, so that eligible FNOs can be deported up to six months earlier. Almost 400 have already been removed from the UK through this and similar schemes since January. That is a 61% increase compared with the equivalent period a year earlier. We have also signed a robust new agreement with Albania, which has restarted transfers of Albanian offenders—the largest single cohort in our prisons—and we are legislating in the Criminal Justice Bill to rent prisons overseas, as other European countries have done.
This is important progress, but we must build on it by making sure that even more FNOs are removed from the country and spurious barriers to their removal are quickly removed. I can tell the House that we will radically change the way that FNO cases are processed. We have created a new taskforce across the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, including the Prison Service, Immigration Enforcement, and the asylum and modern slavery teams. We have surged 400 additional caseworkers, who will be in place by the end of March, to prioritise these cases, and we will streamline the end-to-end removal process.
We are also expanding the number of FNOs we can remove—for example, by bringing forward legislation to allow us to remove foreign offenders with limited leave to remain under conditional caution, and amending our deportation policy so that we can remove those on suspended sentences of six months or more. We are making more use of the diplomatic levers we have to remove people back to their home countries, including by expediting prisoner transfers with our priority countries; concluding new transfer agreements with partner countries such as Italy; and being prepared to make use of the powers provided under the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 to restrict visas for any country where no progress on FNO removals can be made. That will allow us to deport more FNOs directly from prison in 2024—more than double the 1,800 we removed last year and more than in any year since 2010.
Let me now turn to the unsustainable growth in our remand population since the pandemic and the Criminal Bar Association action. This is important. When covid hit, we were confronted with two momentous judgment calls. The first was whether to order mass release of prisoners. Public health advice in this country, as in many others, was to release thousands and thousands of prisoners, given fears that the pandemic would rip through the prison estate and take countless lives. We declined to do that, and in the event—although every death is of course a tragedy—the total number of lives lost in prisons was under 200, thanks to the excellent efforts of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service officers. Other nations took a different approach. In America, where I discussed the matter recently with my counterparts, tens of thousands were released; in California alone, the figure was 11,000. In France, nearly 13,000 were released. It is for each nation to take their own course, but I am clear that we made the right decision for public safety in our country.
The second judgment call was whether to heed the clamour to end jury trials. I believe that would have been a grave mistake, shattering a fundamental British freedom and dismantling the centrepiece of our justice system. The decisions that we made were right for access to justice, right for public protection and right as a matter of principle, but have contributed to the increase in the number of defendants held on remand while awaiting trial or sentencing by over 6,000 since 2019 to about 16,000 today.
Let me turn to what we are doing. On pre-trial detention, the Lady Chief Justice has confirmed that if bail applications are made to the magistrates court or renewed before the Crown court, the courts stand ready to hear them within the short time limits provided in the criminal procedure rules. We are also exploring at pace with the judiciary the roll-out of a remote nationwide pilot Crown court capable of hearing new bail applications. The pilot would monitor whether these additional measures result in an increase in the use of tagging and appropriate support packages in bail applications.
To support that, the Government will invest £53 million of additional funding to expand the bail information service—part of the productivity package announced by the Chancellor at the Budget—which will enable our court system to operate as efficiently as possible by increasing the court-based staff and digital systems that can provide critical information to the judiciary, making the bail process more streamlined. To support that work, a further £22 million of additional funding will be available over the next year to fund community accommodation. We will also increase awareness about the availability of tags—especially high-tech GPS and alcohol monitoring tags—to ensure that offenders can be monitored in the community where appropriate.
We will also extend the existing end-of-custody supervised licence measure to around 35 to 60 days. We will enable that to happen for a time-limited period and work with the police, prisons and probation leaders to make further adjustments as required. That will be only for certain low-level offenders. Where necessary, electronic monitoring will be applied to enhance public protection. Ministers will, of course, continue to keep use of this measure under review. The extension has been requested and supported by leaders in the Prison Service and the police.
All these measures rely on a probation service that focuses its resource on the most critical points of the justice system, especially when an offender is first released from prison. In 2021, the Government reunified the probation service, which brought together all probation functions into a single national organisation. We have invested £155 million of extra funding each year in the service and onboarded more than 4,000 trainee probation officers since then, and I will be taking steps to refocus probation practice on the points that matter most to public protection and reducing offending.
From April, we will reset probation so that practitioners prioritise early engagement at the point where offenders are most likely to breach their licence conditions. That will allow frontline staff to maximise supervision of the most serious offenders. Similarly, for those managed on community orders and suspended sentence orders, probation practitioners will ensure that intervention and engagement is prioritised towards the first two thirds of the sentence, as experience shows that that most effectively rehabilitates offenders. To be clear, none of the changes will apply to those convicted of the most serious offences, including those subject to multi-agency public protection arrangements.
I express my deep gratitude for the efforts of all those working in the criminal justice system: prisons, probation and courts staff, the police, prosecutors, lawyers and the independent judiciary. They are exceptional public servants. The Government will do what is necessary to remove foreign national offenders from our country and we will do whatever it takes to ensure that the British people are kept safe from the most dangerous criminals. I commend this statement to the House.
Alex Chalk
I thank the hon. Lady for her points. She addressed a number of issues, but not the fact that when Labour were in government, it ran a similar scheme for three years. Does she want to explain how many were released during that scheme? I am sure that she will welcome the opportunity to update the House. She talks about risk, and she is right to raise these important issues, but it is also important that we set them out clearly and calmly. First, unlike the Labour scheme in which those who had been sentenced to under 12 months were released with no licence conditions, everyone will have a licence condition. We need to be clear about what that means. Under Labour’s scheme, which ran for three years, there were no licence conditions at all. Under our scheme there will be licence conditions.
Secondly, Labour’s scheme operated in a blanket way across every prison. Ours is targeted and calibrated. Thirdly, and importantly, under this scheme there will be the opportunity for a gold command veto, where the governor has concerns about an individual—[Interruption.] If the hon. Lady could just listen for a moment. Those concerns will be escalated to a panel of senior officials, who will make a decision based on the offender’s history, the proposed bail address and the conditions that could be imposed—not to contact, not to enter, to abide by a curfew or potentially to be tagged. If the governor has concerns about safety, that person will not be released. That safeguard was not available under the Labour scheme, which ran for three years. It is critical to prioritising public safety, which is our focus.
In the hon. Lady’s response there was the eloquent sound of silence in relation to the specific questions that this Government and every Government around the world face: should we have let out thousands of prisoners? She has given no answer to that question, but it is important, because if she aspires to stand here, she will have to say whether that should have taken place. Not doing so has contributed to the pressures that we face, but it would have been the wrong thing to do, because it would have prioritised prisoner safety over public safety. We did not do it, and we were right not to do it. Principle has a cost, and we have taken a sensible decision.
The second thing that the hon. Lady did not address is whether we should have listened to those who clamoured for the end of jury trials. I do not think she is suggesting that we should have, but there is an inevitable effect to that. When we came into office, the number of cases in the Crown court was around 48,000. Pre-covid, it was 39,000, but as it has gone up, inevitably as a result of keeping the jury trial system, a higher proportion of people have been in custody awaiting trial. That is a matter of remorseless, arithmetic logic. There are an additional 6,000 people now. We made the right decision, but we have to take a sensible step.
The final point that the hon. Lady failed to address is what she would have done in these circumstances. She knows, as I know, that she would have taken exactly the same step. To seek to make political capital is beneath her.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I commend the Secretary of State for his characteristically thoughtful and measured approach. Does he agree that it does no one any good service to try to reduce this issue to simplistic arguments? The truth is that dealing with prison capacity, where everyone has recognised for many years that there are real pressures, demands a careful set of checks and balances. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that those are in place? Does he also agree that we need to be honest with the public in saying that, however much we try, prison places are expensive and finite. Therefore, the system must make judicious and intelligent use of prison, which includes locking up those who are dangerous and having alternative ways of dealing with and punishing those who are not dangerous to the community. Is that not the objective?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(9 months, 1 week ago)
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Alex Chalk
This is an important point. We do deprive people of liberty and sometimes we have to do so in the case of those on remand, but the conditions must be safe, decent and humane—austere, yes, but humane as well. I commend the hon. Gentleman for going to see the Scrubs with the Prisons Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), and I shall be very interested to hear his views thereafter.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
We need to tackle the revolving door of reoffending in our justice system, yet the reoffending rate, as a proportion of those leaving prison, continues to rise. Whatever the Secretary of State may say, I have heard time and again that the lack of secure housing, adequate and appropriate healthcare, education, job training and job support means that prisoners are being left to fail after they are released. It is the victims of crime who suffer when ex-prisoners reoffend. Can the Secretary of State announce when the Government expect the reoffending rate to go down?
Alex Chalk
My heart goes out to Roger and people like him. I have constituents who are affected, as I am sure everyone in this House does. We are a fair-minded nation, which is why it strikes us to the core. The hon. Lady asks me to liaise with the Department for Business and Trade. Of course the MOJ will do everything it properly can, but DBT is leading on this. It is also worth reflecting that £160 million has already been paid out across the three schemes, and there is a very important, swift and robust approach of paying £600,000 to those who have their convictions quashed. That is the right approach. It is exceptional, but these are exceptional circumstances.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend will know that, only last week, the Court of Appeal criminal division, presided over by the Lady Chief Justice, quashed in bulk a number of Horizon appeals, on the basis of a half-hour hearing. When the cases get to court, the courts can deal with them swiftly.
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that in framing any legislation, because of the constitutional implications, it is important that we bear in mind that the failures are the failure of a prosecutor to do their duty, or perhaps the failure of the state to come to the aid of victims, but they are not the failure of the courts, which always acted entirely properly on the material put before them by the parties at the time? It was a failure of the parties, not of the courts.
Alex Chalk
As always, my hon. Friend gets to the heart of it. This was a failure of the Post Office, which is an emanation of the state, and it is the duty of the state to put it right. The courts have approached this entirely properly. The Post Office failed to discharge the solemn obligations on any prosecutor to act fairly and to comply with their obligations under section 3 of the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 to disclose material that might reasonably be considered capable of undermining the case of the prosecution, or of assisting the case of the defence. When I was prosecuting, the first rule was that we did not seek a conviction at all costs, which is an important principle that the Post Office failed to appreciate.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
Whistleblowers have come forward to provide information that Fujitsu was given an additional contract by the Post Office in 2013 to re-platform transaction data that was previously held on an external storage system that was considered to be the gold standard. It was replaced by a system that made it virtually impossible to investigate financial transactions in a forensic audit. Does the Justice Secretary share our concern that this decision effectively destroyed evidence, preventing exactly the sort of audit trail that would exonerate those sub-postmasters who were convicted?
Steve Double
As my right hon. and learned Friend just mentioned, he spent a day wearing a GPS tag, along with Jack Elsom from The Sun. Could he outline what he learned from that experience, and say whether he thinks GPS tags are a robust and effective means of monitoring and punishing low-level offenders? Will he reveal to the House who else from the Lobby is on his list to be tagged?
Alex Chalk
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. There is a serious point here: our modern GPS tags act as a constant physical reminder that debts to society must be repaid and that breach of a court order will be detected, so that a person who steps over the line, literally or metaphorically, and enters an area from which he is barred knows that he is liable to be returned to court and sent to prison. We could put the entire Lobby on alcohol tags, but I think that would deal a fatal blow to the UK drinks industry.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Mr Speaker
Order. Sir Edward, you should know better. This is topicals. You are a member of the Panel of Chairs as well; you are meant to set an example, not abuse your position.
Alex Chalk
I do not have the advantage of having listened to Lord Hoffmann, but we do not think that the Strasbourg Court will need to intervene, given that our domestic courts will have carefully assessed whether anyone we intend to remove to Rwanda would suffer serious and irreversible harm.
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend has done spectacular work on this issue. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service published a policy framework setting out the steps prisons and probation services must take to meet their duty to refer those at risk of homelessness. I was reading it this morning, and it contains template referral forms—and many other aids—that are to be filled out at prescribed points in the prisoner journey. Governors are now held to account, as my hon. Friend rightly indicates, for their record on preparing prisoners for life post release, which is why I am able to say that in 2022-23, some 86% of prisoners were accommodated on the first night of release. That is up from 80% in 2019.
Mr Speaker
I know that question was on the Order Paper to be taken before topicals, but if the Justice Secretary could shorten his answers to make sure everyone has time in topicals, that would help me and others.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that those who come to our country and betray this nation’s trust by acting illegally should not expect a warm welcome. That is why one of the things I am most proud of is signing a further prisoner transfer agreement with the Albanians to ensure that the British people, having suffered the initial crime, do not suffer the double punishment of having to pay £49,000 a year to house them in bed and breakfast accommodation in the United Kingdom. We will send them back, and that is exactly what we are doing.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
May I take the Justice Secretary back to his interesting observations on the Rwanda Bill? He has said that the whole debate around the ECHR
“has been tainted by a misunderstanding of what the actual rights are, as though they are a foreign import that do not reflect some of the cultural norms in our country…nothing could be further from the truth.”—[Official Report, 13 February 2019; Vol. 654, c. 376WH.]
When it comes to the Rwanda Bill, why is he failing to uphold the ECHR and the Human Rights Act, which embody so many of the legal principles that the people of these islands hold so dear?
Mr Speaker
Order. This is topical questions. I have to get everybody else in. If the hon. Lady is going to ask a topical question, it must be short and quick to allow others to ask theirs. Has the Minister been briefed on what is being asked?
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Little Tallulah passed away aged two on 2 November last year after those services failed her. How can her parents get some justice?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(1 year ago)
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Alex Chalk
I am proud of the fact that, unlike the previous Government, we are rolling out a prison expansion programme—something that entirely defeated the Labour party when it was in office. Labour said it was going to roll out three Titan prisons. How many did it produce? Absolutely none. On bail, it is the case that the number of those awaiting trial is higher, and up by 6,000 compared with the pre-covid period. That is why this Government are expanding capacity on the estate. We have 1,000 more judges, we are increasing the amount of legal aid, and we are ensuring that when people come to be sentenced, unlike under the Labour Government, they are going to prison for longer.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The Secretary of State’s emergency early release scheme is meant to tackle a capacity crisis that is entirely of this Government’s making, and it excludes only serious violence. Surely domestic abuse and stalking are serious offences, yet they are not excluded from early release. What kind of signal does that give to victims, the public, and indeed perpetrators of violence against women and girls?
Alex Chalk
We will make whatever appropriate announcements in due course; we will not demur from that. We will also not apologise for having, under this Government, a higher custodial population than before. We are taking robust steps to ensure that the public are protected, which means unashamedly that those who commit the most serious offences—those such as murder in the context of sexual or sadistic conduct—go to prison for the rest of their lives. Will the hon. Member support that? I wonder. We are also using the evidence so that those capable of rehabilitation are rehabilitated. One thing that we will not ever put at risk is the threat to women and girls. As the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris), indicated, we have taken steps to ensure that victims of domestic abuse will be properly protected under the Government.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Alex Chalk
Those who behave in such an appalling way should expect to feel exactly that: the full force of the law. Let me be crystal clear: those who pose a particular threat to individuals can expect to hear the clang of the prison gate. Those who commit offences while subject to an order—be it, for instance, a community order, a stalking prevention order or a domestic abuse protection order—can also expect to be outwith the presumption. Through the use of tags, we can ensure that people who do not abide by stringent requirements—which, by the way, could include not going to a particular shopping precinct—can expect one outcome, and one outcome only: prison.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
In response to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), the Secretary of State said that he had recruited 1,000 additional probation officers, but in fact that recruitment campaign has resulted in 76 fewer probation officers between March last year and March this year. Owing to the excessive workload, staff are leaving in droves. The proposed new presumption in favour of extended sentences and the extension of electronic monitoring will simply offload more pressure from prisons on to the probation service, will it not? What are the Government doing to address these issues of excessive workload and the loss of probation staff?
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend speaks with great authority as a magistrate, and I know from my own experience as a practitioner how important stand-down reports are. They provide the bench with information about the offender—their relationship situation, their record of previous convictions, their mental health problems and so on—so that the court can tailor a disposal that punishes the offender but also progresses their rehabilitation. We are working closely with the probation service to ensure that that resource is properly allocated so that we can have more stand-down reports to ensure better justice on the facts of each case.
Sir Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)
Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the judiciary must not make incendiary comments about Israel? At Walsall magistrates court, a district judge recently acquitted defendants who had vandalised a factory, believing it to be supplying Israel, and is reported to have told them their action was
“proportionate in comparison to the crimes against humanity which they were acting to stop.”
Does he agree that judges are supposed to uphold the law, not encourage its breach? This brings our legal system into ill-repute, so will he take this from me as a complaint to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office?
Mr Speaker
Order. We are not meant to criticise the courts, and I know that such a learned Gentleman will know better; I am sure we can avoid any criticism.
Alex Chalk
I simply note the question. Plainly, I make no comment on the specifics. I have heard my right hon. and learned Friend’s point, and I will happily take it up with him subsequently.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(1 year, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alex Chalk
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and will be happy to meet him to discuss that. I am glad that he paid tribute to prison officers, who do spectacularly important work. One thing I am proud of delivering is body-worn video cameras for all of them, because that is so important for de-escalating volatile situations and potentially gathering evidence so that they can see justice done.
Joint enterprise is a sensitive issue. I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a proper interest in it, but it is the legal doctrine that ensures that the getaway driver does not avoid culpability, that the lookout of the armed robbery is also culpable, and that the person who supplies the murder weapon, knowing that it will be used in that offence, also cannot escape liability. The Court of Appeal has considered this at some length in the case of Jogee, and we have to be very careful before seeking to recalibrate it. However, I am happy to discuss it with the hon. Gentleman at a time of his choosing.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I am sure that the Lord Chancellor, as well as thanking the current Lord Chief Justice for his work, will welcome the appointment of Dame Sue Carr as the first woman Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and look forward to working with her, too. Does the Lord Chancellor agree that one of the real areas of concern and pressure on prisons is the growth in the remand population? In January, before he was appointed to office, the Justice Committee produced a report on remand, from which some recommendations were accepted and some were not. Will he revisit some of those recommendations and see what more we can do to bear down in particular on the growth in remand for people who after all have not yet been convicted?
Alex Chalk
Those are excellent points. Let me begin by joining my hon. Friend in welcoming Dame Sue Carr, whose appointment has been hugely welcomed across the political spectrum, across the legal sector and beyond. I also pay tribute to Lord Burnett. I think I speak on behalf of everyone in the House in saying that there is nothing but regard and respect for the contribution that he has made.
On remand, my hon. Friend is absolutely correct. It is worth reflecting that, compared with the pre-pandemic period, there are between 4,500 and 5,000 more of those people in custody. As he rightly pointed out, they have not been convicted of any crime. Technology, such as electronically monitored tags, can be of assistance. It is for the bench or the Crown Court judge to decide whether there are reasonable grounds to believe that, if released on bail, that person would commit further offences or fail to surrender, but I know that the courts will want to bear the technological options in mind.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
Over the past 10 years, more than 3,000 prison places have closed and community sentences have halved, and the three new prisons planned will not open before 2027 at the earliest. No wonder we have a prison capacity crisis, with the Government having to commandeer police cells and judges being told to jail fewer people. How can the public have faith that they will be protected and that crime will be punished when that is the Government’s record?
Alex Chalk
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise this matter. Yes, we will be robust, but we will also be fair, and being fair means ensuring that basic standards relating to human behaviour and the way we treat our fellow human beings are upheld. When, as part of our robust arrangements with Albania, 200 of the most serious offenders—each costing us about £40,000 a year—are transferred there, that will happen in a dignified and appropriate way, and they will be serving in conditions with which both the hon. Gentleman and I will feel comfortable.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
The UK Government are reportedly paying jailed Albanian offenders £1,500 to return to their country of origin as part of an early release scheme. Can the Secretary of State tell us how many of those whom he has sent back have been eligible for that money, and how—given that one of them has told the BBC that he plans to come back to the UK within days or weeks of his release—he can be sure that this scheme is an effective deterrent?
Alex Chalk
We keep all these matters under review and my hon. Friend will know well that the role of a knife in the commission of criminal offences is already reflected in the criminal justice sentencing rules. For example, the starting point for a murder that is committed with a knife that is brought to a scene is considerably higher than it is in other circumstances. We also wish to ensure that knives do not get into prisons, which is why, as part of our £100 million security investment programme, we have funded enhanced gate security in 42 high-risk prison sites. On the issue of sentencing, we keep all matters under review, and I would be happy to discuss that with my hon. Friend.
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
May I add my congratulations to Dame Sue Carr on her historic appointment?
When he was Chancellor, the current Prime Minister let the murderous boss of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, bypass sanctions so that he could abuse our courts to silence a British journalist who was exposing his crimes. Why did the British Government side with this Russian war criminal over the British press?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Alex Chalk
Respectfully, the hon. Gentleman may not have quite read the entirety of the Bill, which makes it clear that in appropriate cases where there is an imminent risk of serious and irreversible harm, there will be the opportunity to make those points. He mentions Magna Carta; Magna Carta also includes the right to be tried by a jury of one’s peers, which he apparently wants to get rid of. I am interested to note that one of the most effective critics of that proposal was none other than the most eminent Scottish jurist Lord Hope of Craighead.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I start by congratulating the new Justice Secretary on his appointment: he has always come across as a measured and principled parliamentarian, and someone who is very serious about the rule of law. But what better way to trash that hard-earned reputation than by penning a joint opinion piece with the Home Secretary in defence of the outrageous Illegal Migration Bill, which blatantly trashes four international rights conventions and which the Law Society itself has warned has serious implications for the UK’s standing as a country that upholds the rule of law? Why is the Justice Secretary defending the Home Secretary instead of the rule of law?
Alex Chalk
Human rights are important. I refer the hon. Lady to the answer I gave a few moments ago.
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend makes powerful points, and they are borne very much in mind.
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
I welcome the Justice Secretary to his place. Positive obligations are a cornerstone of the Human Rights Act 1998. They mean that the state must protect as well as refrain from restricting our rights. The victims of the black cab rapist John Worboys used these obligations to hold the police to account for failing to properly investigate more than 105 alleged rapes and sexual assaults perpetrated by him. How can this Government be trusted on ending violence against women and girls when the previous Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) wanted to rip up that Act and those obligations? Will the new Justice Secretary commit himself to protecting them and the rights they give to victims?
Alex Chalk
The rights that the hon. Lady refers to derive from the European convention on human rights: the right to life, the privilege against torture and inhumane or degrading treatment, the right to a fair trial, the right to a family life, and so on. Those stand apart from the Human Rights Act, but she is correct to say that they are important rights. The only thing I would take issue with is where she talks about violence against women and girls. It is the Conservative party that made coercive and controlling behaviour a criminal offence—Labour did not. It is this party that made stalking a criminal offence—Labour did not. It is this party that made non-fatal strangulation a stand-alone criminal offence—Labour did not. And it is this party that passed Acts such as the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and will pass Acts such as the Victims and Prisoners Bill to ensure that victims are properly served.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
Sorry, Mr Speaker; I was so excited giving that last answer. SLAPPs involve abusing the legal process to shut down legitimate investigations and criticisms that wealthy individuals might find inconvenient. We will introduce a new statutory definition, an early dismissal process to strike out SLAPP litigation and protections against excessive legal costs. We are looking closely at a number of legislative avenues to pursue that.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s answer to the question from the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards), but how can he introduce fresh challenges for the Department when the backlog is so severe? A visit to Wandsworth prison at Easter with a cross-party group of MPs showed that 75% of prisoners were still waiting for a basic sentence. [Interruption.] While he is reassessing his priorities—and introducing new things such as legislation on SLAPPs—will he reconsider the day job and the bread-and-butter work of getting through the backlog, so that three quarters of prisoners actually get their sentence and victims get justice?
Mr Speaker
Order. Can I just say that I love the imagination, but we have to be careful not to overstretch these questions. Secretary of State, are you happy to have a go?
Alex Chalk
I will give it a go, Mr Speaker. The question was ingenious, and I commend the hon. Member for it. Capacity is critically important—absolutely—and I want to stress, because people will be listening to this, that in 90% of the cases that take place in magistrates courts there are not those difficulties. However, it is true that we are expanding capacity, which is why there are more judges and there are 24 Nightingale courts. List officers are ensuring that we are getting through some of these most sensitive cases as quickly as possible, and the backlog in the Crown court—the case load in the Crown court—is coming down. We are seeing progress, and it is going to accelerate.
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this point. The Government have invested significantly in new capabilities for law enforcement, including our specially trained network of undercover online officers, to arrest offenders committing online child sexual abuse. Co-ordinated National Crime Agency and policing activity against those offenders is currently resulting in over 800 arrests per month, and we have also delivered a further £4.5 million for organisations supporting victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
I am delighted to welcome the Secretary of State to his place for the second day running. I have been reading his speeches with interest. He once said the Conservatives should
“do away with the argument that…we are somehow soft on crime.”—[Official Report, 2 July 2018; Vol. 644, c. 90.]
Is it not “soft” to tell judges that they cannot lock up dangerous criminals?
Victims and Prisoners Bill
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay HoyleMonday 15th May 2023
(1 year, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 View all Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. She mentions Hope Street, and the Nelson Trust, which I have visited, does excellent work in this regard. I think we do always have to remember that the job of Government is to ensure that the decision of the court can be upheld.
In other words, a court will of course consider the evidence from the prosecution at a sentencing hearing about what has taken place, will hear a plea in mitigation about the impact on the defendant of incarceration—including the impact on friends and children, their future and so on—and will then reach a decision based on all those matters about the correct sentence. So while I do not seek to downplay any of the really important points my hon. Friend mentioned, we need to do our bit within the criminal justice system to give effect to the order of the court, but to ensure it is done in a way that is humane and understands that there are family considerations.
We want prisoners to serve their time, but to be rehabilitated, and one of the critical ways of being rehabilitated is to ensure that family relationships endure. That is why there has been so much investment in courts in areas such technology to ensure prisoners can keep in contact with the outside, so that when they leave having repaid their debt to society they are in a position to pick up those important relationships.
In closing, I want to put on record my thanks to all who have helped to shape this Bill, in particular the victims who shared their stories and contributed to our consultation. I also pay tribute to my predecessors my right hon. Friends the Members for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) and for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) for the parts they have played in advancing this Bill.
These measures will help ensure that every victim, from the Telford teenagers I mentioned to the elderly victim of confidence fraud, secures the service from our justice system that they deserve. From the moment of report to the moment of conviction, and indeed beyond if required, victims’ interests must be paramount. That is how justice is done, and I commend this Bill to the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend is of course absolutely right. Ensuring that our service personnel receive good-quality meals is a vital contribution to defence capability, which is why the Ministry of Defence has established a team of subject-matter experts to overhaul and modernise the delivery of defence catering using the findings of the “Delivering Defence Dining Quality” review and the ongoing Army Eats trials to inform change to the total food offer. The trials began in 2020 and the results are expected imminently. They will inform the future of dining for defence.
Stephen Metcalfe
If we want to keep our country safe we need to work with our allies to ensure that we remain at the forefront of the latest developments in defence technology. Will my hon. and learned Friend confirm that our new partnership with Japan and Italy will involve collaborating in areas such as weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles, and not just on fighter jets?
Service Family Accommodation
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Alex Chalk
I thank the hon. Gentleman for those remarks, many of which I completely agree with. He asks whether we will act today. I can say that the Secretary of State has met the DIO, Pinnacle, Amey and VIVO and that some of these issues were becoming apparent quite some time ago. In fact, a rectification plan was imposed in the middle of September. There were 480 or so elements of that plan, of which 200 have been complied with. That does not mean that the situation has been sorted—far from it—because when the cold snap came, we saw that it revealed more difficulties.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the backlog. I can say that the backlog of complaints peaked at a stunning 4,200 or so. That has come down to around 3,100, but I completely accept that that is far too many.
The real issue, it seems to me, is there must be prevention in the first place. In other words, the quality of accommodation must be good enough at the point that service personnel go into the properties in the first place. There are some indications of improvement in that regard. First, in addition to the standard £176 million for accommodation, the MOD has allocated £350 million over and above that annual sum to get on top of the maintenance issues. In July of this year, when 1,276 service personnel went into properties, 4% turned out on the day to have non-habitable failures; by December that figure had gone down to 0.6%. This is about ensuring that the properties are fit for purpose at the outset.
On the issue of mould, which the hon. Gentleman is right to raise, it is unconscionable to think that people should be moving into properties with any mould, and I am pleased to have had a clear assurance from DIO that that will not happen again. Now, if there is a report of mould, a fully qualified inspector should come in to do a proper report and alternative accommodation should be provided, if appropriate. I will end where he did: these are people who come to serve our country, and the least we can do is ensure that they have proper accommodation. I will do everything in my power to ensure that we honour that requirement.
Alex Chalk
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that this is an issue about ensuring retention in the armed forces. He asks about money going in: one positive thing, as I indicated, is the £350 million going in over two years, over and above the budget. However, I do not want to let the contractors off the hook. He is right that there is a backlog of work that needs to take place, and I have talked about the £350 million for that, but one of the most shocking things about this to me, as a new Minister coming in, is that it appears to have come as a surprise to Pinnacle, Amey and VIVO that their IT systems were not properly married up. Service personnel would pick up the phone to report a complaint to Pinnacle, but by the time it got VIVO or Amey, it was not necessarily the right contractor who turned up. That is an IT failure. They are grown-ups entering into a contract—caveat emptor and all that—and they should have known what the situation was and have made arrangements accordingly. As I said before, this is not any old contract. It is a contract to provide accommodation. People need to be sure of their ground before they take on one of these deals, and clearly they were not.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Broken boilers, water pouring into homes, mould, vermin and painful waits for basic repairs—all while Ministers cancel troops’ Christmas leave. Our forces deserve so much better. It is a national scandal that the Government are leaving service personnel, their families and their children without heating and water during the coldest winter for more than a decade. Can the Minister say exactly how many forces homes are currently without heating or hot water, and what he is going to do about it? Can he guarantee here and now that no one in uniform or their family will be without heating or hot water this winter?
Although shocking, these reports are unfortunately not surprising. There are deep-seated problems with the Government’s handling of Defence housing, going back years. One third of our armed forces personnel are dissatisfied with the overall standard of their family accommodation and almost one in three service family homes are awaiting repair. Between June and October this year, more than 5,000 maintenance appointments were missed. Is the Minister confident that his contractors are meeting their mandated key performance indicators? It certainly does not look as though they are. The MOD paid £144 million to contractors to supposedly maintain service family accommodation this year. Is he satisfied that that represents value for taxpayers’ money?
These reports of dodgy accommodation not only are a breach of the contract the nation makes with those who serve, but pose a risk to recruitment and retention. More than one quarter of armed forces personnel said that poor accommodation increases their intention to leave the services. Decent accommodation is a fundamental part of our moral obligation to those who serve and their families. This Government are failing our armed forces when it comes to service accommodation and we need to see better from Ministers. In setting out what he has done, will the Minister now apologise to forces and their families, many of whom will be spending yet another Christmas in shoddy military accommodation?
Alex Chalk
As my right hon. Friend indicates, he has been assiduous in raising the issue of service family accommodation, and I commend him for doing so. There will have to be a long, hard look at FDIS, and I suspect—in fact, I know—that the MOD will look carefully at the points he made in his “Stick or Twist?” report. We will have to see what the lessons are from entering into contracts such as this, and it may be that he is absolutely right.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
Once again, we are debating with a Minister forced to atone for the appalling housing conditions inflicted upon our armed forces. This is, of course, a decades-long problem, which the MOD continues to show no strategy to resolve. Pinnacle was recently, in March, awarded a £144 million contract to manage these homes. This money has barely scratched the surface. It has been reported that families are still being issued with sleeping bags and are sleeping in their coats in mould-ridden houses, and some go weeks without heating. Some houses are so badly insulated that families cannot afford to turn the heating on. How can the Minister defend that enduring shame?
Senior officers and junior ranks alike are frustrated by an unresponsive private sector facilities management contractor. That is further compounded by the now demonstrably failing Defence Infrastructure Organisation. Is that failure in political leadership caused by a lack of funding, the DIO’s incompetence, a failure of the contractors, or all three? Can the Minister say specifically that he has full confidence in the executive officer team of the Defence Infrastructure Organisation?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(1 year, 11 months ago)
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Alex Chalk
I met Boeing recently, and we are always keen to see investment in the UK. We are absolutely delighted that, because of the pipeline of investment that the Government have commissioned—from ships to cyber to space—we are investing in jobs and capability, and we are ensuring that we take expertise from wherever it is in the world, securing jobs in this country.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
We welcome the Government’s commitment to job creation; the problem is that they are creating jobs abroad, including in Spain. The Defence Secretary has just picked a Spanish firm to build the Royal Navy’s three new fleet support ships. At least 40% of that work will go abroad and the best that the Defence Secretary could tell the Scottish Affairs Committee the other day was that the contractor will
“fully assemble the final ship in a UK yard.”
As a result of the Defence Secretary’s decision, how many jobs will be created in Spain and not in the UK?
Alex Chalk
What I genuinely do not understand is why the Opposition are not welcoming a deal that is bringing more than £70 million into Belfast, securing jobs in the shipbuilding industry in this country and ensuring, by the way, that the base of industrial support goes beyond the traditional Scottish yards to include yards in Belfast and, indeed, in Appledore. That is good news. As for the right hon. Gentleman’s point about other countries playing a role, let us not forget that one of the great successful procurements is the F-35. That is an American plane—of course it is—but who produces 15% of the components? The United Kingdom does. That is exactly what happens in these sorts of contracts, and it gets value for money for taxpayers.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
All credit to Babcock—maybe the Minister will join me in congratulating it—for securing the Natural Environmental Research Council’s £45 million fleet renewal programme. Of course, Babcock and BAE should be gearing up to do 100% of the fleet solid support ships in a distributed model across the UK, but they are not, because this Tory Government have awarded a £1.6 billion contract for three ships to Navantia in Spain. When Sir John Parker, in his national shipbuilding strategy—[Interruption]—maybe the Secretary of State could pipe down a second. When Sir John Parker stressed that the Ministry of Defence should embrace smart procurement, invest in yards and apprenticeships, and commission ships with an eye to export, did the Government realise that he was talking about yards in the UK, not in Spain?
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend is such a champion of defence on Ynys Môn, and yes, I absolutely pay tribute to them. It is only through their fantastic work that we can come together as a nation, develop the capabilities that we need and keep us and the next generation safe.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
The National Audit Office has found the defence equipment plan to be already outdated on its publication and based on optimistic assumptions. With inflation out of control and with foreign currency fluctuations, does the Minister expect defence companies to bear the brunt of this turmoil, and if so, will this ultimately lead to the loss of British jobs?
Mr Speaker
We do not want a military-grade long answer—and I am not sure about the hair.
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Innovation is essential and we are supporting it through initiatives such as the defence and security accelerator and the defence technology exploitation programme. We have all the plans we need to give us a competitive edge and ensure we stay one step ahead of our opponents.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(2 years, 8 months ago)
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The Solicitor General
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: fraud is a cruel crime. It is not a victimless crime and it can destroy lives. That is why it is so important that the proper resources are allocated, as I indicated. A total of 7,600 individuals have been prosecuted for fraud, with an 85% conviction rate. We also have £400 million more going in. Moreover, over the past five years, £500 million has been secured by the CPS in confiscation orders, returning more than £120 million to victims of fraud.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
At the heart of any legislation on economic crime is the basic principle that anybody who wants to make money in the UK needs to obey the UK’s laws. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that P&O had “broken the law”, that we will be “taking action” against it, and that we will take it to court
“under section 194 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992”.—[Official Report, 23 March 2022; Vol. 711, c. 325.]
Can the Solicitor General tell us, as part of the team of Government lawyers, whether he agrees with the Prime Minister’s statement? Does the statement reflect the team’s own legal advice to the Prime Minister, and, assuming that it does, what are the next steps in the legal proceedings that the Government intend to take against P&O for breach of the 1992 Act?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
This is hard to believe, but on 4 February this year Peter Swailes junior was sentenced for a crime that involved financial fraud. A person was kept in his shed for up to 40 years. The CPS managed to get a conviction, but he was not sentenced to any time in prison. I wonder whether the Attorney General would look at the case to see if it was unduly lenient.
Mr Speaker
I must admit, I would like an answer but we have to be careful that supplementaries really are linked to the question, which was about financial crime. I think the person mentioned in the hon. Gentleman’s question will have suffered financially as well so I am sure the Minister can answer accordingly.
The Solicitor General
We will of course look into that case. Sentencing is a matter for the independent courts, but there is a power to refer cases if they are unduly lenient. I am happy to give that case close attention.
The Solicitor General
Yes and yes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to welcome the use of mental health treatment requirement orders, because they provide courts in Devon and elsewhere with a powerful tool to rehabilitate offenders at the same time as ensuring they are properly punished for their crimes. Thanks to record support through the NHS long-term plan funding, plans are on track to introduce primary care MHTRs to half of England by 2023.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
In addition to those with mental health disorders, people with other disabilities such as hearing impairment require additional support in court. This House has taken steps to make that happen for those who are hearing impaired. Can the Minister advise what services are deemed necessary for trial proceedings to take place for those with hearing impairment disabilities?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(2 years, 10 months ago)
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The Solicitor General (Alex Chalk)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that question. He is absolutely right, and that is why we have rolled out an increased number of independent sexual violence advisers. That is why we are rolling out a victims code, because complainants—
Mr Speaker
Order. This is a supplementary to the original question. Normally it is taken by the same person who answered the first question. I believe in job sharing, but this is taking it a little bit too far.
The Solicitor General
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is incredibly important that when complainants are brave enough to make these allegations, they are not then subject to intrusive, unnecessary and disproportionate disclosure inquiries. Getting that balance right is extremely difficult. There is clear guidance in the Attorney General’s guidelines, and the case of Bater-James and Sultan Mohammed is there as well, but we need to go further to make sure that correct, proportionate and fair decisions are made.
Mr Speaker
I welcome to the Dispatch Box the shadow Minister, Andy Slaughter.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to be shadowing the Solicitor General—we have missed him in Shepherd’s Bush.
Last month the Court of Appeal ruled the conviction of Ziad Akle, prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office, unsafe because there was a material failure of disclosure that significantly handicapped the defence. The court described this as a serious failure by the SFO to comply with its duty and said it was particularly regrettable given that some of the documents withheld had a clear potential to embarrass the SFO. It is difficult to imagine a more damning series of judgments on a prosecuting authority. The Attorney General, having recently expressed full confidence in the director of the SFO, has belatedly announced an inquiry, but the Attorney General superintends the SFO and her office line-manages the director, so will the Solicitor General confirm that this inquiry will be fully independent so that it can examine the Attorney General’s own role in this fiasco as well as that of the SFO and the director?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Alex Chalk
This Government consider the opening of Nightingale courts to be absolutely essential. I have visited a number myself. They play an important role in taking the strain, allowing other courts to carry out custody cases. We have already opened 40 Nightingale courts—an additional 20. That will play an important role in our ongoing courts recovery.
Mr Speaker
I will now suspend the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements for the next business.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Alex Chalk
I was expecting a question about victims, but the hon. Gentleman rightly raises an important issue about prisons. The answer to the point he raises is: yes, we are doing it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Richard Graham
I support strongly what the Government are doing in funding law centres and providing much more information online for our constituents, but how does my hon. Friend think we can access the services where needed of an asylum lawyer at the Gloucester Law Centre? Also, will he ensure that the only magistrates court in our county—in his Cheltenham constituency—will be well funded, so that it can operate efficiently for years to come?
Alex Chalk
The answer is yes—thank you for pre-empting it, Mr Speaker—but first, may I welcome my hon. Friend’s support for the Gloucester Law Centre, which does fantastic work? The £3 million grant will allow law centres to increase their capacity to provide advice for those who need it. We are also considering the longer-term sustainability of providing legal aid more widely, including for asylum cases, to which he rightly adverts; my officials are working closely with stakeholders on this. As you rightly trailed, Mr Speaker, on court maintenance, we have announced a tripling of funding for repairs and upgrades to include £30 million for the roll-out of the latest video technology. That will be welcomed in Cheltenham and, indeed, Gloucester.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Alex Chalk
I thank the hon. Lady for her question and pay tribute to her for the campaigning that she has done on this issue. I had the opportunity to speak to my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor just a few seconds ago; he will be happy to have the meeting that she requests.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Disaster victims, just like victims of crime, deserve to have their rights enshrined in law. Only last week, a murderer was released on parole without the victim’s family even being informed, let alone consulted. Successive Governments have promised and pledged a victims law for the past 12 years. The Tory manifestos for the past three elections have promised a victims law. Will the Government commit to publish the draft Bill by this autumn?
Modern Slavery Act 2015
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(7 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Deputy Speaker
From when you started. The benefit of that is that I will be putting on a time limit of seven minutes and I will not have to reduce it to six—I do not want to do that. Are you sure you want to intervene, Mr Chalk?
Alex Chalk
If I may. As somebody who has prosecuted offences of servitude in the past, I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the passion that he is showing regarding this horrible offence which robs people of their dignity. Raising awareness is vital. Will he join me in paying tribute to the Salvation Army in Cheltenham, who last week held an event on this? We need to get the message out to people that everyone needs to be on their guard.
Summer Adjournment
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
May I, on behalf of all the House, start by warmly congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) on his wedding and wish him a very happy honeymoon, whenever that takes place?
I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for this opportunity to raise a few issues that can be crowded out in the ordinary course of busy parliamentary business. In doing so, I will unapologetically focus on Cheltenham, because one thing I have learned over the last two years is that, for all the cynicism about our democratic process, Parliament does, indeed, remain the forum in which we can seek effective redress for our constituents and speak truth to power. We saw that in action with the Government’s welcome decision last week to allocate more frontline funding for our secondary schools, and my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) and I saw it in the last Parliament, with the passage of legislation to extend the maximum sentence for stalking, following the terrible ordeal of a Cheltenham GP.
I would like to take the opportunity at the outset to congratulate all the students who are receiving awards at the National Star College leavers award ceremony in Gloucestershire. The National Star College, for those who do not know it, is an independent specialist further education college for people with physical disabilities, acquired brain injuries and associated learning difficulties. It is an extraordinary place; no one who visits it can fail to be moved by what is being achieved by staff and students alike.
What I want to talk about specifically today is Cheltenham General Hospital. We in Cheltenham value our hospital greatly. Members might think that that is a truism, but it is particularly the case in a town of 115,000 people. Only this morning, I received a message from a constituent, who referred to Cheltenham General, stating:
“My wife has been admitted there four times in the past two years—three times for surgery—and on each occasion—from the first visit of the paramedics to the A&E staff and on the various wards she has received the most wonderful attention—professional, kind, caring and patient.”
What a wonderful tribute, and it is not unusual. It is echoed by the findings of the recent Care Quality Commission report. Inspectors describe staff as “committed, caring and compassionate”. They also observed “exceptional teamwork”, particularly when a department was under pressure.
However, there is an issue about our night-time A&E. In 2013, Cheltenham General’s A&E service was downgraded. Blue light services were diverted to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital. Although night-time A&E notionally remained, and indeed remains, open for GP referrals and walk-ins, the reality is that a major service change took place. The emergency nurse practitioners, who do a magnificent job of holding the fort, do not have doctor support to assist them. That is important, because in the CQC report I referred to a few moments ago, medical and nursing staff raised concerns with inspectors about medical cover at night. To their great credit, consultants regularly work longer hours to support their junior colleagues. The CQC was not convinced that that was sustainable, and nor am I. That is notwithstanding the fact that the care that has been delivered is co-ordinated and multi-discipline.
What needs to be done? There is a clear problem with the recruitment of middle-grade doctors in A&E not just in Cheltenham but across the piece—the trust has made that clear, and the evidence bears it out. That is why I have called for a debate on the issue in this place, and I take the opportunity to raise it now.
Improving incentives for middle-grade A&E doctors is a crucial part of the long-term solution. In the short term, I welcome the fact that the trust is looking closely at providing an urgent care centre at Cheltenham General Hospital—something that was reported in the local paper, the Gloucestershire Echo, in March this year. Only today, we heard my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove) extol the virtues of urgent care centres, because they provide urgent care, as the name might suggest, and, crucially, divert patients from accident and emergency—something we all have an interest in. An urgent care centre would see emergency nurse practitioners supported by GPs, which I welcome. However, that will take place only if we as a country increase the pipeline of GPs in our surgeries, and that means addressing the issue of rising GP indemnity—or insurance—premiums, which I have referred to previously.
The key point is that the people of Cheltenham want Cheltenham’s A&E to be preserved and enhanced. I have made that point in the past and I will continue to make it. Some have raised with me a concern about whether the downgrading of night-time A&E was simply the thin end of the wedge that would presage the end of A&E in Cheltenham. After my election in 2015, I met representatives of the trust to make precisely that point and to raise precisely that concern. I was given a clear assurance regarding A&E’s future; there was no suggestion of its demise. That was also the case in the following year, 2016, when I met the then chief executive, who described rumours of A&E closing as “blatant scaremongering” and confirmed:
“What we said to you on 5 June 2015 still stands and the board has not changed its position on A&E at Cheltenham General.”
I welcome that robust commitment to A&E. It must remain in place. Crucially, it must remain in place notwithstanding the recent finding of financial mismanagement at the trust—which, I should stress, predates the appointment of the current chief executive and chairman, who are doing an excellent job in uncovering these problems.
Retaining and enhancing A&E at Cheltenham General must remain a service priority. I say that because the idea that a resident in Battledown, Oakley, Charlton Kings or Charlton Park to the east of Cheltenham can readily get to A&E at Gloucestershire Royal hospital, having to travel all the way down the Golden Valley bypass and the A40 in a big traffic jam, is for the birds. Those of us who live there know that that is not a realistic or optimal solution.
Finally, I want to pay tribute to two constituents of mine, Lynda and Philip Hodder. Mr and Mrs Hodder are the parents-in-law of a young Australian woman who, in June of this year, was, very sadly, killed in Borough Market in the terrorist atrocities. The young woman who was killed was referred to by some as “the angel of London Bridge” because of the way that she sought to aid others who were coming under attack. The dignity, fortitude and courage shown by my constituents has been enormously humbling. It is what has fortified me in making the representations that I have made about how we go about addressing the issue of those who are suspected and even convicted of terrorist offences in this country.
The point that my constituents have made to me, with a power that only people in that position can, is that while of course in a free society we rightly take account of the human rights of all people who come into contact with our criminal justice system—and yes, that must mean people who come into contact with it for terrorism offences—let us never forget that the most fundamental human right of all is the right to life of people who are innocent, decent, hard-working, law-abiding members of our community doing nothing more than going about their business, whether at Borough Market or anywhere else. Their rights must always be put first.
It is a huge privilege to be able to raise the concerns of my constituents in this great place, and to seek redress on their behalf. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to do so. I wish you and all Members of this House a very happy and restful recess.
Education and Adoption Bill
Debate between Alex Chalk and Lindsay Hoyle(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
I have listened with care to the eloquent representations that are being made, but is it not dangerous, whichever side of the argument one is on, to paint one era as being rosy and another era as being grim? Under Labour, it is a fact that standards slipped. In the PISA league standards we went from 8th to 28th in maths and from 7th to 25th in reading. Although I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman’s school bucked that trend, it is correct to say that these are—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Gentleman should resume his seat. Interventions must be short. He cannot make a speech, only a quick intervention in order to allow the person who is speaking to respond. If he wanted to make a speech, he would have been better off putting his name down. That is good advice. I am sure he has finished speaking. Is that correct?