Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Green and Kerry McCarthy

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)]

The whole House will share my hon. Friend’s horror at the death of his constituent in a knife crime, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his dedication to tackling that particular social scourge. He will know that the Government have recently created a mandatory prison sentence for threatening someone with a knife, and as I have just said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry), we are ending the use of cautioning for possession of a knife. Knife crime is falling, but we will of course consider any further changes that will continue that welcome fall.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T2. Bristol city council and Barnardo’s have just launched a charter for the children of prisoners, which is intended to prevent young people in such a situation from enduring their own hidden sentence and to reduce the impact of a parent’s imprisonment on their educational attainment, emotional development and behaviour. What support is the Justice Secretary giving to such initiatives, and will he review how his Department can help the 1,300 children in Bristol and the close to 200,000 children in England and Wales in such a situation?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Green and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 28th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

Obviously, all chief constables will take full notice of what the IPCC says and will respond to reasonable requests. I think I know the matter to which my hon. Friend refers, and he will have seen that in that case chief constables have responded to what the IPCC recommended.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T9. According to Refuge, three women a week commit suicide because of domestic violence and their abusers usually escape scot-free. Some campaigners are calling for a specific offence of liability for suicide to be introduced. What does the Home Secretary think is the answer?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Green and Kerry McCarthy

Monday 7th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising this important issue. Alcohol-related harm costs the country about £21 billion a year. Absolutely the alcohol strategy is not designed to delay anything. As he knows, it sets out a range of measures to tackle binge drinking, to cut alcohol-fuelled violence and disorder and to reduce the number of people drinking at damaging levels. Just as the Government overhauled the Licensing Act 2003 to give local authorities the tools they needed to tackle alcohol-related crime and disorder, so we will take further measures as and when necessary.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

Over the Christmas and new year period, there seemed to be an abundance of adverts and public information campaigns telling women how they could avoid being raped or sexually assaulted—for example, by not drinking too much or dressing in a certain way. Does the Home Secretary agree that this gives out entirely the wrong message—that victims are somehow responsible for the crimes being perpetrated against them—and that we ought to be sending out the message that it is never okay for men to assault women?