Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine Fookes Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jake Richards]

As the Justice Secretary has already stated during oral questions, the Government are committed to the ECHR, and that includes for the whole of Great Britain. Clearly, there are issues in ensuring that that convention and our international obligations evolve with the challenges that we face as a country, which is why we are looking at how it is implemented and clarified in domestic law. We continue to work with European partners on European reform, and that includes Scotland too.

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

Thanks to incredible campaigners on the Labour Benches, the Victims and Courts Bill protects children by putting important restrictions on parental responsibility following certain serious sexual offences. One of my constituents is a fierce campaigner for services and safety measures for children whose parent has committed a sexual offence against a child outside the family home. Children in the home are victims even though they were not directly abused. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that all children of child sex offenders are offered better protection and support?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend’s constituent for their incredible campaigning on this issue. Children are victims in their own right—the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 put that in law—but there is a discrepancy in what sort of services and support children can get. The victims code currently sets out the minimum level of service that victims of crime should receive. We will consult on a new victims code shortly, and I am determined to ensure that we get that new code right for all victims, including the children of those heinous criminals.

Prisoner Releases in Error

Catherine Fookes Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Member knows that about 17 prisoners a day were released in error under the last Government.[Official Report, 11 November 2025; Vol. 775, c. 43.] (Correction) He knows too that, in introducing their early release scheme and our emergency early release scheme, there is complexity in the system. I will look closely at the data that is available in relation to the prison in his constituency.

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. Having spoken to my prison governor in Monmouthshire this weekend, I know the burden that clerks and prison officers are under when they are calculating these sentences on paper. The brass neck of the Conservatives is quite something to be believed. Their own party grandee William Hague has said that

“the Conservative Government failed to grasp either that they had to build more prison places or that they had to let people out, and they did not want to face up to either.”

Can the Secretary of State say how we are tackling both?

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. She is absolutely right; we have to grip the system. I did that by chairing a performance board in the Department yesterday, and I have done it by asking Dame Lynne Owens to look at this closely. There does now need to be an urgent query process working between courts and prisons so that we are not seeing those mistakes between the two systems. I think that ultimately it will take digital technology to fix this, but I have started that with £10 million to expand the digital rapid response unit so that we can at least start to raise flags in and across the system so that those working in our offender management units can spot where there might be a problem. I am pleased that the Sentencing Bill, which has now been through this House, will simplify the system greatly, because it is too complex at the moment.

Decriminalising Abortion

Catherine Fookes Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Tony Vaughan]

My understanding is that the case has been disposed of. Ms Packer was found not guilty of those charges last month, I believe.

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that the best way of keeping women’s protections to have an abortion and to stop the criminalisation of women, which he has been talking about, is to support new clause 1, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) has tabled, to the Crime and Policing Bill?

[Tony Vaughan]

I agree, and I will support the new clause.

Ms Packer was in hospital one day, and arrested the next, and it took five years before the courts could dispose of that case. Another case is that of Carla Foster, a mother who was jailed for illegally taking abortion tablets to end her pregnancy during lockdown. She was initially sentenced to 28 months in prison. She was a mother of three who was of exceptionally good character and had suffered from poor mental health. She had quickly admitted to police that she had provided incorrect information during a consultation, and the Court of Appeal reduced the term to 14 months and suspended the sentence. However, by that point, she had already served 35 days in prison and had been denied any communication with her children, one of whom is autistic. In reducing her sentence, the judge said that the case called for “compassion, not punishment”, and that there was “no useful purpose” in keeping her in prison.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Catherine Fookes Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) for the incredibly sensitive and thoughtful way she is conducting the passage of the Bill, consulting widely with terminally ill people and their families, medical staff, lawyers, faith leaders and those on both sides of the debate.

I have two very personal stories about why I support a change in the law. Last year, my dad’s health took a turn very much for the worse. He had sepsis, kidney failure and heart disease and had lived with Addison’s disease for almost 50 years. He was given the dreaded news that he only had a few months left to live. I would not have wished his last few weeks upon anyone. He was in agony and suffering—his breathing was difficult and he was in such pain. I struggled to see him suffer so much, but the nurses, doctors, carers and my incredible step-mum were all without fault and, thankfully, his palliative care was excellent. He was able to die at home with me, my sister and my step-mum by his side. Seeing him suffer so terribly convinced me that we need a change in the law so that people who are terminally ill have a choice.

My second story is from Australia where my brother lives. My wonderful sister-in-law Kelly sadly died of liver cancer that developed into bone cancer. She had a fractured left arm, pelvis and sacrum, and had cancer in her spine. At 54, Kelly was far too young to die. Her cancer was particularly painful and unforgiving. As she lived in Victoria, she was able to register for assisted dying. For her, it was incredibly comforting to know that if, and only if, she needed to, she could stop the suffering. She did not need it in the end, but she did have the option. In her darkest days—her fearful days—that brought her and my brother incredible peace of mind.

I heard similar stories of suffering in the hundreds of emails sent to me by constituents over the course of the past few months. People want and deserve access to both the best palliative care and a choice if they are terminally ill. The protections and evidence underpinning the Bill are strong. I was there for my dad’s final week when he was in so much pain, and I was there right at the end holding his hand. What a privilege to be with him at the end and to see him through. In memory of my dad and of Kelly, I support the Bill and urge all those across the House to support it, too.