(4 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who I know has a long interest in these issues, but I remind him of what I said a few moments ago about the £155 million uplift in this current financial year that we secured as part of the highest increase in the Ministry of Justice revenue budget in more than a decade. We will continue to match that in the years ahead with more investment, and he can be confident that that will translate not only into reduced workloads, but increased sophistication and development when it comes to the harnessing of new technologies and better ways of working. We have learned a lot from the current crisis about how we can do things even better.
I regret to say that I am worried by the statement that my right hon. and learned Friend has made this morning, for the simple reason that I have seen probation services for my constituents improve over the past few years, with more people given the second chance that the shadow Secretary of State referred to. He has just praised the work of the Kent, Surrey and Sussex CRC, as he has done in the past from the Dispatch Box, so can he give me some reassurance that with this statement today he is not in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I can give him that reassurance because, as he reminds us, we are talking not just about a service, but the people who deliver that service. Those dedicated public servants will be able to transfer across to the NPS, and I want to retain the ethos that they have and the specialisms that they bring, so that we can enhance the probation service and make it even better in the future.
(10 years, 3 months ago)
Commons Chamber16. What plans he has to reform the criminal law in relation to child neglect.
Child cruelty is an abhorrent crime which should be punished severely. Every child should be able to grow up in a safe environment. We are considering ways in which the criminal law can most effectively support that, and we will set out our conclusions and next steps in due course.
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. May I urge him to introduce proposals in the next Session of Parliament that will bring the criminal law of England and Wales into line with the family law of England and Wales and recognise all types of significant abuse, including emotional abuse, which is, I am afraid, all too prevalent in the lives of many of our young children?
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe victims code will have a positive effect on the experience of victims in the criminal justice system. The new code gives victims clearer entitlements; a louder voice, including a right to read a victim personal statement aloud; enhanced entitlements for victims of the most serious crime, and vulnerable or intimidated and persistently targeted victims; and a more effective means of redress.
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. How will he make sure restorative justice measures are truly victim-led and that those who wish to seek restorative justice at a stage later than the sentencing process will be able to do so easily?
I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that of the money the police and crime commissioners will be using, up to £18 million is specifically ring-fenced for restorative justice services. That funding will help us to ensure that restorative justice is available at all stages of the process so that victims can make properly informed decisions about whether they want to participate in restorative justice at the point in the process that best serves their needs.
T9. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State knows my interest and that of other colleagues in the reform of the criminal law of child neglect. Will he update the House on the progress he is making with regard to reviewing that particular provision of the Children and Young Persons Act 2008?
My hon. Friend is correct that this is an important area in which I have had fruitful discussions with Action for Children about the best way to make progress, and I hope to be able to report further on those discussions shortly.
(10 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberWill my right hon. Friend update the House about when he intends to publish the victims code?
I am aware of my hon. Friend’s long-standing interest in that important document. I urge patience, but reassure him that his patience will be rewarded very shortly.
(11 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe hon. Gentleman gives many of the more sensitive issues an airing. We have received assurances from Jon Stoddart and from the IPCC that, for example, no officer or investigator employed to work on the investigations will have had any prior connection with the Hillsborough disaster. I have personally checked that those assurances are being met, and I am able to reassure the hon. Gentleman that they are. As he will know, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has promised that the resources will be made available to the IPCC so that it can conduct this investigation as thoroughly as it and, more particularly, the families of the victims of the disaster deserve.
There is a real concern that the IPCC is having to deal with a huge number of complaints, some of which are relatively trivial in the great scheme of things. What mechanism will be put in place to ensure that the IPCC can focus its resources on important and significant cases such as the one that has been raised in questions today?
As I said to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), in the particular instance of the Hillsborough investigation my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has already made that commitment on resources. There is clearly a wider point about the IPCC’s resources and how it operates, and a statement on that will be made very shortly.
(11 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberMagistrates courts in Swindon and Wiltshire are about to make important decisions about the allocation of crime and family work. Will my right hon. Friend work with me and those on local magistrates benches to ensure that very long journeys in order to access justice do not become the norm?
I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that. Like me, I am sure that he will welcome the work done by the Courts Service to produce alternative ways in which people can give evidence—video links and so on—which mean that some unnecessary journeys and waiting times in courts can be removed.
(11 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am happy to assure my hon. Friend that we are already investing more than £1.5 million to help build capacity in dealing with restorative justice throughout the criminal justice system and, in particular, for pre-sentence restorative justice, which is what his question refers to. I am also delighted to report that over 18,000 police officers have received training in restorative justice techniques. This is contributing to the greater success of our restorative justice measures.
Will my right hon. Friend come and visit Swindon, where we are piloting neighbourhood justice panels, involving the community in making decisions about wrongdoers and having a real sense of control for the first time in relation to crimes that affect a large number of people in my community?
(13 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
As I have explained, a draft Bill will be available so that Parliament can act if it needs to in a particular emergency. With regard to the arrests made before Christmas, it is important to look at what has happened. Since July 2007, no one has had to be held for more than 14 days, despite the many terrorist actions and the planned actions that, happily, have been stopped by the good actions of the police and security forces. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, as someone who considers these matters carefully, will welcome the change we are making today and that the shadow Home Secretary can do likewise at some stage.
Will the outcome of the review ensure that we go back to first principles: namely, that the task of security and intelligence should not be confused with the role of the criminal justice system, and that to conflate the two and warp the principles of criminal justice would be to fall into the sort of error that the previous Government fell into?
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. It is precisely because we live in dangerous times and need to consider carefully what powers we have to fight terrorism that we should be all the more careful not to erode the principles of criminal justice and civil liberties for which this House has always stood.
(13 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberAs my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced to the House a fortnight ago, we are introducing a new permanent limit on non-EU economic migrants, with a reduction in the number of visas next year from 28,000 to 21,700. We are also taking action to tighten our immigration system across all the key routes—work, students and family—and will make settlement in this country a privilege to be earned.
I thank the Minister for that reply. What evidence has he found of abuse in the points-based immigration system that was introduced by the previous Government?
Regrettably, there is large-scale abuse. For instance, we looked at a sample of the migrants who came here last year in tier 1, which is meant to cover the brightest and the best of highly skilled migrants, and nearly a third of them were doing completely unskilled jobs. We have also found widespread abuse in the student system. That tells us that we must refine and smarten the points-based system that was left to us by the previous Government so that it does the job of ensuring that we get immigration numbers down to sustainable levels.