Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(11 years ago)
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Jeremy Wright
Again, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The third sector—voluntary organisations—has a huge amount to offer us in this context, and already does to a large extent. Our proposals to transform rehabilitation will bring more of those organisations into the job of providing rehabilitation. We think that they have a first-class offering in many cases, and are likely to be a large part of what we go forward and do.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
21. Surely the Minister has read the Ofsted reports on the quality of what happens to prisoners in prison. It is appalling that so many prisons fail to do the job of working, educating and training people for release. That is the problem—complacency on the Government Front Bench.
Jeremy Wright
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there is no complacency whatsoever. It is exceptionally important that prisoners learn literacy and numeracy skills, which many of them lack. It is also important that they develop vocational qualifications, because we know that gaining those qualifications leads on to higher chances of employment, and maintaining a job is the best way we know of keeping someone away from crime. That is hugely important.
The hon. Gentleman will also be reassured to know that we are looking carefully at how we can improve education within the youth estate. As a former Chairman of the Education Committee he will recognise the importance of our duty to educate those young people properly, and when the contracts come up for renewal next year, we will expect better.
The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)
My hon. Friend will know that the Home Secretary will shortly be publishing a modern slavery Bill that will deal with many of the issues that he rightly raises. Since July 2011, every trafficking victim has received Government funding, via the Salvation Army. The figures last year were about £3 million, with about 928 victims having received this vital support over the past year.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
T2. The Secretary of State will know that 12 years ago five children and three adults were murdered by a gang of wicked men. Recently, the Parole Board, against the advice of probation and forensic psychologists, released one of those men before his minimum sentence had been served. What is going on in the Parole Board that it is releasing such men into the community?
Chris Grayling
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Parole Board and its decisions are independent, but I hope that one benefit of the establishment of the national probation service, with expertise in dealing with the highest-risk offenders, will be a greater degree of expertise sitting alongside the Parole Board to advise it on when it is appropriate to release someone and when it is not. I share his concern about ensuring it is safe to release people on to our streets and that they do not continue to pose a threat to society.
Child Protection
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered child protection in the UK.
I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for giving Members the opportunity to debate this important subject. As a precautionary measure, I declare my related interests as in the register.
As I have said on many occasions, opportunities to debate and air issues of child protection or of children generally are frustratingly rare, as I found in opposition and as Minister with responsibility for these matters, so today’s debate is welcome. It is particularly important because child protection and child abuse, in its different forms, have probably never had a higher profile, and have never triggered such a response and awareness among the public at large, which is probably the one compensation of the whole sordid Jimmy Savile affair. That is why, a year on from Savile, I and other hon. Members requested a debate on child protection.
The extraordinary turn of events started to unravel almost a year ago when the media heralded a modest but game-changing ITV documentary—produced by Mark Williams-Thomas, to whom I pay tribute for what he has set in motion as a result—which first tentatively suggested that Jimmy Savile had abused teenage girls as young as 13. It seemed incredible that the semi-beatified, spangly shell-suited former Bevin boy, “Top of the Pops” doyen, children’s TV icon and multi-charity philanthropist had so successfully hidden his alter ego as a serious sexual predator, and a pretty prolific and grubby one at that. The rest, of course, is history. The initial Guardian headline about some 10 female victims having come forward was one of its more glaring underestimates. The number of victims was then upgraded to some 300, some of them possibly as young as nine years old, and the figure is now in excess of 600. The ramifications for the BBC, for the rest of the establishment and for the public profile of child abuse, however, have been huge. It is worth briefly reviewing what has come to light over the past year.
There has been Operation Yewtree, which concentrated on the Savile case—600 people have come forward as having been abused by Jimmy Savile over a 60-year period. There are records of people who said that they were turned away when they reported abuse suffered at his hands. Six former police officers admitted that they were aware of Savile’s behaviour, with extensive evidence of cover-ups and withholding of information leading to abuse continuing over such a long period, including against children, teenage fans and kids in hospitals and care homes. We have seen the recent conviction of Stuart Hall for assaults spanning some 18 years on at least 13 girls, and a panoply of assorted comedians, publicists, entertainers, soap stars and childhood icons at various stages of arrest, investigation or facing court. Senior heads have rolled at the BBC, and its inquiry is said to have cost the licence fee payer in excess of £10 million already.
Operation Pallial has investigated the original claims of historical abuse at children’s homes in north Wales going back to the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. There has been a review by Mrs Justice Macur of the terms of the Waterhouse inquiry into the abuse of children in care in Gwynedd and Clwyd council areas. Operation Fernbank was established to focus on claims of sexual abuse and the grooming of children involving parties for men at the former Elm guest house in south-west London in the ’70s and ’80s. Operation Fernbridge has been launched as a result of allegations arising from Operation Fernbank. The Independent revealed on 9 June that seven officers are pursuing more than 300 lines of inquiry.
There are a number of inquiries involving children being abused in schools. Operation Flamborough is investigating alleged assaults on girls with learning difficulties at a Hampshire boarding school. At Carlekemp in North Berwick, a feeder primary school to Fort Augustus Abbey Catholic school has been linked to abuse allegations, as has Fort Augustus Abbey itself. There have been abuse allegations in relation to Kesgrave Hall school, near Ipswich. At Chetham’s music school in Manchester, a former director of music and his wife were found guilty of indecently assaulting Frances Andrade, who, tragically, was driven to take her own life after being subjected to harsh cross-examination during the trial, having been labelled a fantasist and attention seeker and advised not to seek counselling during the trial. There have been allegations of sexual abuse in many other music schools, including the Yehudi Menuhin school in Surrey, and schools in Edinburgh and Somerset. But it does not stop there.
In the diocese of Chichester, in my part of the country, retired priests have been charged with sexual offences. The diocese has had four inquiries into child abuse in the past four years, including a formal visitation from the Archbishop of Canterbury and a report written by the noble Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss. The General Synod voted on 7 July this year to issue an unreserved historic apology from the Church of England to victims of clerical sex abuse. We have seen countless examples of child sexual exploitation cases: Operation Retriever; the extraordinary case in Rochdale where 47 girls were identified as victims of child sexual exploitation; the case in Rotherham; Operation Bullfinch in Oxford—there is still more to run on that one; and Operation Chalice, in which seven men were jailed following a police investigation into child sexual exploitation involving young white girls in Telford.
Of course, there were the recent tragic killings of April Jones at the hands of 46-year-old Mark Bridger, and of Tia Sharp at the hands of her grandmother’s boyfriend, Stuart Hazell, which were linked to downloading abuse images of children. The case of Daniel Pelka, who was killed and tortured in an incredibly cruel way, came to court in the last few months: a defenceless four-year-old child was systematically tortured, yet this was on the radar of local authority services. Next week, the Coventry safeguarding children board will undertake a serious case review, during which I think we will hear some familiar stories—a case of déjà vu for those of us who have been around the block so many times with this sort of cruelty. Of course, there was also the serious case review of the Birmingham nursery case.
I make no apology for what is a grim reading list, involving cases that have been instigated, reopened, proceeded with through the courts or investigated in just the last year, since the Jimmy Savile case hit and maintained the headlines for so many months.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the hon. Gentleman also include for the record a dreadful case that touches all of us in the House: that of baby Peter, which drew our attention to the need for a systematic, cross-services approach to child protection?
Tim Loughton
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and we could have taken up this entire debate with the history of some of these cases. And these are only the high-profile cases that we know about and read about. They are only a small sample of what has actually been going on; many more have not reached the headlines or even the courts.
Away from the high-profile stories that make the media headlines, the wider figures show that our various child protection agencies have never been busier. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children reports that referrals to ChildLine about sexual abuse were nearly twice as high in June and July of this year as in the same period last year, pre-Savile. There have been 2.4 million visits to the ChildLine website in the last year—an increase of some 28% on the previous year. The NSPCC estimates that more than 50,000 children in the UK are known to be at risk of abuse. It calculates that last year, a total of 2,900 rapes or attempted rapes of children under the age of 13 were recorded; that is eight per day. Indeed, 32%—almost a third—of all sexual crimes in this country are against children under the age of 16.
Tim Loughton
I agree with the hon. Lady, who knows a great deal about this issue, having been a practitioner in the field; indeed, she and I have worked together through the all-party group on child protection. We need to be wiser to the professions in which paedophiles and potential paedophiles will inveigle themselves. At the same time, however, training and awareness in some of these professions—an issue I shall return to—have improved enormously, although not enough, yet, and the inspection regime has improved. In too many cases, we were inspecting the wrong thing. I hope that joint agency inspections, which we were promised but which have been put on hold, will still happen, so that we have that cross-disciplinary eye: police looking at children’s services, children’s services looking at education, education looking at health services.
Too often, there was a silo approach to inspection, which took up a great deal of the time of professionals who would rather spend it looking after the families, and not enough dissemination of information. The best way to bring that about is better multi-agency training, which we have not been good at. That is beginning to happen, however. For example, we have multi-agency safeguarding hubs, through which different agencies are co-located—sitting next to each other in the same room, looking at the same intelligence, discussing cases and coming up with a much better informed and sharper action plan. All those things are improvements, but the point the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) makes is a valid one.
I know that many Members want to contribute to the debate, but there is a bit more I want to say. With the list I have given goes a looming public apprehension about whether we really have cracked child protection, buffeted by almost weekly revelations of the latest scandal involving abuse at the hands of a bishop, a music teacher, a taxi driver or a soap star. To some extent, it matters not whether the perpetrator is dead or alive, or how long ago his alleged misdemeanours took place. The higher profile given by the media to cases linked to celebrities has, however, been deeply unhelpful, as it detracts from the reality that the main perpetrators are common criminals in ordinary jobs.
Of course, the fact that so many cases are now coming to court, however belatedly, is a sign of some success, in that offenders are now being pursued better by police. Victims are being heeded more loudly and sympathetically, prosecutions are sticking and the perpetrators are being made to pay.
However, are our children safer now than they were 50 years ago, when Savile and others started to ply their trade? Have we just replaced celebrity abuse of star-struck teenagers while the establishment turned a blind eye with systematic abuse to order by organised gangs, be they Pakistani-British—high-profile cases of which we have seen—or of whatever culture? Are internet groomers and the recent Oxford and Rochdale abusers just a modern-day version of Savile, armed with mobile phone technology but without shell suits and the lure of the “green room”? In that sense, given the reach of technology as a key tool of the abusers, do they not pose a much more widespread threat now than ever before?
I think that those of us in the know here today can say that children are safer now than back in the 1960s, but that is a tough sell to the public at large. But if that is the case, when did things actually get better? When did child protection come of age and society at large recognise its significance? When did we equip our agencies sufficiently to question the “It’s just Jimmy” mentality and start turning over some rather grubby stones? Was the landmark Children Act 1989 the turning point? Was it the shocking revelations concerning the north Wales care homes, which have of course come full circle, as we now know that the whole story was not properly revealed? It is to answer these questions that I and others have been calling for some time for an overarching inquiry into the whole sordid history of child abuse in this country, going back to the 1960s and traversing the Children Act, into what I call the legitimate legislation tsunami post-Victoria Climbié. Such an inquiry must involve a commission, led by respected figures from the law, lawmakers, social services and children’s charities. It must set out to provide the holistic assurance that has been so sapped by the plethora of at one time weekly inquiries and reviews set up by the Home Office, the BBC, the Department of Health and numerous others, and it must go everywhere.
Such an inquiry must address four main issues. What exactly happened, and why, over all those years? When did things start getting better, and how? Have all practical steps been taken to give victims the confidence to come forward, and for the police to pursue vigorously any remaining offenders? Perhaps most important of all, have all our major institutions that have significant dealings with children and young people instituted child protection policies and practices that are fit for purpose in 2013 to deal with modern-day technology and savvy perpetrators?
Mr Sheerman
The hon. Gentleman is being very generous in giving way. May I just put in a caveat? There was a time when a kind of press feeding frenzy went on. Something went very wrong with some of the investigations, a lot of innocent people who had worked with children were falsely accused—for whatever reason—and many good professionals’ lives were destroyed. Please can we make sure that, whatever we do now, we do not start that sort of thing again?
Tim Loughton
The hon. Gentleman is right, which is why I referred to what happened with celebrities, which was a sort of feeding frenzy and succeeded in masking the multitude of real crimes—not that the former were not real crimes—that were going on among ordinary people. That is why we need an overarching inquiry to look holistically at what went wrong, what appeared to go wrong, what was a symptom of media frenzy, and who the victims were and are. Most important, we need to give some satisfaction and confidence to the public at large that somebody is looking at this issue properly, and that there is evidence that their children are safer now—despite everything that has come out—than 10, 20 or 30 years ago. I do not think that an unreasonable ask. The former Prime Minister of Australia established a similar royal commission into historic child abuse in November 2012, to look into institutional responses to allegations of sexual abuse in Australia, particularly linked with the Catholic Church. IT has been done it there, and there is a good case for doing it here.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Vaizey
Of course I will meet the hon. Lady to discuss it. However, as regards BT’s so-called monopoly, it is important to stress that BT has the lowest market share of any incumbent provider in any major European country. BT Openreach is open to all providers, such as TalkTalk and Sky. We have some of the lowest broadband prices in Europe, and we should celebrate that.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
12. What recent discussions she has had with the BBC Trust about that BBC attracting a more diverse work force.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)
The BBC’s work force and output should reflect the diversity of Britain today. My Department and I have had regular discussions with the BBC about this, and in May 2013 I wrote to the director-general seeking his support for our “Think, Act, Report” initiative. I encourage all broadcasters to tap into the creative talents of everyone in the UK, regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity or disability.
Mr Sheerman
Is the Secretary of State aware, though, that if one asks those at the BBC how many people they employ have been state educated, they look very shifty and drop John Humphrys into the conversation. It is a fact, in my experience, that very many of the senior personnel in the BBC are from private, independent school backgrounds. Is it not about time that this great corporation opened its doors to talent from the state sector as well?
Maria Miller
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that there should be transparency across the BBC’s activities. As a state-educated Secretary of State, I think we should be proud of people who have had a state education and have leading positions in this country.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
1. What recent consultations she has had with employers’ organisations on the treatment of women who return to work after maternity leave.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Jo Swinson)
As part of the consultations on introducing shared parental leave, I have had a number of discussions with employer representative groups and employers, as well as family representative groups, about the issues surrounding women returning to work after maternity leave. Those groups have included the British Chambers of Commerce, the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses, the TUC and Working Families, as well as employers such as BT and Lloyds.
Mr Sheerman
As someone who has three daughters, all of whom have children and have had maternity leave, and who have demanding jobs, may I tell the Minister that the Government’s record since 2010 is not good? Recent independent reports show that family incomes and women’s incomes have declined, and we still have not addressed the thing that prevents the most talented people in our country from getting back to work—the cost of child care. When will the Government tackle that?
Jo Swinson
The hon. Gentleman is right to mention the cost of child care, and the Government are well aware of the challenge that it poses for working mums and dads. That is exactly why we have announced a new tax break of £1,200 per child per year for child care costs. Just this week, we have extended the free early education entitlement to two-year-olds, and it will double next year to include the most disadvantaged 40% of two-year-olds. There is also an additional £200 million in universal credit. We recognise the important point he raises and are acting on it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
Good work is being done in many parts of our probation service, but overall, rehabilitation is not delivering what we expected it to, and reoffending rates are rising. However, I expect the teams that are delivering excellent work on the ground in our probation service to play an important part in the future that we have unveiled. In many areas, we will see those probation officers forming their own social enterprises and partnerships to deliver a high-quality service to us.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
When I visited the Kirklees probation service, which is based in Huddersfield, I found people who were very demoralised by some of the Government’s proposals. They feel that they are undervalued, and I agree with them. The probation service is probably the most effective and efficient part of the criminal justice system. Are not the Government undermining its morale?
Chris Grayling
I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is simply not right. The Select Committee found recently that only 25% of the time probation staff spent at work was spent working with offenders—the Committee’s Chairman is here today and he will recall this—yet the biggest block of offenders who are likely to reoffend get no support at all. That is why change is necessary.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Vaizey
We work closely with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the rural community broadband fund, which is designed to help communities that are not part of the local and national rural broadband roll-out to get access to superfast broadband. Of course, we also work closely with BT and other providers on that.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
7. What steps she is taking to ensure a cultural climate which encourages small companies and start-ups in the arts sector.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
The Government are developing a wide range of initiatives through our creative economy programme and Arts Council England to support the establishment of small companies within the arts sector. In 2011, we launched Creative England, a national agency that invests in and supports creative companies.
Mr Sheerman
This is supposed to be the Department of Culture, not the Department of Philistines. If the Minister goes to real parts of the country outside London, he will see that there are so few grants and little money available for start-ups. The lifeblood of our cultural heritage and our cultural future comes from new groups starting up. Theatre groups, literary groups and groups across the piece are starved of resource. That is not good enough. What is he doing about it?
Mr Vaizey
I bow to no one in my admiration for the hon. Gentleman—[Interruption]—apart from my Secretary of State, as was said from a sedentary position. I say that particularly given his family connection with the Arts Council and the expertise that he is able to access across the dinner table on occasion. We are working very hard. Most of the money that we use to fund arts organisations goes outside London, and we set up Creative England to provide a national body to support creative start-ups outside London, and that is doing a fine job.
Mrs Grant
The Government recognise that, sadly, trafficking can and does occur in the UK. The inter-departmental ministerial group on human trafficking brings together all parts of the Government and raises awareness of trafficking, which can affect boys and men in addition to women and girls, across the UK. The group also highlights the tailored support available through the Government’s contact with the Salvation Army. The police are also doing a great deal of very good work to tackle trafficking.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister talk to the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee about how women who are terrified of publicity could give evidence to Select Committees in confidence that they will not be named and identified?
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Damian Green
My hon. Friend would not expect me to comment on individual cases. I am happy to reassure him that the sentencing guideline on robbery states that the offence will usually merit a custodial sentence but that exceptional circumstances may justify a non-custodial penalty for an adult or, more frequently, for a young offender. However, sentencing in individual cases is a matter for the courts. I hope that he will join me in welcoming the fact that it is a matter for the courts, rather than for politicians.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I press the Minister on this matter? We know that serial burglars are not locked up but is it right that Vicky Pryce and Chris Huhne should be imprisoned when it would have been much better if they had been given a community sentence and were working in the community?
Damian Green
The hon. Gentleman is slightly suggesting that politicians should set sentences. I am happy to reassure him that the average sentence for burglary is going up—if he wishes that to happen, I can assure him that it is happening. The adult custodial rate for robbery in 2011, the last year for which figures are available, was 84.3%, so the vast majority of people who commit robbery do end up in jail.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)
My hon. Friend will know that we are consulting on the idea that we should provide more education for those in youth custody than is currently provided. We are looking for good ideas—from wherever they may come—on how that might be done better, but she is entirely right: education needs to form more of a part of what we do. We have a responsibility to educate these young people, and doing so more effectively will assist in reducing reoffending.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
T2. May I push the Secretary of State on the question of victims, particularly the families of victims of murder? Just over 10 years ago, eight members of a family in my constituency were murdered, five of whom were children. One of the two men who were found guilty has been released by the Parole Board, which is considering releasing the other one. What sort of justice is it when this decision is not communicated to the family of the eight people who died?
Chris Grayling
I am absolutely clear that it is not acceptable for people who have been the victims of horrible crimes to discover, without their knowing anything about it, that those who committed those crimes, having served an appropriate sentence, are on the streets again. I intend to ask the new victims commissioner to look into this as a matter of urgency. Tragically, she has direct experience of how this can affect families, and I believe there is nobody better qualified to fulfil that role. I absolutely understand the point the hon. Gentleman is making.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister agree, though, that we have far too many people in prison and that when they get to prison not enough is done to turn them into good citizens? Is there not plenty of evidence that effective treatment outside prison, in the community, works? Can we not improve those alternatives, because the probation service is crucial in helping to make them effective?
Mrs Grant
The hon. Gentleman makes a good and interesting point. Obviously, who goes to prison is a matter for the independent judiciary. Prison is absolutely the right place for some offenders, but I agree that for other offenders credible punitive community sentences can be a more appropriate disposal.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Maria Miller
Grass-roots clubs such as those mentioned by my hon. Friend are vital if even more people are to participate in sport. That is why we have given great priority to investing in local sports venues. This Government have also introduced the Places People Play programme, which is giving £150 million to upgrade 1,000 local sports venues. That is just the sort of action that I am sure my hon. Friend would see as positive.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister pledge this morning to analyse how the legacy cascades to all the regions of Britain? She will know of the threatened imminent closure of the Sheffield stadium, which was built for the student games in a past era. The fact is that regions such as Yorkshire are not getting the benefits of the legacy of the Olympics seen in places such as the south of England.
Maria Miller
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Although the games were called London 2012, they were Olympic and Paralympic games for the whole country and it is important that those benefits come through at a regional level. I believe that we will enable that through all our programmes, including Places People Play, which I have mentioned, as well as many others. We will continue to look at regional benefits.
Transforming Rehabilitation
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
About three quarters of prisoners have an addiction problem, a mental health problem or both. About half of prisoners have had some form of addiction problem. That is a real challenge, which colleagues at the Home Office are looking at closely as well. There are new mechanisms to monitor and help and support those with alcohol problems. I accept that it is a real issue, which I hope and expect mentors working with prisoners to address if they work with people with an addiction challenge.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on the consultation. As one who in a previous life spent four years as Roy Hattersley’s deputy working on our party’s policy in this area, I can say that most Governments have failed to get the issue right. However, I did learn at that time that we must pay careful attention to how many people we put in prison and what we do with people in prison—education and skills training is still absolutely pathetic. Lastly, when a prisoner comes out, he needs the full package of support—housing, education, a job and everything else. Highly skilled people are needed to help make that happen.
Chris Grayling
I absolutely agree. We are doing this through a consultation document rather than simply arriving with a final blueprint—I am setting a direction of travel but I am not saying that every detail is finalised—to offer people in this House and outside an opportunity to say, “You want to do that, but if you tweak this a bit it might be better.” I hope that over the next two or three months we can look at that feedback, digest it, and help to hone the final package in a way that gives us the maximum opportunity of working with and using the expertise of people such as the hon. Gentleman who have been here and done this.
Oral Answers to Questions
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
I shall look carefully at the case to which my hon. Friend has referred. Matters relating to release are handled independently by the different tribunals and assessment services that are there to decide whether it is safe to release a prisoner, and I should obviously be concerned to hear of circumstances in which a potentially dangerous prisoner was to be released. My Department will certainly be able to discuss with my hon. Friend whether there are any ways in which we can help either to support his constituent or to influence the process, should that prove necessary.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
2. What consideration he has given to reviewing the age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)
The Government are not considering reviewing the age of criminal responsibility. They believe that young people aged 10 and over are able to differentiate bad behaviour and serious wrongdoing.
Mr Sheerman
That was a very disappointing answer. The fact is that in England and Wales we lock up more children than any other country in Europe. We imprison four times as many young people as Portugal, 25 times as many as Belgium, and 100 times as many as Finland. I make no apology for the fact that in 1999 we changed the law to reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 14 to 10, but is it not about time that we accepted the recommendation of people throughout the civilised world that it should be at least 12? Why do the Government not agree with the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who believes that that change must come about?
Damian Green
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman found my reply disappointing. I think it entirely appropriate to hold children aged 10 and over to account for their actions, and to allow the criminal courts to decide on an effective punishment when an offence has been committed. It is important to communities, and particularly important to victims, to know that young people who offend will be dealt with appropriately.