Charlotte Nichols
Main Page: Charlotte Nichols (Labour - Warrington North)Department Debates - View all Charlotte Nichols's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(7 months ago)
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Alex Chalk
That is an excellent question. In appropriate cases, pre-sentence reports are vital because the probation service can provide the sentencing judge or magistrate with all the surrounding information about the offender so that they can impose a sentence that meets the seriousness of the case while also being rehabilitative and appropriate. That requires trained probation officers who are experts in their area. That is why we have invested £155 million in addition, each and every year, to ensure that the probation service has the resource it needs. I know from my time as a practitioner that the reports the probation service provides are essential to ensure that justice can be done.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
The Times reports that
“Lord Justice Edis, the senior presiding judge for England and Wales, has ordered that sentencing of convicted criminals who are currently on bail should be delayed”
from today. According to that report, the order did not specifically exclude rape convictions, which judges have expressed alarm about, given the already abysmal conviction rates of well below 2%. What message does the Secretary of State think such an order sends to victims of sexual violence who are deciding whether they have enough faith in our broken justice system to come forward? When do the Government expect sentencing to restart?
Alex Chalk
It is incredibly important that no one from this Chamber deliberately or inadvertently gives the impression that rapists are not going to be sentenced. They are going to be sentenced; the sentences imposed will be, on average, a third longer than those imposed in 2010; and they will serve a higher proportion of those sentences in custody. We are prosecuting more people for rape than in 2010 and, as I say, they are being punished more severely, so let the message go out that people who offend against women—and it is overwhelmingly against women—and behave in such a barbaric way can expect not just to hear the clang of the prison gate, but to be reflecting on their actions for a very long time.