Oral Answers to Questions

Ashley Dalton Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for his question. He will know that certain offences are excluded from the SDS40 early release scheme, not the offender. This Government put in strict protections to protect the public, unlike the previous Government, who introduced an end-of-custody supervised licence scheme. Those who are released from sentences for common assault are flagged for domestic abuse markers, and they are given priority for electronic monitoring and risk assessments. I meet the sector regularly to look at what else we can do. We are learning lessons from SDS40, but this Government are committed to halving violence against women and girls.

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

9. What steps her Department is taking to improve the enforcement of the code of practice for victims of crime in England and Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)]

We will implement the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, which lays a good foundation for ensuring that victims know the rights they should receive under the code and that agencies are held accountable for delivering them. We will consult on the revised victims code early next year, and we will go further by increasing the Victims’ Commissioner’s powers so that there is more accountability for delivering the code.

[Ashley Dalton]

My constituent Dr Marie Gerval was a victim of stalking by a man with whom she had had a brief relationship. He even put a tracker on her car without her knowledge. There were needless delays in her case, and she felt that she was not taken seriously. So bad was the stress that her hair fell out. Later, it transpired that the investigating officer on her case was himself convicted of stalking a woman. Will the Minister meet me and Dr Gerval to discuss how the code of practice for victims can make sure that this does not happen to other women like her?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

What Dr Marie Gerval experienced is totally abhorrent, but sadly she is not alone in experiencing these crimes. The Government are committed to treating stalking with the seriousness it deserves by enhancing stalking protection orders, implementing automatic suspensions for officers under investigation for domestic abuse and sexual offences, and introducing mandatory professional standards for individual officers. The Home Office is also looking at the police response to stalking as a part of our work to better protect victims of violence against women and girls. I encourage my hon. Friend to reach out to the Home Office Minister responsible for safeguarding, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), but I will happily meet her.

Violence Reduction, Policing and Criminal Justice

Ashley Dalton Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

Let me begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Michael Shanks), who is no longer in his place, on his excellent maiden speech.

I was excited to witness, for the first time as a Member of this place, His Majesty deliver his first Gracious Speech. I turned up last week eager to hear the Government’s comprehensive and ambitious plans for the parliamentary Session, but what the Government had to offer was nothing short of threadbare. Perhaps if the Prime Minister had spent less time on the phone to his predecessors trying to get them to come and save his skin, he could have drawn up a plan to get our country building again and to help working people get on the housing ladder.

Sadly, there is a complete absence of home building in the Government’s legislative programme. The aspiration to own one’s own home sits strongly in the British people. It is not just an aspiration to own property but an aspiration for security—a roof over their head and those of their family, and a solid foundation on which to build their future. But far too many are locked out of that ambition, watching as the dream of owning their own home is eroded by soaring inflation, record high energy bills and the highest tax burden on the British people since the post-war period. The British people do not lack ambition. They know the potential in their communities. But we must take the decisions here that meet their ambition out there.

Getting the balance right between green space and building what we need is vital, and it can be done. The agricultural industry is so important to my constituents. Our farmland does not just contribute to the local and national economy but keeps the country fed. We can protect our farmers and their land while finding space to build the homes we need for the future. A green belt policy that protects disused car parks while green spaces are handed over to developers simply does not work. The grey belt space is there, often adding nothing and in some cases blighting our communities. We must have the ambition to use it.

I say to the Prime Minister that in West Lancashire we are open for business. Skelmersdale is the most populated area in my constituency, with around 40,000 people making Skem their home. When the spades first entered the ground in Skelmersdale in the 1960s, the new town was intended to provide homes to over 80,000 people, but 60 years later, we have not reached that number. We have the potential to deliver the homes we need to realise the aspirations of a modern Britain, but we cannot do that without the critical infrastructure that sits alongside it and has too often been ignored in recent developments. Human beings need more than just a roof over our heads. We need connectivity, services and community. Skelmersdale has been without a train station since 1958—three years before it was designated a new town. It is one of the largest towns in the entire country without a station, and is the perfect candidate for levelling-up funds, but it has received none. Projects such as a new railway station in Skem would constitute a genuinely new offer for transport regeneration in the north-west.

Claims that the Government are levelling up through investment in the Network North project are also, frankly, laughable. Despite fanfare and promises, there is little on offer for communities like mine. The now Prime Minister once boasted about changing the public funding formulas to divert funding away from deprived urban communities to more prosperous towns. Since then, communities crying out for investment have seen more of the same. Take a cursory glance at some of the projects referenced in the Government’s Network North proposals and you will find that many of them already exist.

It is not just our trains that are not working. Devoid of ideas and vision for this country, the Government sent their own MPs home early on half the parliamentary sitting days in the last Session. There are no signs of that changing with the King’s Speech, which contains the fewest new Bills in almost a decade. The sad reality of the situation is that the Prime Minister has no confidence in his Government to get legislation through Parliament. He does not even trust his own MPs enough to make one of them the Foreign Secretary. Even worse than that, the Prime Minister seemingly has no confidence in himself. Like King Midas on opposite day, everything he touches turns to disaster. It is clear that the Government have given up on governing, so why not let the British people decide at a general election?