Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Philp and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 26th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T7. In Bristol, we have sadly seen a number of young people killed by knife crime in the last few weeks. We have a Conservative police and crime commissioner, but unlike the Minister I have no desire to party politicise this. What is he doing to work with the Department for Education to ensure schools are involved in trying to lead the fight against knife crime and young people getting involved, whether as victims or perpetrators?

[Chris Philp]

The Youth Endowment Fund, led by Jon Yates, has received a £200 million endowment. Its mission is to work with young people—and that includes working with schools in the way that the hon. Lady has described —to identify the most effective interventions that could stop young people getting on to the wrong track, a track that can often have tragic consequences. The youth endowment fund is working with violence reduction units in the 20 police force areas most affected, which are spending £55 million a year, to make the necessary interventions, for instance in schools, to keep our young people safe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Philp and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

Drastic measures are being taken. We have recently invested £153 million to improve court buildings. We have just invested, in the past few weeks, an extra £80 million to support criminal courts, including the recruitment of 1,600 extra HMCTS staff. In addition to that, we have opened 10 emergency Nightingale courts with 16 courtrooms, and a further eight such Nightingale courts with 13 courtrooms will be opened in the course of September and October. The steps that that hon. Lady is calling for have been and are being taken.

[Kerry McCarthy]

From next week, the maximum period that someone can spend in pre-trial custody for Crown court cases will be increased to 238 days. I am particularly concerned that this includes children, as well as adults, on remand. At the moment in the prison estate, there is a higher proportion of children on remand among children in custody than there has been for a decade. What can we do to make sure that juveniles, in particular, get a speedy hearing and do not spend so much time in custody when they may very well be innocent?

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Lady is quite right to draw attention to custody time limits. Of course we want to get cases heard as quickly as possible because people on remand may well be found not guilty subsequently. I do agree with her sentiments about children. I know that when judges look at listing cases, they are very mindful of that. By the end of October, we will have 250 Crown court jury trial rooms operating, which will enable us to really get through these cases as quickly as we possibly can.

Channel Crossings in Small Boats

Debate between Chris Philp and Kerry McCarthy

Wednesday 2nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

Yes, I can confirm that we are doing all those things. Work is under way as we speak to do more with our French colleagues. I have mentioned the joint intelligence cell already, and we are doing work to strengthen our existing operational plans. Moreover, the work on returns, both now, under the Dublin framework, and subsequent to the end of the transition period, is actively under way, because if we return people who make this unnecessary, dangerous and illegal journey, there will be no incentive or reason to attempt it in the future.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

One reason we have seen a rise in small boat crossings is the crackdown on border controls in terms of lorries and the significant drop in freight traffic because of coronavirus. Does that not just show that the problem will not go away, despite the sort of military heroics that the Government are trying to embark on in the channel, and that we need to identify safe and legal routes? In particular, we need to work in France with people who have a proven connection to the UK, particularly refugee children, to try to deal with the problem before they try to reach the UK by illegal means?

[Chris Philp]

In relation to children, there are already family reunification provisions in the Dublin regulations, and there are provisions for children to be reunified, particularly with their parents, under our own immigration rules that will come into force after we leave the transition period. In terms of the displacement between different methods of illegal entry, the hon. Lady’s analysis is, broadly speaking, correct, but just because it is difficult, or can be difficult, to stop illegal migration, that is not going to deter us from doing so. It is our duty, as the United Kingdom’s Government, to prevent illegal immigration and to choose, as a sovereign Parliament and a sovereign nation, to decide who comes into the country and who does not. We will never abandon our responsibility to properly police and protect our borders.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Philp and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

What steps his Department is taking to reduce the backlog of court cases that has accumulated as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Philp)]

As I have suggested already, we are currently engaged in a herculean national effort to get our courts back up and running, starting with the use of remote technology, which I talked about a few moments ago. Beyond that, we are reopening courts that have been closed. We are now up to 168 courts opened as of 3 June, and we intend to open many more in the weeks ahead. We are also working to make sure those courts are used to their maximum safe capacity. Survey work is under way and has been completed in many cases so that we can understand the safe socially distanced capacity in those 168 open courts to make sure we use it fully, but the herculean national effort continues.

[Kerry McCarthy]

There was already a huge backlog of Crown court cases before the coronavirus outbreak. My concern is that many people will be remanded in custody without having been convicted of any offences. Technically they are innocent until proven guilty. What impact has the outbreak had on the time they are having to spend time remanded in custody without having been convicted of an offence? Does he have numbers?

[Chris Philp]

Custody limits do still apply as they did before, and I know that as judges make their individual listing decisions, they have regard to custody time limits approaching. I imagine that individual judges as a matter of practice would seek to prioritise cases where custody time limits are being approached. Where someone has been convicted but awaits sentence, we have been working very actively with the judiciary to prioritise having those cases heard, because if upon sentence there is not a custodial sentence, obviously the person is then free to go. Those cases are being prioritised through the system, but in particular by judges in the way they take their listing decisions.