Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

To the best of my knowledge, that has been done. Mr Ali is, of course, being released in accordance with the law having served the term that was set out by the judge in his case for the purposes of punishment and deterrence. However, if my hon. Friend or her constituents have any concerns about the circumstances of the release and the supervision arrangements that should follow, I ask her to bring them to my attention without delay.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

T4. Sixty-one per cent. of women who leave prison after a sentence of less than 12 months are reconvicted in the first year. In my recent Westminster Hall debate on women leaving prison, the Minister made various commitments about new interventions and various reviews to support women in prison and those leaving it. When will those reviews be complete? When will there be a better, fuller programme to support women in and leaving prison?

[Dr Phillip Lee]

The hon. Gentleman arranged a good and well-attended debate. He is aware that I have committed to producing a women’s strategy. It will be published once all the moving cogs of government are in place, and I can promise him that it will be about how we can do more in the community to prevent locking women up.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Chris Elmore Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Bryant]

More Wales!

[Chris Elmore]

You can never get enough Wales, as I am sure my hon. Friend would agree. In recent years there has been an increase in assaults on first responders to ambulance calls who are treating patients at the side of the road and being attacked by somebody who was attacking the person they were treating. Are first responders included in the Bill, or will they need to be included in Committee?

[Chris Bryant]

The legal advice that I have had is that they would be included, but we need to make sure of that in Committee.

I think every single one of us will feel it is inconceivable—incomprehensible—that, when somebody comes to save a life, they can be physically attacked for doing so. How does that happen? There is a cry of outrage at the heart of this Bill. It is an attempt to give an extra tool to the prosecuting authorities to make sure that we can stem the tide of these assaults.

Women Released from Prison

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered women released from prison.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, as I am sure I have said many times. In the UK today, almost 4,000 women are in prison. Although many are serving long, extended sentences worthy of the horrendous crimes they have committed, more than 80% of convictions for women are for non-violent crimes, half of sentences being less than six months. The crimes most commonly committed by women are theft and handling of stolen goods. For many, those are a last resort—a desperate measure to feed a family or fund an addiction. When we consider the consequences of prison for such women, we should ask whether incarceration is the correct response.

After their sentences are served, women leaving prison face inordinate difficulties in readjusting to life. Homelessness is at the core of the problem; on release, six in 10 women do not have a home to go to. Without an address—permanent or temporary—safe and secure employment is near impossible. As a result, fewer than one in 10 women released from a prison sentence of less than 12 months manage to secure a positive employment outcome within a year. For those who struggle to find work, and often for those who find it, social security can be difficult to come by. Without a home, income or a family, the path to reconviction is clear; 45% of women are reconvicted within one year of leaving prison. Many women reoffend to fund a life outside prison, although many will do so aware that life can be easier inside prison.

Such problems for women should force the House to reconsider the use of custodial sentences for low-level crimes. Women—especially those with a history of social and financial difficulties—will often leave prison in a far worse situation than when they entered. Separated from their families, relationships may have broken down, and the resulting pressures can further an issue that was present before the sentence began. These women need help with the initial problem, and support from the state and society to identify and tackle it.

A prison sentence will not in itself reform a woman who only stole in the initial instance to feed her children, nor will it reform a woman with an addiction, be it to alcohol, drugs or gambling. Addiction is an illness, and the crimes committed to fund addictions are a symptom of that illness. Someone suffering from a physical medical condition will be offered treatment to ease their symptoms, but someone suffering from addiction is given a punishment.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this welcome and important debate. Does he also agree that working with people suffering serious addiction issues is unlikely to be effective in the typically short sentences that women experience? A long period of time is needed to work with someone who has deep-seated problems.

[Chris Elmore]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is part of the wider issue of whether a six-month custodial sentence is acceptable. I am not advocating that we should extend custodial sentences; it is about rehabilitation being part of that work, rather than a custodial sentence. In fact, she brings me on to my next point very well: a short prison sentence will not fix the problem. It is far more likely to be a catalyst for a downward spiral that will see these women yo-yo between addiction, committing crimes and short prison sentences for the rest of their life.

Ministers say these issues are not exclusive to women. However, decisions made in recent years have created a system that creates difficulties specific to women. The lack of women-only prisons primarily creates issues as it results in women facing sentences far from home. There are only 12 women’s prisons across England and Scotland, and none at all in either Wales or Northern Ireland; for Welsh women, the closest facility is in Gloucestershire. Staggeringly, some women in Scotland are placed in female units within male prisons—a trend that looks likely to be adopted across the whole of the UK in future—while women in Northern Ireland are detained in a male youth offenders centre.

At present, more than 17,000 children are separated from their mothers due to imprisonment, fewer than 10% of whom are being cared for by their fathers. Distance makes visiting difficult at best and impossible at worst, which has a harmful effect on the children’s welfare. Upon release, women may face further difficulties when a lack of local provision means they are again located 100 miles or more from their families. For some women and men, living in an approved property is a condition of their release on licence. These approved properties are single-sex establishments, and while there are 94 locations across England and Wales for men, including several in London, there are only six for women. They are in Bedford, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Preston and Reading; none of them are in London and, once again, none are in Wales.

Again women are forced to be away from everything familiar to them. They may be out of the physical prison building, but they are still prisoners of circumstance, separated from their families and communities and expected to reintegrate into a society that is unfamiliar to them. The Government should provide suitable facilities and sufficient support care for those vulnerable women on their release from prison. In my opinion, the Government are at present failing to do so.

In May 2017, a woman from London brought a case against the Secretary of State for Justice after she was forced to relocate to Bedford on her release from prison. She appealed on the grounds that the distribution of approved properties was unlawful sex discrimination against women. In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court upheld her appeal and found that the Government were indeed discriminating against women on their release from prison. That was five months ago. Disappointingly, there was no response from the Government and no action was taken. It is my understanding that that is still the case today; perhaps the Minister will look at that specific point.

Women leaving prison will always face some difficulty in readjusting, but the complexities they face under this Government are not necessary. It is neither right nor inevitable that women, on their release from prison, should be left homeless and destitute. It is not right that they should be deprived of safe and secure employment, access to social security and support, and it is not right that, by virtue of the Government’s neglect of facilities, they are forced into communities hundreds of miles from their families. I hope that the Government will consider the difficulties faced by women leaving prison, and that they will act to ensure an easier transition from custody to society, free from homelessness, poverty and reconviction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Elmore]

Thank you, Mr Howarth, for giving me the opportunity to respond. I start by thanking my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for Stockton South (Dr Williams) and for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for their passionate contributions, which drew on their own experiences through casework and their work in the House through Women in Prison. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), who I appreciate is here in her role as a Front-Bench spokesperson.

There has been a reasonable amount of consensus. I am grateful to the Minister for acknowledging many of our legitimate concerns, responding in a constructive manner and setting out what the Government are doing. Maybe he could ask some other Ministers to respond in such a constructive manner in other Westminster Hall debates.

There are ongoing accommodation issues that seem to link to lots of other problems. I was glad to hear the Minister respond to that point. I was also glad to hear him acknowledge that there is a lot more to be done. It is nice that he is not suggesting that these things can all be resolved overnight, but I appeal to him to keep Members informed of the work that the Ministry of Justice is doing. I acknowledge that there is cross-departmental work to be done, so he cannot solve everything all the time.

The Minister mentioned suicide rates. There were 10 female suicides last year. The rate is higher than among men. All suicide is unacceptable, as he said, but we still face a real and deep-rooted issue of women being deeply and adversely affected by a prison system that is not working for them. I am glad that the Minister acknowledges that, but we need to do more, which I accept he sees too.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered women released from prison.

Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors: Property Act Receiverships

Chris Elmore Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff Central (Jo Stevens) and congratulate her on securing this debate. The injustice that affected her constituent would warrant a debate in itself, but the fact that the same inequalities might have affected thousands of similar individuals deserves the attention of every Member of this House.

In my limited time, I will explain the situation of my constituent, Mr Alun Richards, in the hope of showing the damage caused by such malpractices. Shortly after my election last May, Mr Richards came to one of my constituency surgeries to explain his story. Alun Richards was once one of west Wales’s most successful businessmen. By the turn of the millennium, his farming and property enterprises had been recognised with awards, and they soon attracted the attention of Lloyds Banking Group. Eager to attract his custom, Lloyds offered Mr Richards a gold star account and an interest rate of 1% over base. After considering other offers, Alun took up the offer made by Lloyds, and all was well until the 2008 banking crisis.

Suddenly, with little notice, Alun’s bank managers in Carmarthen, Gwilym Francis and Ian Richards, transferred his accounts to a larger branch in Bristol. After a period of sustained silence, Alun spoke with his new branch to find out who his new bank manager would be. Stunned, he discovered that his new manager, Max Meredith, was in the business support unit, focused on recoveries. Mr Richards was understandably confused and alarmed. His business had been booming, and his new manager, Mr Meredith, agreed that the circumstances were not usual for such a transfer. He agreed to transfer Mr Richards’s account back to his old branch, but Gwilym Francis and Ian Richards at that branch refused to accept the account. Alun Richards soon received a visit from two representatives of the business support unit in Bristol, Mr John Holiday and Mr Jonathan Miles.

During the meeting, one of Alun’s accountants raised questions about Mr Miles’s behaviour and background. Mr Miles repeatedly claimed on this occasion and in the 2.5 years that followed that he was an employee of Lloyds. Mr Richards has since discovered that Mr Miles was actually a chartered surveyor, a member of RICS and a partner at Alder King estate agents. No official secondment was in place; Mr Miles even appointed partners from Alder King, Julian Smith and Andrew Hughes, as the Law of Property Act 1925 receivers. When that initially surfaced, Mr Hughes temporarily resigned. RICS has refused to take any actions and, following complaints against Bristol-based lawyers TLT, neither has the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The Insolvency Practitioners Association has also stood still.

The saga of Alun Richards’s case has involved Lloyds Banking Group, Alder King and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Alun, who once owned enterprises totalling more than £5 million, was left penniless and on the road to ruin as a result of their actions. Similar injustices by those organisations have taken place in most constituencies across the UK. I wish it were possible for each Member of this House to understand how such scandals have affected their constituents, but unfortunately too many victims have felt powerless and remained silent.

At the heart of the matter are the Law and Property Act receiverships, which, due to their malpractice and dereliction of duty, should be considered by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Unfortunately, there is cause to believe that RICS has failed to do so. I hope that this debate will encourage RICS to regulate Law of Property Act receiverships to the fullest extent and play its role in preventing injustices such as those that have affected my constituent.