Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

First, I thank the right hon. Lady for raising this case. I do know about the case of Rhianon Bragg—in the interests of complete transparency, I should say that I was at school with her. The Government introduced extended determinate sentences in order to better protect the public from dangerous offenders by making their early release dependent on the Parole Board. Offenders on extended determinate sentences must be released. As the right hon. Lady knows, there are no legal powers to hold them for longer at the end of that custodial term. However, they face years of strict supervision by the probation service with strict licence conditions, such as exclusion zones and curfews, and they will be returned to prison if they breach them. I am aware of the letter that was sent on the 14th to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. He will of course be happy to meet the right hon. Lady to discuss those points.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

15. What assessment he has made of the sustainability of probation officer case loads.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

We have increased funding for the probation service by £155 million a year to recruit more staff, bring down caseloads and deliver better supervision of offenders in the community. We have also accelerated recruitment of trainee probation officers, particularly in areas with the most significant staffing challenges. As a result, more than 4,000 trainees started on training courses between April 2020 and March of last year.

[Cat Smith]

Probation workloads are too high, which is having a terrible impact on both staff morale and retention as well as public safety. What consideration has the Minister given to the very reasonable proposal agreed between His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and the probation unions to free up staff time by abolishing the post-sentence supervision, which was brought in under privatisation and is seen as simply a waste of time by those probation officers and their employer?

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. Although, on partial data for this year, caseloads are going down, she is right to highlight that they are still high. She makes a good point about the post-sentence supervision requirement, which I am happy to reflect on carefully. I understand that the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, the right hon. and learned Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) has met representatives to hear their views on the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend has been a doughty champion on this issue and he continues to raise it. I suggest that he and I have a conversation in due course.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

When my constituent reported her rape to the police 14 months ago, she also revealed that the rape had been videoed by the perpetrator. The police are now in possession of the mobile phone that this has been recorded on, but she is still waiting for her justice and her day in court. Could the Minister say how long my constituent might expect to wait to get justice?

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady will appreciate that I am unable to comment on the specifics of a case, and it would probably be inappropriate to do so in the Chamber, but if she would like to write to me with the details that she cannot share on the Floor of the House, I am happy to look at them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the need for representation for domestic abuse victims. He knows, of course, that in criminal scenarios the Crown Prosecution Service will act with regard to the prosecution of offences. He will also note that, in phase 1 of the CLAR process, up to £51 million a year has already been injected into criminal legal aid fees. That is the most significant increase in investment in legal aid for a quarter of a century. We are working on the existing body of evidence with the new chair of the criminal legal aid review, Sir Christopher Bellamy QC, who is already engaging with the professions. I am confident that his work will deal not only with the situation with regard to fees in court, but, as he says, the “sustainability” of those criminal legal aid firms that are the lifeblood of representation in that sector.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

What progress he has made on tackling the backlog of cases in HM Courts and Tribunals Service.

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

What steps he has taken to help tackle the backlog of criminal cases before the courts.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Chris Philp)]

In common with so much of the public sector, and life in general, courts have been profoundly affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The Government have taken decisive action to address this, investing a quarter of a billion pounds in covid recovery, which has paid for, among other things, 40 Nightingale courtrooms, soon to increase to 60 by the end of this month, and installing video technology enabling over 20,000 hearings a week across all jurisdictions to take place. As a result of that, for example, the outstanding caseload in the magistrates courts has dropped by about 50,000 cases over the past eight months.

[Cat Smith]

Three court buildings have now failed safety inspections by the Health and Safety Executive, yet the Government continue to say that courts are covid-secure. What evidence is there to support this claim, and what steps are Ministers going to take to ensure that no more court buildings fail safety inspections?

[Chris Philp]

We work very closely with Public Health England and follow the guidelines that it gives us. The number of coronavirus cases that have been detected among court users is no higher than among the general population. It is not true to say that there are any more coronavirus cases in courts than anywhere else. That is, in part, because we have invested so much in coronavirus measures like installing plexiglass screens, ensuring there is social distancing, and having overspill rooms so that people can space out when using courts. Where we have tested people in courts, we found extremely low levels of coronavirus cases.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s question on innovation. Our sentencing White Paper sets out a number of innovative ways of reducing reoffending, and I will mention just two. First, my hon. Friend mentioned prolific offenders, and we would like to deal with prolific burglars by tagging them so that when we release them from prison, we know where they go and prevent them from committing further acquisitive crime. Secondly, we want to help people turn their lives around through community treatment programmes, ensuring that offenders get the support—including the drug addiction treatment and mental health support—they need to enable them to turn their backs on crime.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

What assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on young people in custody.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

What assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on young people in custody.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

I am very aware of the difficulties that many children in custody have faced over the covid period. I recently had a remote meeting with all the governors of the youth estate to discuss the impact of covid on young people in custody. As a result of that discussion and what we have heard, we have prioritised and focused on ensuring a return to face-to-face education and social visits, which are vital to young people’s mental health. I am pleased to say that we have already recommenced both of those across the youth estate.

[Cat Smith]

With the second wave of covid fast approaching, will the Minister set out what plans she has to ensure that all young people and children in custody can access proper face-to-face education and rehabilitation, which are so vital for those vulnerable young people?

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Member is absolutely right to focus on the importance of education. It is something that the Government have prioritised for the community as a whole, and it is absolutely right that we mirror that in our youth custody estate. That is why we have prioritised education in the youth estate as against the adult estate in the first stage of opening up, and it is why all such institutions are now open. We are looking at lessons learned. As we plan for the next phase of restrictions and closures in the community, we will be looking carefully and closely at how we deal with education.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance and value of alternative dispute resolutions. Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service already runs a small claims mediation service to help parties resolve claims worth under £10,000 before a hearing. We are also working to offer an online mediation service for those who begin their claims online.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Under this Government hundreds of courts have closed, and I now see that Fleetwood court is on the latest consultation list. How do these court closures contribute to a positive experience for “those who work in the courts and those who use them”?

[Lucy Frazer]

Last year, nationally, court and tribunal services were used at only 58% of their available hearing capacity. Moreover, as I have outlined, we are planning to spend £1 billion on modernising the courts service by using technology to put some processes online and employ video evidence more effectively. In those circumstances, it is appropriate to consider the best use of the money that we spend on the legal services system, as we are doing through a consultation that will include the hon. Lady’s local magistrates court. We will listen closely. It is important to remember, however, that all the money saved through any court closures will be put back into the justice system, making sure that it works effectively for everybody in it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for continuing to raise this issue. A particularly shocking case was drawn to my attention the other day: the household insurance of a family had been raised by hundreds and hundreds of pounds because the father had gone to prison, which put huge pressure on the family’s budget. I continue to take up that issue and others with the Association of British Insurers.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

The chief inspector’s report into HMP Wormwood Scrubs found that most prisoners had fewer than two hours a day out of their cells and were making very poor use of the educational facilities available. How far would the Minister say that is reflected across the prison estate?

[Andrew Selous]

We have fewer and fewer restricted regimes across the estate, but the whole thrust of what the Secretary of State and I are trying to do is increase the time out of cell and put education at the heart of the prison regime. I want prisoners to learn not only when they go to the education classrooms, but during their association periods and in their cells, so that we have a whole prison learning experience.

Safety in Custody and Violence in Prisons

Cat Smith Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

We are investing in new technology, and we are trialling a full body scanner to detect “spice”, “black mamba”, and other types of new psychoactive substance which are concealed within the body. I believe that the smoking ban will help in time, once it has been rolled out to prisons in the hon. Gentleman’s area and throughout the country. Unfortunately, as he will know, “spice” is often smoked openly by prisoners pretending that it is tobacco.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Prison officers at HMP Lancaster Farms, in my constituency, will have observed the events at Wormwood Scrubs over the weekend with trepidation, because the situation there is reflected across the country. The situation at Lancaster Farms was so bad that prison officers went to the local paper to expose the issue of drugs in prisons and the need for more officers. Will the Minister commit to putting more money into prison staffing so that staff can go to work and feel safe?

[Andrew Selous]

I should point out to the hon. Lady that the Prison Officers Association reached an agreement with the National Offender Management Service. We will definitely keep all the issues at Wormwood Scrubs under review, and, as I have said, we are continuing to spend more money on prison officers in order to recruit up to the benchmark. We are continuing to recruit at the rate at which we have been recruiting for the last few years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Cat Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

This is a really crucial point. We are already working across Government to bring together mental health and drug and alcohol treatment at every stage, alongside police, courts and prisons and probation. That includes making sure that appropriate treatments are made available if they are part of sentences with mandated health interventions.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Charities like Langley House Trust offer specialist mental health support to prisoners when they have left prison and have been rehabilitated in the community. It has recently acquired a property on Milton Street in Fleetwood. Will the Minister support my call for it to meet the town council this evening to reassure the local community about its fears and to show that charities like Langley House Trust and communities can work together to ensure that prisoners can be rehabilitated?

[Caroline Dinenage]

I would very much like to look at the circumstances that the hon. Lady has mentioned. Our Transforming Rehabilitation changes have put in place the sort of support that sometimes prisoners who had had very short sentences might never have had before. The community rehabilitation company might be able to give some support on that as well.

Prisons and Probation

Cat Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I welcome the tone of the debate, and I welcome the Justice Secretary’s approach in listening to those who work in the prison service and those who experience it. I have spoken to prison officers in my constituency, as well as to social workers who work with young offenders and to education workers in our prisons, in putting together my speech for this debate.

HMP Lancaster Farms is in my constituency and it employs a great number of my constituents. In the summer, I had the opportunity to visit the prison and meet staff and representatives of the Prison Officers Association. It was during that visit that I observed a control and restraint training session. It was clear that the physical requirements of being a prison officer were considerable. A concern raised with me by prison officers—they asked me to raise it in the House—is whether, with the increase in the retirement age to 68, we are expecting our prison officers to remain in effective service until that age, given what they face with incredibly strong, often young prisoners who challenge them physically as well as verbally.

Since November, it has been a criminal offence to throw items into a prison without authorisation, but at Lancaster Farms 36 parcels have been thrown over the fence and retrieved by staff. One such parcel contained a hunting knife—a horrific weapon that could have done a massive amount of damage had it made it into the hands of the prisoner it was intended for. During my visit, I had the opportunity to speak with Sarah Rigby, the POA branch chair at HMP Lancaster Farms. She raised concerns about the reduced staffing levels she has seen in the eight years she has worked at the prison. In the interests of listening to the voices in the profession, I hope the House will indulge me if I read from an email she sent me yesterday:

“the reduced staffing levels do mean that my colleagues and I do not feel as safe or confident in dealing with prisoners as we previously have done. When I first started working at Lancaster Farms there could be between 8 and 10 prison officers to supervise meal time when all of the wing would be unlocked. This meant that if a prisoner became non-compliant, or there was an incident (a fight, an assault for example) there was an adequate amount of staff to deal with the incident and to continue to supervise the rest of the wing. There are now 3 Prison Officers to supervise at meal times when the whole wing is unlocked and the majority of the time it is very difficult to find enough staff to ensure there are the minimum 3 we require before we are able to unlock. This is stressful and impacts on both staff and prisoners alike. It can also mean you deal with a situation very differently if you find yourself isolated with a prisoner threatening you. This would not have happened when we had more staff as there was always someone available to come to your aid. The reduced staffing levels also have an impact on prisoners in that we struggle to deliver as high a level of care as we used to be able to. There is little time for general conversation and for building good staff/prisoner relationships.”

The latter point ties in with the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman).

In all my meetings with Sarah, she has always been passionate about her job—she is passionate about the rehabilitation of prisoners—but the reduced staffing levels are clearly distressing for her and her colleagues working with these vulnerable adults and trying to do their best by them. Assault is a fairly regular occurrence. I recently took on some casework on behalf of two prison officers at Lancaster Farms who were assaulted when a mixture of urine and faeces was thrown at them. The prisoner was prosecuted by the police, but when the victims are asked for their victim impact statements after the prisoner has been sentenced, what message does that send to our prison staff? It sends a message to prisoners that staff are there to be abused and assaulted with little or no consequences for their actions. This view is shared by prison officers I have spoken to in my constituency.

This week in Lancaster Farms, three members of staff were injured in an incident when restraining two prisoners who would not stop fighting. Further to this, two female officers have been assaulted in the last week. Sarah told me that

“neither were considered to be ‘serious’ as there were no visible injuries. Speaking from experience...there may be no visible injuries but these incidents always have a negative impact on staff - it is irrelevant whether or not they are considered to be serious.”

These incidents and experiences of prison staff at HMP Lancaster Farms are sadly far from unique. The Government are presiding over a crisis in our prisons. Too many of our prisons are unsafe, overcrowded, understaffed and violent. It is not right that people go to work fearing violence, but that is the sad reality for our prison officers.

The latest statistics, which have been mentioned, are shocking: a 42% increase in the number of assaults on prison officers in the last year. Does the Minister think it acceptable that any prison officer should have to go to work facing such a threat of violence? We need the best and brightest to enter the profession to rehabilitate our prisoners. What message are we sending people considering this as a career option, when so many of them are being assaulted at work? The state of our prisons is letting down our prison staff, prisoners struggling to rehabilitate themselves, victims of crime and society.

Access to Justice: Vulnerable People

Cat Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is raising important points about domestic violence and the barriers to accessing legal aid that particularly women face, but women face a double barrier when it comes to sex discrimination in the workplace. The new employment tribunal fees mean we have seen a huge drop in the number of women seeking justice.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She makes an absolutely critical point about women in the workplace. This plays into the broader theme of today’s discussion, which is about how we ensure we include all elements of society so that we can build an economy and a society that are cohesive and dynamic. The issues are not only about rights and equalities in the narrow sense; they are about how those rights and equalities play into the creation of an inclusive and dynamic economy where all people are able to bring their talents to the table, and women are a critical element of that. Without redress to justice, they will not have the checks and balances in place that they need to defend their rights, as should every other member of society.

A clear theme is coming through in the interventions from my hon. Friends. The overall theme is whether the Government have properly considered the impact of their legislation and policies on some of the most vulnerable groups in society, such as the homeless; those threatened with eviction and facing serious housing disrepair; those in need of community care services; parents and children involved in child abduction cases; and those with mental health and mental capacity issues. This test only further entrenches the gap between those who can and those who cannot access justice. The law is there to protect all citizens, and a robust justice system should make sure that justice can be afforded to all, not only those who can afford it.