Venezuela

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

It is rather impressive to follow an assault on the facts as heroic as the one that the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) just presented to us. One only has to look at the whole situation of Venezuela, and to see what has happened to it and the enormous wealth with which it is endowed, to draw the appropriate conclusion about the management of the country and its economy.

I do not intend to add to the evidence adduced by my hon. Friends. In the two minutes left to me, I simply want to ask what the Government will do now. Will they identify all funds belonging to the Venezuelan Government in the United Kingdom and freeze them? Will they place those funds at the disposal of Juan Guaidó when, inevitably, it comes to recognising him on Mr Maduro’s refusal of a new election process? Will the Government provide direct funding to the Juan Guaidó Government through development assistance? Will they start a major crackdown on the stolen and laundered Venezuelan funds that are in the United Kingdom or have passed through it? Will the Government take action against individuals and institutions in the United Kingdom that have facilitated the corruption of the Maduro regime?

Over preceding years, that state has been looted systematically by its leadership, not least the military. I understand Juan Guaidó’s offer of an amnesty, but I am not sure that the United Kingdom needs to be party to that on foreign moneys. Those people need to be held accountable for what they have done to their country.

Will the Government facilitate the immediate transfer of the Venezuelan embassy in London to officials appointed by the interim President? Will the Government withdraw the visas of, and declare persona non grata, those appointed by the Maduro regime to London, inviting them to return to Venezuela? That is a list of concrete steps that one would expect the Government to take. I assume that some of that will be in anticipation of there being no response to the Government and the EU’s collective position on the need for a new electoral mandate for the President.

I also want to reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) about the gold held by the Bank of England. My right hon. Friend the Minister got rather a good write-up in the Telegraph today, but I have to say that I do not think that it was entirely deserved, because I think he should have been significantly tougher with the signal he sent the Bank of England about the position of the Government on that gold.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

We now come to the Front-Bench speeches. The guideline limits are five minutes for the SNP, five minutes for Labour and 10 minutes for the Minister.

Localism in Planning

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

I apologise to my right hon. Friend for intervening so early, but I am also serving on a Joint Committee, to which I need to return. I just want to say how much I welcome his securing this debate and the fact that so many colleagues wish to take part. I have made it clear to the Prime Minister on the Floor of the House that the national policy planning framework is not working to protect the green belt. There is greenfield development in the green belt designated for my constituency at the behest of a planning inspector, rather than local people, which is evidence that our system is not working. I am delighted that my right hon. Friend is raising these issues today.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. Eleven Members have indicated that they wish to speak, and I am absolutely determined to do my best to ensure that those 11 people speak. It would greatly help the chances of those who want to speak if they do not intervene beforehand; otherwise we simply will not be able to get everybody in.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

We have done so in the course of our consideration of our policy for victims and witnesses, and I hope the hon. Lady will be able to look forward to the conclusions that we take from that, in particular on the future rule of the victim personal statement. I agree with her about its importance. It is another vehicle for getting victims properly engaged in the exercise of justice.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Eleven thousand, one hundred and twenty-seven—the number of foreign national prisoners in our jails is down slightly from the peak of 11,546 under the previous Government at the end of 2009. What further progress can we expect from the Government to send these people back to prison in their own countries?

[Mr Blunt]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s interest in the matter, which continues to spur the Government into action. As he knows because he understands the subject, it is a difficult and multifaceted exercise to get serving prisoners to return to their own country. Every avenue is being explored, from entry into the system, through examination of conditional cautions and the individual bilateral relationships that we have with countries, to the operation of the European Union prisoner transfer arrangements and the European Council’s protocol on the subject. No effort will be spared between us and the UK Border Agency to achieve success and improve performance in this area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question, because she raises an issue of considerable importance to Victim Support, the principal organisation providing victims services at the moment. Of course it is the Government’s view that these services would be better commissioned locally by the new police and crime commissioners. We are consulting on our proposals, and I will take her views into account as we consider the responses to that consultation.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

May we have a positive drive from the Ministry of Justice to ensure that, for as many victims as possible, both victim impact statements are completed and compensation orders are lodged with the court, so that victims can get the redress due to them?

[Mr Blunt]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. He will know that we have strengthened the duty on those sentencing to consider a compensation order as the first point of departure when they come to sentence people. I have now forgotten the first point—

[Mr Hollobone]

Victim impact statements.

[Mr Blunt]

We want victims’ personal statements to be living documents that will play a full role, particularly in advising the courts on the sentence following the consequences of the crime.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

The right hon. Gentleman has made an excellent suggestion, which I am very happy to pass on to officials in the Department.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Many of the foreign national prisoners in our jails are members of foreign national EU gangs that commit organised crime in this country. What is the Justice Department doing to tackle this aspect of gang culture in our cities and in our prisons?

[Mr Blunt]

Of course, where evidence and intelligence of that kind are received, they will be acted on to make sure that those gangs cannot operate within the prison estate and that gang members are properly dispersed by the placement decisions taken by NOMS. We will also want, as we do with all foreign national prisoners, to try to make sure that those people go home to serve their sentences.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

16. What the reoffending rates were for those sentenced to jail terms of (a) one year, (b) five years and (c) 10 years in the latest period for which figures are available.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

In 2008, the rate of reconviction within one year for adults discharged from custody after a sentence of less than a year was 61.1%; it was 31.0% for those given sentences of one to five years, 17.5% for offenders given sentences of five to 10 years, and 6.4% for 10 years or more. The Government’s Green Paper on rehabilitation and sentencing sets out our proposals to punish and rehabilitate offenders.

[Mr Hollobone]

Does the Minister agree that the figures suggest that prison actually works, and that the longer prisoners spend in prison the greater the chance of ensuring their effective rehabilitation before being released?

[Mr Blunt]

That is why we have to address the appalling reoffending rates of those people sentenced to short terms in prison. There were 60,000 of those in the past year, and I am afraid that the option of sending them all to prison for 10 years does not exist, so we have to make a success of rehabilitation. We have to ensure that longer sentences are given to recidivist offenders and that we effectively rehabilitate people and break the cycle of crime through the proposals that we have presented in the Green Paper to drive that number down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

14. If he will establish how many foreign national prisoners held in UK prisons wish to serve out custodial sentences in their country of origin rather than in the UK.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

Since 1 January this year, 97 applications for transfer have been received from prisoners wishing to serve their custodial sentence in their country of origin. The Prison Service has in place procedures—principally on induction—to ensure that prisoners are aware of the possibility of transfer and of how to submit an application. In addition, prisoners are advised, during interviews with immigration staff, of the possibility of being repatriated. Relevant prisoners are advised in writing of any new prisoner transfer agreement that comes into effect.

[Mr Hollobone]

May I urge my hon. Friend to place in the Library the details of the countries to which those 97 prisoners wished to return? I also urge him and his ministerial colleagues to do far more to encourage foreign national prisoners to go back to where they came from, because taxpayers in this country are fed up with paying for their board and lodging.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

The hon. Lady identifies the challenge we face. We as a nation have to increase our capacity to deliver education and all the other services that are required to assist in rehabilitating offenders. That is why we are going to effect a rehabilitation revolution which will involve that great army of people out there who want to help us and who have so far found our current structures very difficult to engage with. Moving to output-based measures will enable us to use the capacity of all those people who want to help us in the incredibly important work of rehabilitating offenders much more effectively than we have done to date.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

12. What recent discussions he has had with (a) the UK Border Agency and (b) foreign Governments on the compulsory transfer of foreign national prisoners to detention in their country of origin.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Crispin Blunt and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

Yes.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that there would be a lot less overcrowding in prisons were we to adopt the very sensible policy of sending back to secure detention in their countries of origin the 13% of our prison population who are foreign nationals?

[Mr Blunt]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we will do our absolute level best to improve the position.