Alexander Stafford
Main Page: Alexander Stafford (Conservative - Rother Valley)Department Debates - View all Alexander Stafford's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Alex Chalk
As is so often the case, the hon, Gentleman is absolutely right. We have to ensure that victims are not spectators in the criminal justice process, but participants in it. That is why we have rolled out the victims code, which contains 12 core entitlements to ensure that victims can be kept updated about the progress of the case and informed about special measures and how they give their evidence, as well as the right to court familiarisation visits, the right to make a victim impact statement and a right of review, as I have indicated. We have also ensured that victims’ funding has been quadrupled since 2010, we have doubled support for rape support centres, and so on. That is over and above creating the new offences to ensure that those victims can get justice. All this we do and more, and we do so because we want to put victims first.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
Rape, and child rape in particular, is an abhorrent crime. Ensuring that those perpetrators serve their full sentence in prison will clearly act as a deterrent and reassure the public, but what steps is my right hon. and learned Friend taking to ensure we have the prison places to lock up dangerous rapists and child rapists in particular, so that victims know that those perpetrators are always behind bars?
Alex Chalk
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Those are some of the most appalling crimes, which shatter not just the lives of the victims, but potentially those of so many others, including the victims’ friends and families, and he is absolutely right that we need to make sure there is always sufficient custodial capacity for that to take place. That is why I am announcing today that we will roll out a programme to buy the very locations we need next year, with additional money, to ensure that, well in advance of the prison builds needing to come on line, we have the planning permission in place so that there is the pipeline of places to ensure that justice can be done.