Oral Answers to Questions

Ann Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that the rise in serious violence in our prisons is wholly unacceptable. It is pretty clear to me that the biggest cause of that change has been the presence of so-called legal highs—new psychoactive substances—in our prisons. Only last Friday, I spoke to a prison governor who said that it is the key problem that staff face. We have taken a number of steps, including criminalising the throwing of substances over a wall in prisons. We are about to trial body scanners in our prisons. We will take all steps that we sensibly can to protect our staff. These substances are a danger to our society as a whole. They need to be dealt with effectively in our prisons, and they will be.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

12. What recent assessment he has made of the outcome of the pilots of section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

Recorded pre-trial cross-examination is designed to help vulnerable witnesses to give their best possible evidence and to spare them the trauma of being cross-examined in front of a jury and the public. The hon. Lady will know that we have been piloting the scheme in Liverpool, Leeds and Kingston upon Thames Crown courts, and that the pilots ended in October 2014. Interim findings from the evaluation of the pilots are awaited, and an announcement of the plans for any future roll-out of the scheme will be made in due course.

[Ann Coffey]

I recently visited the recorder of Liverpool, Judge Goldstone, who said that the section 28 pilot in Liverpool had resulted in a sea change in culture in court: cross-examinations without the aggressive barracking and repetitive questions of defence lawyers, and impressive outcomes in the reduction of stress and anxiety in children. Does the Minister agree that if the pilot was rolled out to every court, it would hugely increase the confidence of child witnesses in the criminal justice system?

[Mr Vara]

As I have said, we are awaiting the results of the pilots. Once we have considered them, we will take the proper action and, if necessary, roll them out further.