Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Norris Excerpts(2Â weeks, 2Â days ago)
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Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Norris)
Last week, the Leader of the House announced that the Courts and Tribunals Bill will return to this House on 13 October. I have been clear that my priority is to reduce the Crown court waiting list and enable victims to have their day in court more quickly. I look forward to working with experts in this House and beyond to deliver that.
Dr Shastri-Hurst
There are reports that the Government are considering tabling an amendment to the Courts and Tribunals Bill so that, in either-way offences, a judge will decide whether a defendant faces a jury or is heard by a single judge sitting alone. The legal profession has quite properly highlighted that this will lead to satellite litigation, with repeated appeals, and slow down the legal process. Will the Government finally listen to the legal profession, or will they plough on regardless?
Alex Norris
I would always caution the hon. Gentleman about believing reports. When there are things to be said, they will be said from the Dispatch Box. I think he would expect that I, as the new Lord Chancellor, and my right hon. Friend the new Prime Minister will look at every aspect of business in the Ministry of Justice to ensure that it is delivering for victims and for the public at large. The hon. Gentleman knows the legislation is coming back, and I look forward to discussing it in its fullness when it does.
Alex Norris
The shadow Secretary of State seeks to run ahead of the process that is going on at the moment. It is very important that Parliament has the opportunity to consider this really important legislation in the spirit that he talks about, and we have now reached Second Reading. I have been in this place for nine years, and legislation very rarely looks the same at the beginning of the process as it does at the end. My offer to him, and indeed to colleagues from across the House, is to engage in the conversation. If they have concerns and wish to see things changed, let us have that conversation.
Nick Timothy
I asked the Justice Secretary to rule out reducing access to jury trials, and the House will have noticed that he did not do that. We are not talking about something insignificant; we are talking about an ancient English right dating back to Magna Carta. As with Labour’s early release disaster, the new Prime Minister told everybody he did not like it and would not do it, but he never got round to working out what to do instead. Once again, the Justice Secretary has made much of his desire to work together constructively—although I have not seen much of it in our correspondence—so will he publish the full details of the new plan now, or does he still not know what it is?
Alex Norris
This is interesting: the Opposition do not know how to deal with either the new Prime Minister or the new Government. When we talk about wanting to improve things in the collective interest of the country, we mean it. The hon. Gentleman offers to be my correspondence secretary, but I do not think that is quite the answer.
Mr Speaker
Order. That is quite serious, and I am getting a little bit fed up of this carrying on at the Dispatch Box. Ask a question and respect the answer, because I expect Ministers to listen to the questions—it works both ways. This is becoming a habit, and I do not want it to continue.
Alex Norris
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I reiterate my commitment to the hon. Gentleman and to the House: if people have an interest in the legislation and want to discuss it, our door is open.
Alex Norris
I assure the hon. Lady that we will consider all evidence that is submitted, and certainly evidence submitted by those experts who I talked about in my opening answer. I am afraid that we cannot quite accept the hon. Lady’s characterisation. We will look at these things very closely and have that interaction through ordinary parliamentary processes and beyond, because I think we have a shared interest in this. I would caution the House about defending the status quo when we all know—because it is in our constituency mailbags—that our constituents are waiting until 2029 for trials, and soon it will be 2030. That is not justice, either. Yes, it behoves us to make important changes to the system to help address immediate capacity challenges—as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman) has done—but it also behoves us to look at longer-term structural changes. As I say, I look forward to working with colleagues on that.
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Norris)
The Government have increased foreign national offender returns by 41%, with more than 3,000 foreign national offenders removed directly from prison last year through the early removal scheme. From next year, new powers will enable most determinate sentence foreign national offenders to be deported immediately after sentencing, and I have established a cross-Government taskforce with the Home Office and the Foreign Office to maximise removals.
Dr Murrison
In July, the then Mayor of Manchester, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), said that
“nothing is off the table”
and that he would “explore all possible options” to deport child rapist Shabir Ahmed to Pakistan. Where is the necessary draft legislation to amend the Immigration Act 1971? Where is the credible threat to Pakistan to turn off visas, and where is the credible threat to Pakistan to stop money and other assistance to that country if it does not co-operate?
Alex Norris
The right hon. Gentleman may well have seen that I set out the Government’s approach in this regard from this Dispatch Box in July. He will know, and it is important to reiterate this, that the challenges in the Immigration Act 1971 are not merely technical, and setting them aside is not merely a technical answer. It is right that we do that properly. He will also know that we have ongoing negotiations and discussions with lots of countries around the world about foreign offenders, and we do not provide running commentaries on them.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Government’s progress on deporting foreign national offenders is welcome, but how will the Minister work with the Home Office to ensure that receiving countries are informed of the convictions of offenders, particularly those involving violence, sexual offending or exploitation, so that countries have the information they need to keep their public safe?
Alex Norris
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her new position. I have a double degree of anxiety: as a former Justice Minister, she will know very well of what she speaks, but she is also a Derby MP, which will create a Derby-Nottingham rivalry across the Select Committee room. I have a degree of trepidation about that, but I know how excellently she will do in her new job. I know her well and she is brilliant.
My hon. Friend asks an important question. We have made significant strides in the removal of foreign offenders from this country, for which we make no apology. We want to go further, and again we make no apology for that. To do that well, and in a way that endures over the years, we need to work as well as possible with receiving countries. We want them to have the best information as early as possible. We are working with the Home Office and the Foreign Office in that venture, so that we can safely and securely remove people in a way that we can keep doing over the years ahead.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Norris)
Our Government will bring forward legislation to end the IPP sentence by the end of this Parliament. We will do so through cross-party engagement. We recognise that these are complex cases, involving important considerations to do with public protection and victims, and it will take us time to get this right. I anticipate making a further announcement later this year.
Laura Kyrke-Smith
In the summer, I met a group of IPP prisoners, most of whom had been serving their sentences since 2006 or 2007. They told me about the extreme toll that the protracted uncertainty of the sentences takes on their mental health, and one showed me where he had been self-harming. The prisoners also spoke about the unfairness of this type of sentence, and particularly of seeing people who had committed much greater offences released much sooner than them. We must always do right by the victims of prisoners’ crimes, but these are men who have now served their original sentences several times over, so it is right that the Secretary of State is reviewing this type of sentence. What assessment has he made of the mental health impacts of these sentences, and when we can expect decisions on next steps?
Alex Norris
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her considered question. I have had similar conversations in my constituency surgeries, and I recognise the challenges that those prisoners face. In the immediate term, IPP prisoners have greater access to mental health support, including funding for specialist assessments by psychology services. She will know—I suspect that this is at the root of the conversations she had—that the Phoenix unit opened up at HMP Aylesbury last month to provide dedicated support for IPP prisoners. I know that those prisoners, their families and, indeed, their victims are looking to see what the Government will do next. We must get any changes that we make right, and ensure a balance with public safety, but these sentences have been discontinued for a very good reason. That is a long-standing cross-party position, and it is time that we move forward.
Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
Earlier this month, John Dunne was convicted of trying to meet a 14-year-old boy at a train station in Suffolk. He received a two-year sentence, reduced from three after a guilty plea. This still seems lenient, considering that Mr Dunne has already served a life sentence for rape and murder. Our community and country will never be safe when we release people who are clearly not functioning in society. I have written to the Attorney General about this sentence, but if the Government are considering changes to IPP, what is their plan for keeping children safe in situations like this?
Alex Norris
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the question, and the spirit in which it was asked. I will not be drawn on that individual case if it is with the Attorney General, because it is right that that process carries on unhindered. The hon. Gentleman will know that there is a tension on this issue. I do not think that he or anybody in this House believes that people who have served their sentence—or, in many cases, a decade or more beyond their sentence—should be held in prison. That is why we have discontinued those sentences, but he makes very important points about support, public safety and public protection. We are doing work on that at the moment, and I look forward to his scrutiny of our plans.
Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)
Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Norris)
As I have mentioned, the Courts and Tribunals Bill will shortly come back to this House. The record and rising Crown court backlog we inherited has more than doubled from around 38,000 cases in 2019 to more than 80,000 today, denying victims justice for months or even years. To fix the system, as the Minister for Courts and Legal Services has said, we have invested in and continued to modernise the courts, and through the returning legislation, we have set in train much-needed structural reform. The Prime Minister has been clear that the answer to justice delayed cannot be justice diminished. We are looking again at the proposals, considering the evidence and listening to experts both inside and outside this House and, of course, to victims. I look forward to improving the Bill as it progresses so that it delivers for victims and continues to command the confidence of the British people.
Callum Anderson
Court backlogs in the south-east have trebled over the last decade, placing extreme pressure on our criminal justice system. A new justice quarter in Milton Keynes could provide extra capacity that would deliver faster access to justice for my constituents in the Buckingham and Bletchley constituency and a modern justice hub in one of the fastest-growing cities in the UK. Will my right hon. Friend grant me a meeting, alongside my Milton Keynes colleagues, to discuss how we can take that proposition forward?
Alex Norris
I recognise the ambition of local partners to develop a justice quarter in Milton Keynes. I know that engagement has gone on—indeed, the Courts Minister is going to meet MPs—and that the Milton Keynes MPs are hunting in a pack on this matter. I think I have already committed to a visit, which I am sure I will make shortly. In the meantime, the Minister looks forward to meeting my hon. Friend.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
This summer, the Government held five different positions on early release in just six weeks. In seeking to exclude killers, rapists and paedophiles—something the Government previously claimed was impossible—the Justice Secretary has used secondary legislation. He says:
“No further legislation is required in the short term…primary legislation will…be considered when Parliamentary time allows.”
Will the Secretary of State guarantee that after relying on secondary legislation to change Labour’s early release scheme, no prisoner will successfully challenge their exclusion in the courts?
Alex Norris
Yes, I give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that I have no concerns in that regard. The device we used was the commencement order. We chose to commence the provisions for some offences, but not for others. The point I was making to him in writing was that for parliamentarians it is discomfiting to have things lying on the statute book that are not intended for use, so it is good practice to remove them. It would not be without precedent for many provisions to be on the statute book without being turned on; nevertheless, that is what I was referring to in respect of further legislation. I am confident in our legal position.
Nick Timothy
The Justice Secretary proposes to let another set of dangerous criminals out of prison as well. Every prisoner serving an imprisonment for public protection sentence has been assessed to be too dangerous for release or returned to prison because of their behaviour—last year, there were 426 of them. The Justice Secretary has reiterated his commitment today to ending IPP sentences by the end of this Parliament. Will he tell the House very clearly if he has decided that it is, indeed, safe to release every single one of them?
Alex Norris
I understand that the hon. Gentleman is a champion of individual liberty, and I understand him to be someone who believes in the equal application of liberty for individuals too. He must, surely, share my discomfort that there are individuals with tariffs of 18 months who have served 18 years on those sentences. This has been a matter of consensus for a long period of time; that is why his colleagues, when in government, discontinued those sentences. That is not to say that it is easy. In exactly the spirit in which he says that it must be done safely, my commitment is to do that with him and with colleagues across the House.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
Jimmy, the son of two of my Shipley constituents, was given an IPP sentence with a tariff of two and a half years in 2007. He remains in prison with no set release date, despite having passed his mental health tribunal. I strongly welcome the Prime Minister’s recent announcement to review these unjust sentences, but can the Secretary of State assure me that prisoners with autism, like Jimmy, will get the support they need to start a new life?
Alex Norris
I am grateful for that question. It should discomfit colleagues that, in many cases, lots and lots of people across our communities have served long beyond their sentence and have not been permitted their release from prison, or have not been able to sustain a release from prison. Of course, there has been a lot of interest about what legislative approach we may take; we intend to publish legislation in due course. My hon. Friend is entirely right that we also have to ensure that those individuals who do leave have the best possible support that we can give them to ensure they can sustain that exit.
Criminal Justice Reform
Alex Norris Excerpts(1Â month ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Norris)
This Government inherited a prison system on the brink of collapse. In July 2024, men’s prisons were operating at 99% capacity. At one point, there were fewer than 100 places available across the male estate. Without intervention, we risked running out of prison places, leaving courts unable to sentence offenders and police unable to make arrests.
This Government have acted to increase capacity and to reform sentencing. We have committed to delivering 14,000 prison places by 2031 and have already delivered 3,200. The last Government added just circa 500 net places in their time in office. We have also accelerated the removal of foreign national offenders, returning around 11,700 to their countries of origin. However, the adult male prison estate is once again operating at more than 98% capacity.
It is within this context that we launched the independent sentencing review in October 2024 and subsequently passed the Sentencing Act 2026, to place the prison system on a more sustainable footing and ensure that there is always space available for the most dangerous offenders. The Act also aimed to avoid the chaotic emergency release schemes carried out with little scrutiny or warning by the Conservatives.
The Government have listened to the concerns raised, paused implementation of the progression model and conducted an urgent review. I can now confirm that, in addition to the dangerous offenders already ineligible for the progression model, this Government will exclude rape and serious child sex offences from eligibility for changes to release dates under the Sentencing Act. Unlawful killings including manslaughter, causing or allowing the death of a child, and death by dangerous driving will also be excluded, as well as indecent assault, ensuring that more historical child sex offences prosecuted under older laws are treated consistently with equivalent offences today. This means hundreds more dangerous criminals staying behind bars for longer, including those who killed PC Andrew Harper in the line of duty.
We recognise the significant effect that changes to release dates can have on victims. We will ensure those in the victim contact scheme who are affected by these new exclusions are informed if there are any changes to the release date of the offender in their case. I have also instructed my officials to attempt to contact victims not in that scheme to provide information should they wish this. We are also boosting support to victims with a ÂŁ18.9 million funding package for local emotional and practical support.
The Government have a duty to ensure that sufficient prison places remain available. We have therefore fast-tracked plans to create additional headroom in the custodial estate, including creating new cells in existing prisons, accelerating current prison build programmes, and investing in new land for prisons. The largest prison building programme since the Victorian era will be accelerated through a £110 million investment. Under this Government, we’re spending more than three times as much on building new prisons as was spent over the previous seven years.
We must also continue to free up prison space wherever it is safe and appropriate to do so. The Government have increased removals of foreign national offenders in our first two years by 41% compared with the last two years of the previous Government. In September 2025 we expanded the early removal scheme, and early next year we will go further, implementing the power in the Sentencing Act allowing eligible foreign national offenders serving determinate sentences to be removed immediately following sentencing. As with the progression model, the most dangerous offenders will be required to serve their sentence in line with current arrangements and all offenders removed under the scheme will be barred from returning to the United Kingdom for life.
Alongside these measures, this Government are acting on inequities in the justice system and plans to bring a definitive end to indeterminate imprisonment for public protection sentences, or IPPs, for those still serving them. Although IPP sentences were abolished in 2012, a number of prisoners sentenced under the previous framework remain in custody. Of those who have never been released, 99% are beyond the tariff imposed by the court, and 80% have served 10 years or more beyond it. Tragically, with no end of their sentence in sight, some IPP prisoners have taken their own lives.
The numbers of IPP offenders have been reducing, but the Prime Minister and I want to go further. We will soon bring forward legislation to end the IPP sentence once and for all, by the end of this Parliament. These are complex cases, and some IPP offenders have committed serious crimes. Public safety will always be the top priority, and we must balance that with fairness. It will take time to get this right, but work will begin immediately and will be on a cross-party basis.
This Government will also consider how to improve outcomes for women and young offenders, recognising that these groups often have specific and complex needs. We want to reduce the number of women in prison where it is safe and appropriate to do so. We are exploring options to reduce the number of pregnant women and mothers of young children in custody, alongside a cross-Government agenda of reform to address the drivers of women’s offending.
In the long term, we will continue efforts to also reduce the number of children in custody, prioritising public protection throughout. In the shorter term, to help relieve some of the adult prison capacity challenges, we have made the decision to hold 18-year-olds for longer—on a careful case-by-case basis—in the youth estate. This will be an interim arrangement, subject to regular reviews, that we will look to end as soon as possible. For youth offenders, I am announcing £4.5 million of investment for robust community alternatives to locking children up.
We recognise that criminal justice reform cannot be delivered through prisons or sentencing policy alone. This is a system-wide challenge and requires action across policing, the Crown Prosecution Service, courts, probation and prisons, and support across Whitehall and beyond.
These measures strike a balance between maintaining sustainable prison capacity, protecting the public and doing right by victims. We will continue to build capacity and reform the system for the long term, while making sure it commands the confidence of the British people.
[HCWS301]
Criminal Justice Reform
Alex Norris Excerpts(1Â month ago)
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Norris)
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on the implementation of the Sentencing Act 2026. When this Labour Government took office, we inherited a crisis in our prisons. They were regularly at 99% capacity, with fewer than 100 places available at one stage. We were one bad day away from running out of space, which would have meant the courts being forced to suspend trials, the police being unable to make arrests, and there would be nowhere to put dangerous criminals—a total breakdown of law and order, with victims bearing the brunt.
My predecessors acted swiftly to stabilise our prisons by committing to the most ambitious prison-building programme since the Victorians and pledging 14,000 new prison places by 2031, with 3,200 already delivered. Compare that with the record of the Conservative party, which added just 500 net places in 14 years. We have also deported nearly 12,000 foreign national offenders, but we had to ensure that we never return to the shambolic emergency releases carried out, with little scrutiny or warning, by the previous Government. We passed the Sentencing Act, which introduced the earned progression model, whereby offenders on standard determinate sentences spend at least a third of their sentence behind bars, and longer if they behave badly. More serious offences require people to serve at least half of their sentence, with no upper limit for time spent inside for bad behaviour.
But release from prison is not the end of the story. We have overseen the largest ever expansion of tagging and, working closely with the police, we are giving the Probation Service access to the largest and toughest range of measures to manage offenders. Every single offender leaving prison can now be tagged, and strict licence conditions can include curfews and bans from pubs, clubs and even football matches. There will be exclusion zones where criminals cannot go. For the most serious sexual and violent offenders, we are introducing world-first “restriction zones” that confine them to specific areas, which are sometimes a few miles wide, curtailing their liberty in order to give victims more freedom. If conditions are breached, offenders can be recalled to prison.
This clearly asks more of our brilliant Probation Service, so we are also investing ÂŁ700 million more in probation and community services by 2028-29, and we are hiring a further 1,300 trainee probation officers, on top of the 2,300 recruited in the past two years.
Let me be clear about who the model applies to. The most dangerous offenders, who have been locked up for serious violent and sexual offences, and those on life sentences were never eligible, but the Prime Minister and I were determined to look again. We moved quickly to exclude rape and many serious child sex and grooming offences, and we have gone further still by excluding all unlawful killing offences—including death by dangerous or drink-driving, causing or allowing the death of a child, and manslaughter—as well as indecent assault, which has been used to prosecute historical child sex abuse. This means hundreds more dangerous criminals staying behind bars for longer, including those who killed PC Andrew Harper in the line of duty. It is the right thing to do, and I pay tribute to his wife Lissie and his mother Debbie, who campaigned for this. We would like to have gone further, but we were unable to do so due to the lack of investment by the previous Government over 14 years.
I want to reassure the House that victims in the victim contact scheme are being kept informed by dedicated victim liaison officers. We are rightly giving victims the opportunity to have their say on licence conditions for offenders in their case, and I have instructed my officials to attempt to trace all affected victims for whom we do not have the details. On top of that, we are boosting victim support with a ÂŁ18.9 million funding package, including a dedicated free helpline offering emotional support for anyone affected, and specialist support for victims of violence against women and girls. I have asked the Prisons Minister to work with victims groups to shape our response, because victims must come first.
The Prime Minister and I have pushed the system to its limits. At the same time, my duty is to ensure that we always have the space to lock up offenders. Today I can announce a fast-tracked plan to create more headroom in our prison system by bringing forward more than ÂŁ110 million of funding. We have identified where we can accelerate the delivery of more places, including by converting space within prisons into cells, and we are pushing to deliver current building plans more quickly. We will also invest in new land for prisons and build a credible pipeline of new sites to enable more prison building, because my top priority is to build a long-term, sustainable future for our prison estate.
We are also freeing up space in the shorter term. There are thousands of foreign national offenders in our prisons, at vast expense to taxpayers. We have increased removals by 41% compared with the last two years of the previous Tory Government, and we have changed the law to expand the early removal scheme. Now we will go further. Next year we will begin removing foreign national offenders serving determinate sentences immediately after sentencing, but I want to reassure the House that the most dangerous offenders, such as those already excluded from the Sentencing Act changes, will still be required to serve prison time before being deported. I want to be clear that all removed offenders will be barred from returning to the UK for life, because deportation is the anchor of that punishment. If you break our laws and abuse Britain’s hospitality, we will permanently remove you.
We will also act on a long-standing injustice. More than 2,000 people are still trapped by indeterminate imprisonment for public protection, or IPP, sentences. They were rightly abolished a decade ago, but offenders are still locked up for far longer than envisaged, often for crimes that, if committed today, would see them spend much less time in jail. Of those who have never been released, 99% are beyond the tariff imposed by the court, and 80% have served 10 years or more beyond it. Tragically, with no end of their sentence in sight, some IPP prisoners have taken their own lives.
Concerns about IPPs have been raised across the political spectrum, including by the former Justice Secretary, Alex Chalk, who called them “a stain” on our justice system. The number of IPP offenders has been reducing, but the Prime Minister and I want to go further. We will soon bring forward legislation to end the sentence, once and for all, by the end of this Parliament. These are complex cases, and some of these offenders have committed serious crimes. Public safety will always be my top priority, but we must balance that with fairness on sentences. It will take time to get this right, but the work will begin immediately, and I offer Members of all parties and none in this place the opportunity to work together on a cross-party basis. I will listen to experts inside and outside this House, including the former Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland, and the former Home Secretary, David Blunkett. They are committed advocates of IPP reform, whom I thank for agreeing to work with me. In the meantime, we will do everything within the existing framework to support those in prison to move towards a safe and sustainable release.
I also intend to look at how we can improve outcomes for offenders with complex needs. Women in prison often have high levels of trauma, abuse, mental ill-health and addiction. Many are mothers and their children can be affected profoundly by them being in prison, so I want to reduce the number of women in custody where it is safe to do so, alongside a cross-Government agenda to address the drivers of women’s offending. For youth offenders, I am announcing £4.5 million of investment for robust community alternatives to locking children up in expensive, ineffective and unsuitable prisons. To help solve the crisis in adult prisons, I have decided to temporarily hold some 18-year-olds in our youth estate for longer.
My job is to balance the sustainability of our prisons with public protection, the rights of victims and public confidence in the justice system. The decisions that the Prime Minister and I have had to take are difficult ones. We would like to have gone further, but the Government inherited a system on the brink of failure. I am clear that there must always be space for dangerous offenders, because protecting the public means fixing prisons for good. Otherwise, it is victims who are let down. We will never let that happen.
This Government will run towards problems, including the tough decisions needed to build a justice system that is firm, fair and that protects the public. Those aims will guide me as I tackle its challenges, reform it for a sustainable future and ensure it commands the confidence of the British public. I commend this statement to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
I welcome the Justice Secretary to his place.
This is the Government’s fifth early release policy in just six weeks, since the Prime Minister took office. At every stage we were told that Ministers had no choice but to include dangerous criminals, because the alternative would be the “collapse” of the “entire system”. Now the plan is to stop one group of dangerous criminals leaving prison early by letting a different group of dangerous criminals out instead.
The Justice Secretary and the Prime Minister have justified the plan to release IPP prisoners as a matter of principle, but it is no such thing. It is a fag-packet policy written to get them out of this crisis. Last year a Justice Minister rejected it, saying it would “put the public at risk”. Some 1,415 IPP prisoners had to be recalled to prison after release. The Parole Board says that the rest—856 prisoners—are too dangerous to be freed. Despite the new exclusions, many violent criminals will still be released after one third of their sentence. That includes domestic abusers and some paedophiles.
The Justice Secretary says that if a domestic abuser breaches the terms of their release, tagging means that probation and the police will be alerted. He said this morning that these are “really good systems”, but most breaches result in no action at all. In fact, the Justice Secretary said this morning that early release is now “business as usual” and will go on for years to come. With that in mind, the Sentencing Act provides no end date to SDS33, so is this a permanent provision? If not, for how long does he think it should last? Can he rule out letting prisoners out even earlier with home detention curfews? Will he publish detailed capacity projections and all relevant data?
Will the Justice Secretary give us a timeline and a target for his promise to get more foreign national prisoners out of the country? What is his plan to overcome barriers to deportation caused by the European convention on human rights, and in particular unqualified rights such as articles 2 and 3? How many cells will be established within the existing estate by the end of 2026, 2027 and 2028? Will he release every IPP prisoner by the end of the Parliament, as suggested in the Ministry of Justice statement on Sunday? Will prisoners who would have received a life sentence, had IPP sentences not existed, remain locked up? Will the Justice Secretary rule out watering down the criteria used by the Parole Board to assess IPP prisoners? And can he confirm that the changes to early release will come through secondary legislation, presenting MPs with a false binary choice and no chance to amend their plan?
We have more than 700 fewer prison cells than last year and 1,600 fewer prison officers since the election. No new prisons have been planned or approved by this Government since the election. There are more than 4,000 operational available places and 4,000 more that are certified but out of use because of rules and regulations, officer shortages, and, in the case of Dartmoor prison, levels of radon gas that local residents live with every day. Describing the early release of criminals, a dangerous and irresponsible policy, as “business as usual” is not just an insult to victims, but a dereliction of duty.
Alex Norris
I am grateful for the shadow Secretary of State’s kind words of welcome. I do not know him well, but I know that he, like me, shares a love for this country and that everything he does is seen through that prism. My commitment to him is to work with him. There will be times, perhaps even including today, when we will need to disagree in the best traditions of this place, but I know there will be a lot that brings us together over the months and hopefully years to come.
On plans and changed plans, I make no apology—certainly not to the Opposition—for being able to grab hold of a system that, when we left here in July, was not going to exclude rape offences, child sex offences and those who have taken lives. We have now done that, which is good. I recognise that it has created uncertainty and I apologise to victims, but I hope they understand that it was done with noble purpose. We must now use the time available to make sure that victims get the right support, particularly when it comes to shaping restrictions on offenders if they do come out.
The hon. Gentleman mentions plans. The reality is that if we followed his plan, we would have a prison system that would be bust before Christmas. What would that mean for justice in this country? How could that be right? He jumps on the phrase “business as usual”. The point I am trying to make is that this Parliament has changed legislation. The Sentencing Act is the basis on which standard determinate sentences will be governed, and that will be the case for the foreseeable future. Linked to that, he talks about how the changes will come into force. That will be done via varying the commencement order. He talks about home detention. I can say that I have no intention of going any further. The work we have put in as a result of the Sentencing Act is our way of managing the pressure in the system.
On capacity, the hon. Gentleman asks for clarity. Well, I can provide a little bit of clarity: we should be clear that we have added 374 places in the adult male estate since the general election. Now, that is nowhere near where we want to get to as the end state—that is why our building programme has 14,000 places in it—but I would hope that wanting to do more is a point of shared interest. Of course, things do come in and out of the estate, including because of fire damage; I would not underestimate the importance of contamination either. Nevertheless, there will of course be significant places added in this Parliament and in our programme to 2031.
The hon. Gentleman also asks about the chance to scrutinise the data. He will know that, under the Sentencing Act, we are committed to publishing an annual report. That is what we will do, and I am sure that he and I will get into it at that point.
On foreign national offenders, if the hon. Gentleman has doubts, I will state my record to him and to the House. We have increased by 41% the removal of foreign offenders in this country. I gently say that that was my role in the Home Office, so he should not doubt my vigour. He mentions changes to article 3. He will know about the important work done on that at the Council of Europe. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards), has done a lot of important work in that space. Similarly, our work on article 8 is important and I hope the hon. Gentleman will support that when it comes before Parliament. He should not doubt our vigour; as I say, we are already doing well better than his predecessors—they are sat next to him, so he can talk to them about that—and we will go further.
Let me finish on the IPP point, because I am really interested to see how it does and does not hold. I know that the hon. Gentleman is a champion of individual liberty and a sceptic of what he thinks is uneven justice. If I am able to make this acknowledgment, I hope he will at least reflect on it: there is a real dissatisfaction, as a result of the changes we have had to make, that some people will leave prison earlier than their sentence dictated, and that in many cases there will be people who are still there 10 years after. There is no easy solution to that. All I ask of him is to engage in a process to bring that to its resolution.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Opposition Members seem to need reminding that the early release programme was devised by a Conservative Government. We have been debating at great length, in the media and among politicians, keeping people in prison for longer. I support Government policy on this issue, but I remind the House that the only things, ultimately, that make people safer are: giving more support to prison officers, including their salary; putting money into improving the prison estate—some prisons are Victorian buildings; and, finally, putting effort and money into the rehabilitation of prisoners, not just keeping them in prison longer.
Alex Norris
I agree wholeheartedly with the value my right hon. Friend places on the important work of our prison officers and our probation officers. She is exactly right that what surely binds all of us is that we want to reduce reoffending. What I have presented to Parliament today is a measure to get us through a crisis, but we know that we have to build a new criminal justice system. That can be done from this Dispatch Box, but it also has to be done much more widely, including through work with our prison officers, our Probation Service, the police and our communities in order to reduce reoffending, which is what we all want.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
The Justice Secretary knows that the chaos and uncertainty for victims and their loved ones over the summer months from the handling of this scheme have been unforgivable. The Government have changed course countless times, leaving PC Andrew Harper’s family and countless others without the certainty that they deserve.
The reality, as we all agree, is that in a properly functioning justice system, no victim or loved one should ever be told that their perpetrator is being released earlier than they were told when that sentence was handed down. However, if tough decisions have to be made, they have to be made carefully, sensitively and preparedly, with the safety of victims, loved ones and the public front of mind. How, therefore, will the Justice Secretary be communicating these—I hope—final changes to those who received the generic letters, including victims of grooming gangs and sexual abuse, earlier this year, and will those letters be tailored to each victim? He mentioned in his statement those who are not in the victim contact scheme and an effort by the MOJ to contact them. Can he please provide an assessment of how many victims he thinks that is, and how much resource he will be given to try to track them down?
The reality for the new Justice Secretary is that his inheritance is now a public safety crisis. If probation staff go ahead with strike action, as threatened last month, is he confident that the system can safely manage the risks of releasing thousands of extra offenders? This has all the hallmarks of a national emergency waiting to happen, yet where is the emergency response? Can he explain why the national Criminal Justice Board has not met all year, despite these changes being discussed last year as part of the Sentencing Act, and will he now convene Cobra to give the situation the gravitas it deserves?
The prison capacity crisis is one that this Government inherited two years ago, but they now own the response. As highlighted by the chief executive of the Howard League, we are
“one major incident away from a disaster.”
Prisons such as Wandsworth have been operating at 62% above their intended built capacity as the new normal, creating dangerous conditions that undermine any effort to rehabilitate offenders. What confidence can the Justice Secretary provide that he can deliver this increase in capacity on time, given past failings to do so, and that he can adequately staff it?
Alex Norris
I am grateful for the Liberal Democrat spokesperson’s contribution. As I hope she heard me say, I do accept that the impact of our taking the summer to carve more offences out of this regime in a way that is safe and means we have a resilient prison estate has had an impact on victims and survivors and on their families, as they wait with uncertainty. I hope that is not unforgivable, in the sense that I hope it is understood that our aims were noble ones and have allowed us to go further—I think all Members would say that was a good thing.
My mitigation and attempt to balance the situation is in what we do now. I am making a commitment from this Dispatch Box about the quality of engagement with victims and survivors. Everyone is being written to immediately to have a contact sent to them—trauma-informed engagement. This will introduce a conversation with a victim liaison officer specific to them and specific to the information about their offender’s release date and whether it is changing, and will help them to tailor the controls on their perpetrator so they can live the fullest possible life.
On probation and capacity, I pay tribute to my predecessors as Lord Chancellor for the work that has been done to recruit more staff. That is not at its end state, but the ÂŁ700 million investment is nevertheless starting to bear fruit. I think that gives us optimism for probation, but I am aware that there are still challenges. I have met staff and will continue to engage, and we of course want to avert strike action, as the hon. Member says.
The hon. Member’s point on the national Criminal Justice Board speaks a little bit to the point I made to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott): I want to reinvigorate it as a place that takes real ownership of a reform of our criminal justice system. I think we would all accept that our criminal justice system is not delivering, and we are paying a lot for failure as well. I have not had very long in my role, as I hope the hon. Member would accept, but I certainly look forward to meeting the board.
On convening Cobra, I have to say that it is not in my gift, but it is in the Prime Minister’s. However, the changes we have made are exactly to avert the scenario of getting to such a crisis. In the spirit of what the hon. Member says, I am conscious of the pressures we have put on over the summer—they have been for good aims—but now we need to build a much better system.
Olivia Bailey (Reading West and Mid Berkshire) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for the statement, which will be welcomed by my constituents after a period of great anxiety, and I also thank him for his engagement with me over the summer.
When PC Andrew Harper was killed in my constituency, it devastated our community, but it also left a deep determination to stand by our brave police, who run towards danger every day. Andrew Harper was the absolute best of us, and I would like to pay tribute to his family, who have fought so bravely in his memory. I would also like to thank everyone in my constituency and beyond who signed a petition and made their voices heard. Will the Secretary of State outline what steps he will take to show our brave police that this Government will always be on their side?
Alex Norris
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her very direct campaigning to me over the summer about her and her community’s expectations. I join her in what she said about PC Andrew Harper: he was the very best of us. I really respect both Lissie Harper and Debbie Adlam for never having asked for special treatment. However, I think it is reflected in the actions of this Parliament—we changed the law subsequently—that we do think it is different when our emergency service workers are killed in the line of duty. It is right that we did that did that, but it did create an inequity, and it is right that we have corrected it. Again, I have apologised to both of them about the time it took to do so, but I am glad that we have been able to do it.
On my hon. Friend’s final point, what I want to do for our brave police up and down the country is to have a system that is not running as hot as this, so they are not having to chase around all those symptoms of failure. That is a long-term piece of work, but it is one that starts immediately, and my commitment to them is to have them in the room during the process.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I know the Government will be doing their best to protect potential future victims of early release offenders, particularly those who were in jail for domestic abuse or other fixated behaviour, but it is not good enough simply to try to improve tagging measures; what one has to do is to improve the ability of potential victims to summon help if attacked again. Can the Justice Secretary confirm that the Government will make a unified representation of how such potential future victims can protect themselves—for example, by emergency alarms being fitted as a matter of routine?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Before the Secretary of State responds, let me say that I understand how sensitive this topic is, but we have been in the Chamber a long time, and we have other items of business to get to, so please keep questions short and answers just as short.
Alex Norris
The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise that point. It is part of the conversations that victim liaison officers are having, so that every victim and survivor is able to shape the support around them to make sure that they are feeling safe and secure.
Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)
I welcome the Government’s decision to end early release for certain serious offenders, including those responsible for the appalling killing of PC Harper, as we have heard. My former police colleagues and other emergency workers put themselves in harm’s way every day to keep us safe, and they must be able to have confidence in our system. Does the Justice Secretary agree with me that this decision sends them and others a clear and unequivocal message that this Government value their service, stand firmly with them and their families, and will ensure that those who commit the most serious crimes against them face the consequences of their actions?
Alex Norris
I recognise my hon. Friend’s service in the police. It was made clear to me by lots of colleagues and in conversations that I had that the policing family were looking closely at our actions in this regard. I hope they have got the message from the changes in the law that have happened, and the changes that we have now been able to make, and that they will measure us by the work we do with them to improve the criminal justice system going forward.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
Cheshire police estimates that the additional cost to man-mark criminals who are back on the streets due to Labour’s early release scheme will be £1.4 million a year. Can the Minister reassure police forces up and down the country that those extra resources will be handed to them?
Alex Norris
The right hon. Lady will know of the significant increase in funding to our police that we have already made. Through the National Police Chiefs’ Council, representations have been made about police resourcing and the support we can give to policing. We are still having those conversations.
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)
I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s statement. As a former criminal law barrister, I represented defendants who were given IPP sentences. They were required to complete courses, treatments and rehabilitation before they could be considered for release, yet many were never offered any of those things in time, leaving them unable to be reviewed by the Parole Board through no fault of their own. Can the Lord Chancellor say what he is doing to ensure that prisoners get the help and courses that they need in time for their parole eligibility?
Alex Norris
I hope that my hon. Friend takes comfort from what both the Prime Minister and I have said about ensuring that the right support is in place for those who are paroled to stay out of prison, and for those who have not yet passed that stage to get to it and pass it. That has to be done with public safety in mind. Whether it is my hon. Friend’s insights or insights from colleagues across the Chamber, we are up for that dialogue because we are resolute in our intention.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
When the Justice Committee visited a young offenders institute earlier this year, we found that most of the young people were not able to access even a minimal amount of education or training, which means that they are more likely to go on to commit more offences. What is the Lord Chancellor doing to improve access to education, training and financial preparedness to ensure that young offenders and their adult counterparts do not reoffend and fill up the prisons again?
Alex Norris
The hon. Lady hits on an important point: what are we using our facilities for if not to rehabilitate people, particularly our young people? That is a symptom of what happens when the estate runs as hot as it does. It is a big factor in the reoffending of young people and, frankly, all people. That is why we are taking pressure off. She has heard what I said about the investment that we are putting in to get to what we want, which is a system that prepares people properly for release.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
I thank the Justice Secretary for engaging with me and other colleagues over the summer and taking action to bring forward the point at which the victims hotline will be up and running, so that it is available next month for victims who are worried about their offender’s release. At present, offenders can be banned from a victim’s local area, but that still leaves victims worried about running into them when they leave their area. Restriction zones reverse that burden by confining offenders to specific areas. Will the Justice Secretary be more ambitious about the use of restriction zones, so that it is the freedoms of perpetrators that are curtailed, not those of their victims?
Alex Norris
First, I recognise my hon. Friend’s work in the Department, which we are building out from, particularly on the hotline. That is why we have brought it forward. I am pleased that she has given me the chance to talk about restriction zones, because they are world leading and we are introducing them for the first time. I received an email literally as I was about to stand at the Dispatch Box about how they could operate. The commitment I have made to campaigners is that we will bring into the room those who are interested in ensuring that the zones work in order to challenge us on what we are doing and to make sure we are going as far as we can to make them effective. It is going to take time to build up, and it has to be done in the right way, but the zones have high potential. My commitment from the Dispatch Box is that we will have maximum engagement, so that people know what we are doing and can help us do it well.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Stamford) (Con)
Mark Sanders was a teacher who raped young girls. His sentence was nine years and nine months, yet in July, after serving just two years, he was moved to an open prison, free to come and go and have overnight stays. I raised his case at Justice questions with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards), and also wrote to him. He promised to review the case, but I have had no response. I am sure the Lord Chancellor recognises that for survivors this feels like a form of early release. Mark Sanders should not be in our communities—which he now is—after serving only a quarter of his sentence.
Alex Norris
The hon. Lady will have heard what I said about who we have taken out of the scope of the progression model, but I will undertake to look at that specific case and get back to her as soon as possible.
Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor may know that I have written to him about my constituent William Payne, whose girlfriend Abigail Eggleston was killed by Liam Bowes, who was sentenced to 12 years for causing death by dangerous driving. I therefore welcome the Government’s decision to exclude that offence from the new release arrangements. Is the Lord Chancellor able to confirm that, as a result, Mr Bowes’ custodial release point will remain at two thirds of his sentence, rather than being brought forward to one half, and will he ensure that my constituent receives formal confirmation of that?
Alex Norris
As my hon. Friend knows, we have taken death by dangerous driving out of scope of the progression model, so anybody whose sentence was being reduced from two thirds to a half under the model and was in prison for death by dangerous driving is now not in scope. I will get full clarity on the release date for the case my hon. Friend raises.
Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)
The daughter of one of my constituents was the victim of a knife attack in her own home in 2014. Thankfully, the perpetrator was convicted. He is now charged with another offence—that of rape—and is appearing in court next month. One can imagine the concern of my constituent’s daughter when she received a letter from Victim Support to say that this individual was going to be released. I have written to the Lord Chancellor about the case. I appreciate that he might not have seen the letter, but could he give an assurance that he will look at the case and do all he can to ensure that this individual is not released?
Alex Norris
Again, I say to the hon. Gentleman that rape has been excluded from the progression model, but I will look at that case as a matter of urgency and come back to him. The important thing to say to all colleagues is that the victim-survivor should engage with their victim liaison officer, so that they can answer some of the questions. I will do anything I can to speed up that process.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
Does the Justice Secretary agree that one way of increasing prison capacity is to reduce reoffending, as 80% of people in prison are reoffenders? Far too often, we have prisoners who leave prison with no home, job, family or social connections. Are we doing enough to address that?
Alex Norris
The answer to that question is no. When the system is running as hot as it is, it becomes a self-defeating cycle of a system that runs hot and therefore does not do those things. I hope my hon. Friend will take, as I do, a lot of comfort from what the Prime Minister said in his statement earlier about addressing housing, so that people have a stable base from which to rebuild their lives.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
I want the Lord Chancellor to know how grateful I am for the phone call he placed with my constituent, Rosie Shepherd, whose sister, Fenella Hawes, was killed by a drunk driver four times over the limit. The words he was able to speak to her were a great comfort to her family. Does he accept that the nature and timing of the communications that have gone out during the summer have been devastating for families? Have lessons been learned in general for future situations that require wholesale correspondence with victims?
Alex Norris
The hon. Gentleman is right, and I hope that he has heard me accept that. I hope that there will be a degree of recognition that it was done in the noble cause of wanting to go further, but I still recognise everything he says. On correspondence, particularly correspondence that is more general and may go out more widely, our commitment is to ensure that it is trauma informed.
Mary Creagh (Coventry East) (Lab)
I welcome the Lord Chancellor to his place and congratulate him on the steps he has taken this summer to reduce prison populations while excluding the most dangerous offenders. We must never again be in the position of having more prisoners than prison places. Can he reassure the House that, as he looks at the use of prison capacity and spare places, he will not remove the workshops and training areas in prisons, in which our brilliant prison staff do so much work to reduce the cycle of reoffending?
Alex Norris
My hon. Friend has made an important point. I hope she heard what I said about our enthusiasm for those things that prevent reoffending. The Prisons Minister is looking closely at that in our estate plans, because we know that those areas help prepare people for release and keep them from reoffending.
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
There is no dispute that the IPP topic is a difficult challenge. There is also no dispute that many of those IPP prisoners have been deemed a high risk to society by the Parole Board. Is it the Government’s position that the Parole Board is incorrect, or are the Government willing to lower the threshold of risk?
Alex Norris
I do not think there has to be a binary choice between those two things. I want to recognise the good work that the Parole Board does. I think there is definitely a challenge, as the hon. Gentleman will have heard me say, around support for those who have been in prison for a decade longer than they were sentenced to. As I say, people in those circumstances might struggle to adapt to life on the outside. It is incumbent on us to work across Government; our Probation Service does so much, and other wraparound things can help us to go further. I think that the hon. Gentleman would accept, as I do, that these sentences have more than had their time—let us work together to bring them to an end.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. His colleague the Minister for Policing and Crime wrote to me over the summer to confirm that from 26 October, police in Ealing Southall will have the power to use Labour’s new respect orders, with persistent antisocial behaviour offenders facing up to two years in prison. Does he agree that the steps this Government are taking will help to ensure that there is room in our prisons for those who are making life a misery right now for many of my constituents in Ealing Southall?
Alex Norris
I totally agree. It is sad that this needs to be stated, but there must always be places for people to go to prison when they have committed serious offences; the worst-case scenario would be either trials collapsing or people being rebailed back to the situation in which they were offending. That is why we have made the changes we have made.
Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
The Secretary of State has spoken about sentenced prisoners, but he has not yet spoken about the 15,000 prisoners who are being held on remand, which includes one in four of all women in prison, particularly young women; those held for non-violent crimes, including protesters; and a higher proportion of people from minority groups. When will we see real action on remand decisions, and especially on the relevant recommendations from the Women’s Justice Board earlier this year?
Alex Norris
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question. The remand population is very much a material part of this consideration. There is an important place for remand in public protection, but, as she will know, court delays are often a factor in the size of the remand population. There is important legislation on that making its way through this House; we will no doubt have important exchanges on that shortly.
Jonathan Hinder (Pendle and Clitheroe) (Lab)
I echo the remarks made by my hon. Friends the Members for Reading West and Mid Berkshire (Olivia Bailey) and for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop), who are no longer in the Chamber, on Andrew Harper. What kind of message would it have sent to our 140,000 police officers if those killers had been released? It is important that those officers know that this House has their back, whether they are opening their locker at 6 am for the early shift or at 10 pm for the night shift, but I am afraid to say that due to Governments of all different stripes over a long period, police officers have not felt that. They are all used to politicians saying that they support the police and so forth, and we are grateful for that, but what police officers really need is for that support to be borne out in decision making and actions. I beg the Justice Secretary to bear that in mind in all the decisions he takes in what will, I hope, be a very successful tenure.
Alex Norris
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I recognise his service; he knows of what he speaks in this area. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean, I am well aware that the eyes of the policing family are on us. I ask them, as I ask my hon. Friend, to judge us by our actions. We want to get to the same place as them, which is a criminal justice system that is not running so hot, which means they will not have to be dragged away in all sorts of places, particularly on recall. We have lots of work to do, but my commitment is to do it with them.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor will know that a substantial proportion of criminals released under Labour’s previous early release scheme have reoffended and are now back in prison, yet his Department refuses to release the exact numbers. Will he commit to releasing that data and, going forward, to release data on the new cohort of early release criminals who reoffend, so that this House can judge the success, or otherwise, of his policies?
Alex Norris
I always enjoy a thorough debate on the statistics. The hon. Gentleman will know that the MOJ produces a wide range of statistics quarterly, and it will continue to do so. I will, of course, have a look at the important suggestion that he makes. It is really important that the public have the fullest amount of information in order to have the best public conversation.
Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, and I am grateful that he has worked hard to exempt more criminals from early release, such as rapists and child sex offenders. The VAWG sector is clear that perpetrators of violence against women should not be included in the early release scheme. I know how difficult this is, because the Conservatives left us a complete mess to clear up. Welsh Women’s Aid is really grateful that the victims fund has been announced, which will help it to look after victims. Could the Secretary of State reassure me that no survivor will be harmed as a result of these releases?
Alex Norris
I recognise the vigour and spirit with which my hon. Friend asked her question, and indeed the voice that she gives to a sector that is very concerned about these changes. I want to recognise that we wanted to go further than this. In being unable to do so, our commitment—what we are doing to close that gap—is to bring more support forward to ensure that there is direct support, whether through the victims hotline or the important work that the local sector does at a community level. It seems to me that the test for us to pass in order to prove that to victims is the process of engagement, getting quality information to people at the right time, and then designing the controls on perpetrators. That is the best thing we can do to seek to close that gap. Again, I appreciate that the burden of proof falls on us to demonstrate that we are doing that.
Several hon. Members rose—
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
I am going to say this all in one breath, Madam Deputy Speaker. Prison governors talk about the revolving door of prisoners, with almost half reoffending, but those who go through the LandWorks rehabilitation project in South Devon reoffend at a rate of just 5%, with 90% of them going into employment and back into the community. It is proven to be a success; it works. Will the new Minister for Prisons please come to South Devon to see LandWorks and what it does? It is magic—it is cheaper than prison, and it works. We need to roll this out across the country.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Highgate) (Lab)
Happy birthday, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. Officials will have given him a date or timeline for when the current prison system will reach full capacity. Could I ask how that compares to the previous assessment?
Alex Norris
Like pretty much every Lord Chancellor for a number of years now, the first thing in my inbox on day one was a note saying, “By the way, we are going to run out of prison places”—my note said in November. I am pleased to say that as a result of changes made by my two immediate predecessors, the Sentencing Act improves on that saturation date, moving it comfortably into the future. Where we are on that will be set out when we publish our capacity report later this year, but my commitment is to go much further. Colleagues will have heard the Prime Minister say that he wants us to take a 10-year arc on these things, and the same is true for prison capacity.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The Government tell us that restriction zones will keep people safe, but victims need to see the small print to believe that, especially after the warnings in July’s National Audit Office report into tagging. If an offender leaves a restriction zone, what guarantee can the Justice Secretary give that the GPS system will warn police and probation officers so they can act to keep victims safe in real time?
Alex Norris
Tagging is exceptionally important. The technology is improving, as is compliance with the contract. Similarly, we are making changes as part of this process. The presumption of tagging eliminates a point of failure, and tagging in prisons—a pilot that is developing—also reduces failure at that point. However, I appreciate the substance of the right hon. Lady’s point: we have to demonstrate to those who are interested in this space that this big commitment will be impactful. That is why I have made the commitment to do challenge work with those who care about this issue to demonstrate what we are doing.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
My constituent Terry Rowley received an IPP sentence on 8 February 2008 with a minimum tariff of one year and 126 days. That was 6,780 days ago—more than 18 and a half years—and yet he remains in prison. The Government have rightly committed to ending this injustice. Will the Justice Secretary ensure that as we do so, people like Terry will have a fair, transparent and genuinely rehabilitative route to release, while the public continue to be protected?
Alex Norris
I totally agree. It is worth pausing and reflecting on what my hon. Friend has just said: someone who went to prison for a one-and-a-half-year sentence is still there 18 and a half years later. All of us should feel discomfort about that. It is right that we put the best possible support in place for those who are on that journey and passing Parole Board processes in order to attain their release from prison. For those who are not, we have to look at a way to bring IPP to a close. I am committed to working with colleagues to do so.
Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)
I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s announcement of investment in the Probation Service. Will he lay out what the Government are doing specifically to fix the vetting delays and staff attrition problems that have kept levels broadly stable despite previous investment, and will he commit to a date by which Cambridgeshire and Peterborough will exit prioritisation?
Alex Norris
The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point about vetting. I heard from probation frontline leaders about cases that have taken them the thick end of a year, and the attrition rates as people go and get other jobs. We do not want to see that happen. Vetting must be done properly, and my hon. Friend the Prisons Minister and I are working with the Cabinet Office to improve it. On the specific point about Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, I will revert directly to him.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is crucial that conditions are followed on release. However, automatic recall often means that people who miss a probation appointment end up in prison, often for months on end. Will the Secretary of State look at the recall process and ensure that it is fair and equitable and that if people do err on their conditions, there is work to support that person outside prison rather than their being brought back into custody?
Alex Norris
My hon. Friend makes a really important point. I think we could say unanimously across this place that if an individual out on licence contacted their victim, that would be a significant transgression, and it would have the most significant response, as would breaching their conditions flagrantly and clearly deliberately. There is an element around non-compliance that is more technical—I have to say, I do not think that this is happening widely, but I want to recognise it in the spirit of my hon. Friend’s question. I would defend strongly the principle that people must turn up to the meetings that they are expected to attend, but as my hon. Friend has asked me to look at that issue, we will of course do that, because we want the recall system to be effective.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I am sure that the Lord Chancellor is aware that it is estimated that 20% of the prison population is made up of young people or adults who have previously been in care. Will the Lord Chancellor take a leading role across Government to ensure that there are measures in place to prevent care-experienced people going into prison, and that if they are in prison they have the necessary support to make sure that they do not return?
Alex Norris
I absolutely agree. I have been having conversations with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education very recently on that point. I always took very seriously as a local councillor the role of corporate parent. For those children in care, we were their parents in law and in substance; we had to give them all the opportunities to thrive, and, as my hon. Friend says, when they were challenged to help them get out of that and build a more positive path. She is exactly right to raise that.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford) (Lab)
Happy birthday, Madam Deputy Speaker—a fellow Virgo.
I very much welcome the clarity in the Lord Chancellor’s statement, but on the issue of additional prison capacity, the Prison Officers’ Association has already raised extreme concerns about understaffing, under-resourcing, risk of extreme violence and overcrowding. What reassurances can he give today that additional resources will be provided to operate the extra spaces safely?
Alex Norris
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I look forward to having these conversations with the leadership of the POA and its members, who do such a great job. I am very aware of the attrition rates and retention challenges among people working in our prison system because the estate runs hot. What we are doing is exactly in the service of making it a better place to work, so that they are not having to administer a system that is tense and running at its margins all the time. Deflating it in the ways that I have talked about will help us to build a more stable regime and a better place to work.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
We know that these decisions are not easy and that they reflect the state that the system was left in, but I have concerns, as do charities, about domestic abuse survivors, because perpetrators are going to be let out as early as next month. It is clear that we need to do more to support these victims, so can the Minister please tell me what services will be put in place to ensure that there is adequate support for victims of domestic abuse whose perpetrators are being released?
Alex Norris
I am grateful for the question. As I have said to other colleagues, I think that this is an important thing to demonstrate. My hon. Friend will have heard what I said about bringing the helpline forward and about support for local organisations to help support survivors through difficult periods, but the critical thing is high-quality engagement with victim liaison officers so that those individuals have certainty about what is happening and can help design controls around their perpetrator.
Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
Probation officers and their trade unions have expressed concern about the proposed removal of the workforce measurement tool used to ensure that staff caseloads are at safe levels, and no date has been set for a replacement. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the capacity of the Probation Service to manage rising caseloads safely, and will a new platform be delivered before the current one is decommissioned?
Alex Norris
I am grateful for the chance to address that. That system is coming to an end because it is 15 years old. It is right that we address that. I want there to be much better tech enablement across the Probation Service. I met staff and heard about the importance of AI transcription, which is able to reduce their paperwork load. We of course want to have effective workload management tools in place. That is what myself and my hon. Friend the Prisons Minister are working closely on as we move to the new model.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for grasping the nettle of IPP prisoners. I remind the House that it was Bob Neill, the Conservative Chair of the Justice Committee, who built consensus on that Committee and brought forward a report to urge the Government to act and set up a number of proposals. I see that Bob’s name is not on the list of advisers that the Secretary of State has mentioned. It would be useful having him on board, I believe.
Alex Norris
That is an excellent suggestion by my right hon. Friend; I will be in touch with Bob. We do not intend for this to be a long, drawn-out process. We want to build from the best evidence that is available from those who have been active in this space. I certainly will make sure that I contact Bob to see how he can help us in this process. I remember him very fondly from his time in this place.
Liz Twist (Blaydon and Consett) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will be aware of my constituents Gemma Chappell and Rachel Walls, the great-aunts of baby Maya, who died at the hands of her mother’s partner. I thank the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister for reviewing the early release scheme so that Maya’s mother, who was scheduled for early release this month, will not now be included in this scheme. I commend him for the proposals that he has explained to increase accommodation. Can he say how victims will be supported in the future?
Alex Norris
My hon. Friend raised directly with me and colleagues that appalling case, which when it came to public attention rightly sickened everybody who saw it. I am pleased that we have been able to make the changes that we have, but I again recognise the impact of the uncertainty across the summer. On the point about victim support, it is about high-quality engagement through victim liaison officers as well as access to local support services. We are augmenting our funding for that and the victims helpline.
Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)
I thank the Lord Chancellor for the focus on victims in his statement. Some of the most harrowing conversations I have had as an MP have been with victims and survivors. The failures in the tagging system have had a great impact on them, retraumatising them again and again. Can he explain to my constituents what the impact of the new restriction zones will have on them and their experience of the criminal justice system going forward?
Alex Norris
It is a really significant change. What I am about to say is not just about restriction zones, but it is really important that I say it. Traditionally, victims and survivors have lived their lives around the licence conditions of their perpetrator. We need to flip that, and restriction zones give us that chance. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is here on the Front Bench, which is very helpful, because she built this system out. That is the change that we want to see to ensure that victims are living full lives.
Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor has inherited an absolute mess in the prison system, and I feel heart sorry for him trying to balance the needs of victims with the need for justice and the need to manage the prison estate in a meaningful way. Exclusion zones could be absolutely transformative in enabling victims to live their lives going forward, but it is contingent on the tagging service being effective. At the moment, people and particularly victims would assume that if someone breaches their tag restriction zone, at the very least their probation officer would be automatically informed, but the IT does not function in that way. When will that be in place?
Alex Norris
The technology is rapidly improving, as is compliance. There are other points of failure, such as people not getting tags. That is why that presumption helps, as does tagging in prison. I was with staff on Friday and I was tagged, as colleagues may have seen. I have to say it worked very effectively in that case. We are absolutely resolute that it must work. That is why we are putting this effort and investment in.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s statement and the changes he is making. I know that victims have been at the forefront of his and the Prime Minister’s minds. Families such as those of Chloe Holland and Skye Nicholls have seen the devastating consequences of domestic abuse. How will these and future changes better protect victims and ensure that the psychological harm caused by domestic abuse, particularly coercive control, is properly recognised?
Alex Norris
I really recognise the importance of that question, and indeed the anxiety caused for survivors of domestic abuse as a result of the changes. We need clearer, earlier flagging. That is something that has been lacking, and we are resolute in addressing that. As I say, it is important that extra support is brought forward sooner and more investment is put into it. We also need really good engagement with victim liaison officers so that the victim or survivor knows exactly what will happen with their perpetrator and can shape the controls on them.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Norris Excerpts(5Â years ago)
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Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Philp)
I am pleased to tell the House that there are currently 47 Nightingale courtrooms in operation, of which 28 are used for Crown court purposes, and we are in the process of extending the operation of 32 of those until the end of March. I am sure colleagues across the House will welcome that. In addition, we are in the process of reopening 60 existing courtrooms in the Crown court estate that had been closed owing to social distancing; more than half have already reopened. When all of that is done, we expect to have about 500 Crown courtrooms available, of which well over half will be capable of accommodating jury trials.
Alex Norris
I am grateful for that answer. We have one such Nightingale court in Nottingham, but the backlogs across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire have grown to be extraordinary, with constituents finding the dates for their cases going to the back end of 2022. That will not do. It is bad for victims and bad for the strength of those cases as memories fade for witnesses and similar. Will the Minister commit to meet me and other Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Members to talk about what more we can do in our community to get the backlogs down?
Chris Philp
The relevant Justice Minister would be delighted to meet and discuss these issues. Naturally, the covid pandemic has had a significant impact on the justice system, but that is why the Government have: invested an extra quarter of a billion pounds in covid recovery; hired 1,600 staff for Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service; deployed the Cloud video platform that at its peak was hearing 20,000 cases across the system remotely; and had the 47 extra Nightingale courtrooms. I am sure the House will unite in welcoming those measures. Our aim is to get cases heard as quickly as possible.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Norris Excerpts(6Â years, 2Â months ago)
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Robert Buckland
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his previous service as a member of the Sentencing Council and his work in the youth justice sphere. He is right to recognise that the 18 to 25 cohort have distinct needs relating to maturity and development. In his constituency, excellent work goes on with regard to the neurological challenges that he mentions at Her Majesty’s Young Offender Institution Aylesbury. I will, of course, further engage with him and others on this issue as we develop the White Paper.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Robert Buckland
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. We already have the reporting wrongdoing integrity hotline, which is in place to allow HMPPS staff to raise any concerns they may have. Relevant guidance for employees and managers is available through the internet and the myHub service. HMPPS is reviewing and updating the policy. We very much hope it will be published later this year, following close liaison with the trade unions.
Probation Services
Alex Norris Excerpts(6Â years, 3Â months ago)
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Robert Buckland
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I can give him that reassurance because, as he reminds us, we are talking not just about a service, but the people who deliver that service. Those dedicated public servants will be able to transfer across to the NPS, and I want to retain the ethos that they have and the specialisms that they bring, so that we can enhance the probation service and make it even better in the future.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
This has been a sorry episode, and it is a sobering reminder of what happens when we let ideology push ahead of the evidence in public policy making. That is something I hope those on the Government Benches will reflect on, but frankly it is something for all of us to reflect on. Secretary of State, you have a real opportunity as you build your unified model. There is so much talent in the NPS and those CRCs, so will you commit to getting staff around the table, finding the best of their experiences and building on them?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he really should not be referring to the Secretary of State as “you”.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alex Norris Excerpts(6Â years, 3Â months ago)
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Lucy Frazer
I am aware of the scheme, which is a great example of joint working between HMP Onley, Virgin Trains and Halfords. HMPPS has partnerships with over 300 such organisations, which provide daily work in prisons in normal times, and we value these partnerships enormously. Workshops have been closed in response to the pandemic, but last week, as I have mentioned, we published a national framework setting out how we will ease the restrictions, which we will do as soon as it is safe to do so.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)
Personal protective equipment is critical to protect staff and those in our care where close contact is necessary and unavoidable. There is currently adequate stock and forward supply of PPE, in accordance with public health advice. We have stock in the hundreds of thousands for aprons, coveralls, eye protection, pairs of gloves, respirator masks and fluid-resistant surgical masks. However, we are making continued preparations and keeping demand for PPE under regular review as we move into the next phase of managing this outbreak.
Alex Norris
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his answer, and for the support he has given me in recent years in my attempts to make sure that HMP Nottingham is the safest environment it can be. In that vein, will he give an assurance to staff at Nottingham, and indeed prison staff across the estate, that as lockdown restrictions are eased, they will still have access to those PPE stocks that he talked about, and that if that is what they need for them to be comfortable at work, they will be permitted to keep wearing it?
Robert Buckland
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He knows, and he has followed very carefully, the good progress that is being made in HMP Nottingham. I know he would want me to pay tribute to all prison staff for the incredible work they have been doing throughout this outbreak. I can give him such an assurance. We are looking to ease the lockdown, and as the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer) said, we published the plan for recovery last week. For example, for visits to prisons, it seems sensible that visitors should wear coverings, so that we can minimise the risk of an outbreak coming into prisons. All those measures will continue to be discussed with the unions, as we have done throughout this outbreak.
Domestic Abuse Bill
Alex Norris ExcerptsTuesday 28th April 2020
(6Â years, 5Â months ago)
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Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
I am grateful for the chance to contribute to this important and over-subscribed debate. As a nation, we are experiencing an extended period of living at home. It is a shared experience, but not an equal one. It has highlighted how different isolation is in a shared house, or with limited access to technology, or without access to green space. That is brought into sharp relief when we consider the lives of those living with supposed loved ones, but living in danger of abuse or of losing their lives. In general, the Bill might not be considered core covid business, but for a great deal of people hidden and scared, it could not be more important.
To an extent, I feel as though I am completing a set today. I was a member of the Home Affairs Committee that considered the draft Bill, the pre-legislative Committee for the Bill, the original Second Reading debate, and even the nascent stages of the original Bill Committee. I have been part of the process throughout, as has the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), whose leadership has been welcome.
I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for her outstanding leadership during the process, which has been so good that she has now been sent to sort out the parliamentary Labour party. We are well served on the Opposition Front Bench by my hon. Friends the Members for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) and for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips). In the case of the latter, we have all been following her anyway—the act has simply been formalised.
What I remember most is not the important parliamentary elements or conversations with parliamentary colleagues, but the afternoon I spent with an experts by experience group convened by Women’s Aid. Over a series of sessions, they developed a Bill for survivors—essentially what they think should be in the Bill—so I will use my privileged platform in this place today today to give them a voice. I would love to cover the whole of their Bill, and I recommend that colleagues read it, as I know the Minister has, but I will pick on a few elements in the short time I have available.
First, we should establish a long-term sustainable model of funding for specialist services. It seems a long time since we fought off the Government’s plans for changes to supported housing, which would have led to generic and dangerous commissioning, but we have not finished the job. Refuges are a precious national asset. A survivor in Nottingham is just as likely to need a refuge in Birmingham. They should not be at the mercy of a patchwork quilt of commissioning decisions and funding availability. We know that there is currently a 30% shortfall in places. Last year, nearly two thirds of referrals were turned away. It is time to move to a national, nationally funded universal offer.
Secondly, we should remove local connection rules for survivors who move across local authority boundaries to access housing. That speaks for itself. It is easy to do and we should do it now. We should ensure that those people are given priority needs status when they access housing. That is critical at the moment given the experiences we know survivors are having in the covid context.
Thirdly, it is time to guarantee support for women who have no recourse to public funds due to their migration status by ensuring access to specialist support services, enabling access to the domestic violence concession and stopping public services sharing details of survivors with immigration control. Essentially that asks the Government to enshrine a simple principle: protection from harm is more important than a person’s immigration status. Otherwise, that individual will not leave when they are at risk of being hurt. In this place, we have 650 people with, I suspect, 650 different views on migration, but surely that is one element we can agree on.
Fourthly, there should be a duty on the Government to engage meaningfully with survivors about the Bill, any future review and the non-legislative guidance. Ministers know how frustrated I and other hon. Members have been about how much the Government have been unwilling to put on the face of the Bill, instead asking us to rely on the guidance. That is a big risk for us to take. One way to make us feel better about it is providing that when that guidance is being developed, survivors will be listened to and help shape it.
Finally, we should gender the Bill. It is a failing to have a Domestic Abuse Bill that does not once mention women or girls. Men are victims too, and should be supported, but the overwhelming proportion of victims are women and the overwhelming proportion of perpetrators are men. Sanitising the Bill of gender stops us as a society confronting the ugly truth that culturally, we condition young men, whether through music, sport, media or popular culture, to see women as lesser. That is where abusive behaviour stems from. A gendered Bill in Wales has been effective for men and women and we are missing a generational opportunity to do something important. It is striking that both the Home Affairs Committee and the prelegislative Committee, which are cross-party bodies, reached that conclusion, having examined the evidence properly. It is time the Government caught up.
I may have spoken the words, but they are those of survivors. It is time to meet their expectations.
Domestic Abuse Bill
Alex Norris Excerpts(6Â years, 11Â months ago)
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Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
It has been a privilege even to sit and listen to the debate, never mind to contribute to it, particularly given the contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) and for Bradford West (Naz Shah). It took extraordinary personal courage to make such contributions, and I know that they will resonate with the individual experiences of a lot of people watching at home and make a real difference to their lives.
Like many colleagues present today, I have been waiting eagerly for this debate over the last couple of years, since the Queen’s Speech in 2017. We thought for a while that we might not see the Bill in this Session, but happily we are here today. That is a testament to the lobbying and campaigning efforts inside and outside this place; and, I have no doubt, to the persuasive efforts of Ministers too. I think it is important to recognise the extraordinary leadership of the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), and the now Minister for Health, the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), in getting us to this point. I hope that the Minister will take my comments today in that spirit as we seek to build on this work.
If we rewind the clock seven days to pretty much exactly this time last Wednesday, hon. Members will remember that we had a very difficult session in this place. We all have our version of events and our reasons why we think it was as it was. But collectively we know that, whatever those reasons, we all left with our reputations diminished. More importantly, the reputation of this place was diminished, and that is bigger than all of us. It is therefore really good and important that a week later, we have shown that when we come together in a spirit of co-operation and compromise, sharing our mixed and diverse experiences, we truly make an impact. It shows that the best days for this place are truly ahead—no more so than with this Bill.
This Bill will stand up for thousands of people across the country who are currently suffering abuse, and will hopefully avert it for many thousands of others. My views on the Bill are a matter of public record. I was lucky enough to serve on both the Home Affairs Committee when we had an inquiry on the Bill, and on the Joint Committee so ably chaired by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), so it is pretty clear what I think about the Bill and where we should go next, but today I want to focus briefly on three things.
Refuges are a precious national asset, and we ought to think about them as such. They are literally the difference between life and death for a vulnerable individual. High-quality, accessible provision is critical, but it needs to be a national network too, because a woman in my community in Nottingham is as likely to need a refuge in Birmingham tonight as they are to need a refuge close to home. But at the moment there is a toxic combination of a reduction in support—Refuge reports cuts to 80% of its services since 2011, at an average of 50%—and significant demand, with almost 60% of all refuge referrals being declined. This does not and will not work, and the Bill is a golden opportunity to get us to a position where we have a fully funded national network underpinned by statutory status. It is therefore disappointing that the Bill does not have a legal duty to provide. I hope that the Minister will expand a little on the thinking behind that, because both the pre-legislative Committee and the Home Affairs Committee majored on the value of this duty, which I believe is shown by the evidence.
There is also scope to be clear about the need for specialist services. I was lead councillor for commissioning in my local authority for three years. Local authority commissioners are under extraordinary financial pressures, which pushes councils to more generic commissioning, which is cheaper and more flexible. That will not work for refuges, so we should be clear in the Bill about our expectations.
Mr Speaker
Order. From now on, if we have interventions, it will mean that other people will not get in, which would be a great pity, so it would be better not to intervene at this stage. If the hon. Gentleman insists, he will of course be in order, but he will be stopping other people speaking.
Alex Norris
We heard in both Committees about the dangers that single payments were creating. We know that split payments on request will not work. No one is going to march their abuser down to the jobcentre and ask for split payments. If the Bill is not the vehicle for addressing split payments by default, what is that vehicle? If the change does not require primary legislation, why do we not get on to it?
With reference to having a gendered definition, it is welcome to have a statutory definition of domestic abuse for the first time, but it is a failure to define it and not even mention women or girls. Of course men are victims too and require the best possible support, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that domestic abuse is a gendered crime. It is gendered in the volume of victims, in the level of violence perpetrated and what it leads to and, crucially, in its root causes. I have heard Members from across the House today talk about our noble and lofty goal to eradicate domestic abuse. I join Members in that cause, but if we think we can do that in a Bill that does not talk about why domestic abuse happens or what we are doing when we condition our young boys and men to value themselves differently from women, we will never eradicate it.
We must take a stand. I remind Ministers that, in both the pre-legislative Committee and the Home Affairs Committee, we came up with workable solutions after great discussions. I hope that they will consider adopting them at the next stage in the Bill’s progress, because this is going to be a great Bill. We are coming together, we are doing a great job on it and I cannot wait to see it proceed.
Vanessa George: Early Release from Prison
Alex Norris Excerpts(7Â years, 2Â months ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
That this House has considered the early release of Vanessa George from prison.
It is good to see you in the Chair for such an important debate, Mr Hollobone. I am grateful to hon. Members from both sides of the House who are here to stand in solidarity with the parents and children affected by this case. I am here to speak on behalf of the children who attended Little Ted’s nursery in Plymouth, their parents and their families. I hope to give a voice to their fears, anger, pain, horror and genuine concern about the early release of convicted serial child abuser Vanessa George.
Vanessa George was sentenced in December 2009 and charged with seven offences—two of sexual assault by penetration and two of sexual assault by touching. She was also charged with making, possessing and distributing indecent images of children. She was given an indeterminate sentence for reasons of public protection, and was to serve a minimum of seven years for her crimes against toddlers and babies.
The judge—Mr Justice Royce—said to Vanessa George on sentencing:
“I cannot emphasise too strongly that this is not a seven-year sentence. It is emphatically not. It is, in effect, a life sentence. Many, and I suspect everyone so deeply affected by your dreadful deeds, will say that would not be a day too long.”
The parents were let down twice: first, by the lack of a robust system to protect their children, whom they entrusted to Vanessa George and Little Ted’s nursery; and secondly, as they have told me—some through tears—as the woman who abused so many children will be released early. I will return to this in a moment, but it is worth noting that most of the parents I have spoken to found out about the early release through the media, not from the Parole Board or the authorities. As soon as I heard about the release, I wrote to the Secretary of State asking him to intervene, and personally and urgently to review the decision to release Vanessa George. The more details that emerge, such as the fact that she still refuses to name all the children she abused, the more I am sure it is still too early for that woman to be released.
We are here today because I—we—believe that Vanessa George should not be released early. I believe that the decision should be reviewed urgently, and that every step should be taken to keep her behind bars. I believe that she should be in prison for the entire childhood of the children she abused. I believe that she should not be released or considered for release until she has named all the children she abused. I believe the police should reopen investigations into cases not on the original charge sheet but for which she is the sole or principal suspect. I believe that any criminal justice system that carries such a low bar for remorse that she is not required to name her victims to be eligible for early release is a system that is not working properly in the public interest. I believe that there needs to be a greater role for victims in early releases.
I believe all that because I want every child that George filmed and photographed being sexually assaulted to live for the rest of their childhood in safety. I want their parents to know that the woman who committed those unspeakable acts is locked away and out of reach of their kids until they become adults themselves. She robbed those children of their childhood, and we should protect what remains of it. She has refused to confirm the extent of her actions and the total number of her victims. That leaves every parent who sent their child to Little Ted’s nursery living with a life sentence of not knowing whether their child was one she abused and whether images of their child being abused still exist in some rotten corner of the dark web or on a pervert’s hard drive somewhere. She should not be released until she has named every single one of the babies and toddlers she abused.
I have been made aware of legal precedent whereby additional charges have been investigated, and further charges put to gain justice for those crimes, which would have the effect of keeping that woman behind bars. I want the police to reopen investigations into these crimes, so that George can be kept behind bars if she is guilty of them in addition to the offences of which she was convicted.
Furthermore, the victims need to be given more information and the reports that they are currently denied. They should receive more appreciation for their brave and courageous advocacy—especially the parents who gave evidence and submitted testimony to the Parole Board. The Parole Board acts under the direction of the Secretary of State and Parliament. This debate is necessary and timely in helping to update that direction.
I feel so strongly about this because over the past few weeks I have taken the time to listen to the parents of the children Vanessa George abused. These are some of their comments.
“How can I tell my child that I don't know whether she was abused or not?”
said one. Another said:
“I do not know what I will say to her if she were to ask me about the offender.”
Another told me:
“She will be out soon, but it doesn’t end for us.”
Another said:
“I told them what releasing her early would mean and they ignored it.”
Another said:
“I gave the police my email address and phone number as I wanted updates about her! I’ve had no email or phone call from them whatsoever!”
Another said:
“It seems to me she is saying the words but if she had real remorse then she would have shared more information to help the families”.
Perhaps most simply and brutally, one said:
“I found out on Facebook that the woman who abused my child was being let out. We were supposed to be told, but we weren’t.”
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case, albeit one that is difficult to hear. One of the challenges is that we do not know the true extent of this individual’s offending, and therefore the true number of victims. Does he think that changes ought to be made so that people can be attached as people of interest to the case, so they are not missed out and do not find out through Facebook, which is abysmal?
Luke Pollard
I do. There is a difficulty in this case in the difference in the definition of a statutory victim and a discretionary victim. My hon. Friend’s suggestion is a good one, because regardless of the official tick-box definition of the victims, the people connected with the case must be kept informed, especially about the release of the offender.
I am grateful to the Minister for the time he spent with me ahead of this debate and for his professional, non-partisan and sincere support for the victims in this case. On behalf of the parents, I have a number of questions. Will the Minister review the Parole Board’s decision to release Vanessa George early? Will the powers that the Government have taken following the case of serial rapist John Worboys apply in the case of Vanessa George? The Minister has told me those powers have not yet commenced. Will he tell me whether that is true, and whether Vanessa George’s legal team argued for consideration of her case ahead of those powers commencing? Did she try to get out early, knowing that she would not be able to if she left it any longer?
The serious case review into Vanessa George found:
“Although she was not senior in her position, other factors such as her age, personality and length of service could have created an illusion of position of power and encouraged a sense of trust...It is also the case that George is of the ability to behave in a highly manipulative manner and hence gain high levels of trust in others”.
May I ask the Minister for the strongest possible assurances that the manipulative nature of Vanessa George has been properly assessed by the Parole Board?
Furthermore, I have been made aware of legal precedents from similar cases that may provide a chance, no matter how slim, to keep Vanessa George off our streets. It would ensure that there is an investigation of additional crimes that were not on the original charge sheet but for which she was the sole and primary suspect.
On how many counts was George originally charged? How many of those remain on file with her as the principal suspect? I understand that she was charged with just seven, but that scores more remain on file. Is the Minister aware of any recent cases when it was brought to the Parole Board’s attention that the main suspect due for release was the main suspect in many other cases that were not on the charge sheet? Was that considered in this case? Did the police make representations to the Parole Board where cases in which George was suspected were not proceeded with? I realise that the police and the CPS do not always send the full charge list to the courts for fear that juries may be confused, trials may be too long and other charges may be put at risk. Are there cases where George was the sole or primary suspect in which charges have not been laid but could be?