Chris Evans
Main Page: Chris Evans (Labour (Co-op) - Caerphilly)Department Debates - View all Chris Evans's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(5 months ago)
Commons ChamberI pay tribute to my hon. Friend and his colleagues for the exceptional work they do to ensure that justice is done. On the single justice procedure, fairness is non-negotiable, so it is critical that every person who comes before the courts, whether via the SJP or an open court, gets that fairness. There is an issue about transparency. Some important points on that have been raised, and echoed by the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). It is something that we ought to consider recalibrating. Everyone accepts that the SJP works well and is a useful addition. We just need to see whether it ought to be refined in the interests of promoting transparency.
End of custody supervised licence began in October 2023. Analysis of and statistics on its use will be based on one year’s worth of data and published on an annualised basis in line with other statistics, such as deaths of offenders in the community. We consider that to be the appropriate approach.
Earlier this month, the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. and learned Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), who is in his place, said that prisons are at “bursting point”, while the Prison Governors’ Association said that without the extension of the ECSL scheme, our criminal justice system
“may have ground to a halt”.
Meanwhile, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner labelled the plans as
“dangerous to domestic abuse victims”.
Is the Minister satisfied that the scheme manages the prison population while keeping the victims of crime safe? If so, when will he release data about which prisoners have been released?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. There are a number of points there. The ECSL is a response to, yes, acute capacity challenges, but it is a targeted scheme operating in prisons as required and where necessary. I gently say to him that a similar scheme ran from 2007 to 2010. In that case, it bore significant differences to what is happening now. ECSL, as operating now, contains a range of important safeguards that were simply not in place between 2007 and 2010. The 2007-10 scheme released some people straight into the community without any supervision and led to the early release of some prisoners convicted of terror offences. This scheme is totally different. It plays a role in managing the prison capacity challenges, but it has those important safeguards in place to protect victims and society.
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this incredibly important case and for taking it up so powerfully on behalf of his constituents. In the Sentencing Bill, we have a proposal such that people who commit crimes of murder involving sexual and sadistic conduct will not be released, because they will be expected to serve a whole-life order. That is just, on behalf of the British people, and it also helps to keep communities such as that of my hon. Friend safe.
The hon. Gentleman raises a good point. I lead on diversity in the Department, and a piece of work is already under way on how we can increase the diversity of the magistracy and ensure that we recruit from those hard-to-reach groups. I am more than happy to meet him to swap ideas and discuss how we can continue to change the face of our magistrates.