Victims and Prisoners Bill

Debate between Bob Stewart and Alex Chalk

2nd reading
Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Some years ago, shortly before I entered Parliament, I was stood in the Crown court at Birmingham, having been instructed by the Crown Prosecution Service to prosecute five men accused of rape. It was alleged that they had groomed two young girls from Telford aged 15 and 16 and abducted them to Birmingham, where they subjected them to a weekend of degrading and humiliating sexual attacks, offering them up to their friends to do with as they pleased. What made the case even more chilling was that it was clear that the victims had been targeted because of their troubled backgrounds and sometimes challenging behaviour when interacting with authority figures such as the police. The defendants had made a cynical calculation that, if the girls ever did complain, they were unlikely to be believed. Well, they were believed. The jury got the measure of what had really gone on. After a fair trial, presided over by an independent judge, the defendants were all convicted of rape, robust sentences were passed and justice was done.

I mention that at the beginning of this Second Reading debate because it provided me, and I hope now the House, with a powerful example of how supporting victims can make a decisive impact on outcomes. In that case, it was only because all the moving parts of the system came together to support those vulnerable girls to give their best evidence that a just outcome was delivered: conscientious police officers liaised sensitively with the young women to help them record their accounts; compassionate CPS lawyers and caseworkers applied for special measures to assist the victims to give evidence in court; and victim support staff worked hard during the tense days of the trial to assist victims with information and updates.

Here is the central point: all those agencies recognised that, in order to deliver justice, victims must be treated not as mere spectators of the criminal justice system, but as core participants in it. That is the mission of this Government and of this Bill. It will boost victims’ entitlements; make victims’ voices heard, including following a major incident like the tragedy of Grenfell or Hillsborough; and deliver further safeguards to protect the public.

As the House will know, my predecessor met brave victims such as: little Tony Hudgell, who was so badly abused by his birth parents that he almost died; Denise Fergus and Ralph Bulger, whose two-year-old son James’s murder shocked the nation; and Farah Naz, the aunt of Zara Aleena, who was tragically sexually assaulted and murdered last year. I want to pay tribute to them. Through their personal grief they have, none the less, found the strength to strengthen the system for others. We owe them a profound debt of gratitude. Their pain and their anguish spurs us on to strengthen public protection and to make sure every victim of crime is properly supported.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for introducing the Bill. As an MP, I have heard so many complaints from victims that no one is listening to them. Can he assure me that victims really will come first in the Bill?

[Alex Chalk]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. That is exactly the point. If victims are to be not spectators but participants, from the moment of complaint they must be listened to by the officer on the case, the CPS prosecutor and the prosecutor at court. Being listened to is a critical part of victims’ confidence in the criminal justice system.

A Green Industrial Revolution

Debate between Bob Stewart and Alex Chalk

Wednesday 15th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I fully accept that mankind is changing the earth’s climate. I have always worried about how we are altering the air we breathe, but I feel our actions are now turning the weather. I realise that climate is cyclical; there was a little ice age from late medieval times until the 1850s or thereabouts, and the Thames froze over and ice fairs were held. I also believe that when I was a little boy, not very long ago, it was much colder in the winter—that might just be in my mind, but I felt it was more icy. There is too much evidence of ferocious world weather nowadays for us to ignore what is happening.

Health is definitely being affected too. For instance, according to Bromley Council health people, in one recent year there were 60 deaths across the six wards in my constituency because of long-term exposure to polluted air. I agree that we have started to tackle the problem, and we have had some success: carbon emissions have, apparently, been reduced by 25% in the past 10 years, and that is great; and all coal-fired generating stations will be gone in the United Kingdom by 2025. It is also really good news that we are the world leader in offshore power generation. We have increased renewable energy generation sixfold in the past 10 years. In 2018, renewable sources of electricity generation supplied 33% of our electricity needs, which is up from 6.9% in 2010. This is all good news. More and more people are buying and using cars powered by electricity, but they are damn expensive. By 2040, diesel and petrol cars should be almost off our roads, so it seems the future for our vehicles will be electricity, but let us not forget hydrogen, which is another source that can be harnessed to run vehicles. A heck of a lot of investigation as to how that can happen is being undertaken by the car companies.

Of course, our Government have a major part to play in reducing carbon emissions, and we have too; on 27 June last year, Parliament amended the Climate Change Act 2008 to include the commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. That is excellent news. Some say—I accept this—that we could get there earlier, and let us hope that that is the case, but at least we have a target. It would be superb if could get there as soon as possible. If we want to get to zero carbon emissions very fast, we have to accept the penalties: giving up our cars, diesel and petrol; travelling only by public transport; stopping flying off to exotic locations in aeroplanes; and changing our central heating systems.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point, and he alights on the issue of changing our heating systems. Does he agree that we need to incentivise, within the tax structure, the building of ground-source heat pumps and air-source heat pumps to ensure that they can replace traditional fossil fuel systems and get our carbon emissions down?

[Bob Stewart]

I certainly do, and I want it to happen in my house as soon as possible.

We are decarbonising our economy faster, apparently, than any other G20 country, and we have reduced our emissions by 29% in the past decade, but here is the point: every breath we take is full of something called particulates, which, to be honest, I did not know much about until recently. These particulates—particularly something called particulate matter 2.5—are about 200 times smaller than a grain of sand, so they just float through the air and go into our lungs. They pass into our bloodstream and end up somewhere in our brain, or any of our other organs. I am told—of course, I am no expert, and I suspect that very few of us in the House are experts—that this causes illness and death. Having looked at the January 2019 report by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, I understand that only 12% of particulate matter comes from vehicles.

Armed Forces Pay

Debate between Bob Stewart and Alex Chalk

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to say a few words in this debate. I must admit that I was a little surprised when I read that this was the topic that had been chosen by the Opposition, given that the Leader of the Opposition, when faced with the option on Armed Forces Day to honour the British armed forces, chose instead to go and stand in a field in Glastonbury to talk about dismantling Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent.

It is important to place all this in context. The allegation being made is that the UK Government are not supporting the armed forces. Well, let us take a look at that. The British Government have the second largest budget in NATO and the largest in the EU. We are meeting the 2% target, which, by the way, Germany, Italy and Spain are not. Furthermore, spending is forecast to increase. Seven ships and submarines have started to be built. There is a kit projection of £178 billion between 2016 and 2026. What does that translate into? It translates into jobs in my constituency. For example, the excellent CDS Defence Support will be supporting that investment.

Something that has not been mentioned thus far is the fact that £1.9 billion will be invested in intelligence spending, so that GCHQ in my constituency will be able to expand and to keep us safe. It is concerning that that £1.9 billion seems to have been forgotten. To put it in context, that is about half of the total amount that we spend on prisons. That is something that the UK Government are supporting. Let me add this: spending supports not just the valiant and skilful men and women of our armed forces and intelligence services, but the local economy. A cyber-innovation centre has been set up in Cheltenham and is doing great work. The finest minds are going in and out of places such as GCHQ to nurture small businesses.

Of course the issue of pay is important, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty) has said, it is part of a basket of issues. It is not for me to advise the Loyal Opposition on what to talk about, but it might have been more judicious to broaden the scope and the basket of issues. Some issues, such as accommodation, are clearly very important. To focus the whole debate purely on pay is, I say respectfully, ill advised.

[Bob Stewart]

In 28 years, I cannot recall a soldier complaining about pay. However, they often complained about allowances, particularly when changing from one theatre to another on operations and losing their local overseas allowance. That is correct. They do complain about that, and it is something that we should look at, because service personnel, particularly those in the junior ranks, find it very difficult.

[Alex Chalk]

That is exactly the kind of sophistication that should be brought to this debate. We should be looking at specific issues, that can improve the lives of serving soldiers, sailors and airmen and women.

The principles that we should apply are tolerably simple. First, we should listen to independent experts—the pay review bodies—and, secondly, we should build in flexibility where there is a skills shortage. I will return to that briefly in a moment. It is right, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister indicated in Prime Minister’s questions today, to look at the context of the public finances. She said that we are spending £50 billion a year on debt interest alone. That raises a really important moral argument. When we talk about the future of our armed forces, we do not just want armed forces for today, tomorrow or next week; we want our children to be able to enjoy the protection of the armed forces as well.

What is Labour’s suggested solution to this? Notwithstanding the fact that we have public borrowing of about £58 billion each year and a national debt of £1.7 trillion, its remedy is more borrowing, more debt and more tax. Where does that leave us as a country? If we were to borrow an additional £500 billion, as has been suggested, our national debt would go from £1.7 trillion to £2.2 trillion. What happens to that £50 billion that we are spending each year? It goes to about £65 billion. Basically, before we pay for a single soldier, a single police officer, or a single nurse, we will be spending £62 billion a year when the entire defence budget is £36 billion. There will be people born today in our country who in 30 years’ time, through no fault of their own, will either knock on the door of the welfare state because, as an entirely deserving case, they need assistance, or they will want the protection of our armed forces, but the cupboard risks being bare if the Opposition are able to achieve what they want to achieve.

Libya

Debate between Bob Stewart and Alex Chalk

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I am grateful to my very good and hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) for getting this debate going. I take issue slightly with the comments on the decision in 2011. I felt that we had no choice but to save the people of Benghazi. We did not think of the consequences; we had damn all time to look downstream. I felt that the decision was quite right. My experience of watching people die when there is military inaction was why I supported military operations against Gaddafi.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West (Charlotte Leslie) raised this matter. It is very sad that, throughout the middle east, stability and safety and a normal society so that children can go to school often seems to require a strong person, normally or even always a man, to be in charge of the country. Democracy such as we have in this country is only a serious long-term wish.

[Alex Chalk]

Is there a lesson from British history? If we go back to a time before there was a civil service, before there were all the organs of the state, it required a strong man in the form of the King to keep the King’s peace. That is a lesson from our own history that we would do well to observe.

[Bob Stewart]

I entirely take that point, which in fact reinforces the point I was making. It seems, therefore, that people such as Saddam and Gaddafi sometimes work for the majority of people in a country. For some, of course, they do not. Libya is seemingly ungovernable at the moment. Some say that there are two Parliaments, and huge numbers—thousands—of militias and generals running around. It is a ghastly place. My hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne mentioned 1,600 militias—goodness, that is a heck of a lot. However, with apologies to my good and hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West, I shall concentrate on Daesh and what it could do in Libya.

I have no intelligence information on this—it is all open source—but I am told that Daesh started moving into Libya in about 2014, when it was looking for an alternative place. It found that in Sirte. When we talk about Sirte, I, as a military officer, am always reminded of David Stirling and his SAS raids on Sirte airfield, which other hon. Members are nodding about, and the gallant actions of those young men, who were mainly from New Zealand, in those days. [Interruption.] I am so sorry: the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) reminds me that the Irish were there, too. We are always reminded of the Irish, Mr Chope, because they apparently have more Victoria Crosses than the English, the Welsh and the Scots put together. Mind you, I have to say, just to add a lighter note, that I am quite sure they were a bit pickled when they won them.

According to open sources, there are about 4,000 to 6,000 Daesh people operating in Sirte and around there. What is the threat? What threat are these guys going to make against us? I think it is not as bad as it could be. They are stuck in an enclave in Sirte. Perhaps they are being hellish inside it, but if I were a Daesh commander, I would not put my operatives into a leaky boat full of migrants or refugees, with scant chance of making it across the Mediterranean. I am also sure that when they do get to Europe the security forces of the country check them out thoroughly before they get ashore.

I would not take that course of action, so how else do they get into Europe? To the east they would be going into Egypt. President Sisi is adamantly determined to wipe out terrorist groups such as Daesh, and has set the armed forces and security forces firmly against them. Again, he is a strong man in the middle east. Tunisia, after the tragedy of Sousse and Tunis last year, has decided to put up a great barricade across the border. That is being done fairly effectively, although it is not complete. Algeria is 1,000 miles away, but the Algerians too are effective at chasing down Islamists trying to cross into their territory. It is not easy to get into Europe. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West mentioned going south across the Sahara, but that is a pretty dodgy route to try.

I am thinking about the threat to us from the people in question—being a member of the Defence Committee, of course I am thinking in that way. They are holed up, but it is quite clear that we have to eliminate them. We will support anything that helps with their elimination. The objective of eliminating Daesh and other terrorist organisations in Libyan society is crucial, but, as other Members and particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West have suggested, Daesh is just one. If it is squashed, it will come out in some other form. Somehow, politically, Libya has to find a way. Whether that involves a strong person or not, I am sure of one thing: it took us 800 years to get to our imperfect democracy, and it cannot be imposed quickly. As others have suggested, there will be a Libyan model. I hope it comes quickly for the sake of the decent, normal people of Libya.