Female Offender Strategy: One Year On

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Kate Green]

I do agree. If there is no women’s centre in Wales, that is shocking and there needs to be. Indeed, I would say that for any part of the country that does not have a women’s centre.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I build on what my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore) said? For Eastwood Park Prison—it is just outside my constituency, but I visit regularly—the problem now is that because there are a number of women’s centres growing up in the west, there is a disparity with those places that do not have women’s centres, particularly south Wales. It should be remembered that that prison covers the whole of the south-west as well as south Wales. There is such a difference in the ways in which women being released are now treated. We have to get some continuity in the way in which they are looked after, but more particularly some certainty that women’s centres will develop all over the country. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Kate Green]

I agree both that we need women’s centres to develop all over the country and that they need certainty of funding so that they are sustainable.

We have seen other problems with delivery of the strategy. I hope that the Minister will forgive me if I describe the transforming rehabilitation programme as a total failure. It has not been able to deliver, for example, specialist provision for women through community rehabilitation companies, and at the moment we do not know what the new probation model will look like for women. Through the Gate simply has not happened as envisaged.

There are even basic things such as women not being able to apply for universal credit in advance of their release date, or to apply for housing. They will not get a house because they do not have their children living with them, which means that they cannot have their children living with them because they do not have a house when they are released. It is the case that 13% of women are released to no fixed abode—a truly terrifying prospect—and only 22% to secure permanent accommodation, according to Her Majesty’s inspectors of prison and probation. As a result of the lack of a safe destination to release women to, many will be forced to return to the abuser, who may be the root cause of their offending, and will turn to alcohol, drug or other substance misuse and to reoffending.

Pre-sentence reports are still being prepared without full information and without being informed by gender considerations. Sentencers are not always taking account of the interests of children when sentencing a mother to or remanding her in custody, yet the impact on children of a mum going to prison is absolutely dire. Fewer than 10% of children remain in their family home when a mother is imprisoned.

What do we want to happen, and will the Minister offer us assurances that some of these suggestions will happen? First, will he look at what can be done systematically to ensure that the police, wherever possible, divert women away from arrest? That is being considered now by the all-party parliamentary group for women in the penal system, which I have the honour to co-chair with Baroness Corston and the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), whom I am very pleased to see present at this debate.

Will the Minister say what the Government intend to do to spread retail diversion schemes such as we have in Bury, in Greater Manchester, across the country? Will he say how the Government are working with non-police prosecutors, so that we can end the use of custody for TV licence offences, truancy offences and so on?

Crucially, what will the Government do to secure sustainable, adequate funding for community provision and particularly for both women’s centres and the range of partners that work with them? Can the Minister say what role he envisages for the new probation service? How will it develop women-specific programmes, or will women’s centres become the default model for provision? What can be done to build sentencer confidence in community provision? I would argue that one step that the Government must take is to ensure proper information for sentencers and proper training for them on the outcomes from community and custodial sentences. Will the Minister ensure that gender-sensitive, gender-informed, pre-sentence reports are made mandatory and that there is suitable training for report writers? Will he say what the Government can do to put more emphasis on, as part of community sentences, treatment orders, including, as the Magistrates Association has suggested, financial planning support?

All stages of the process must take account of the best interests of children, so will the Minister ensure that sentencers do follow the guidance, which exists, that they should consider the impact on children in sentencing a mother and that they should ensure that arrangements are made for them prior to sending any mother into custody? Better still, in my view, would be ensuring that alternatives to custody are considered in all cases for primary carers.

Will the Government now move forward to legislate for a presumption against short sentences as a matter of urgency? Will they also adopt the suggestion, from the Committee that scrutinised what is now the Domestic Abuse Bill, to introduce a statutory defence in that legislation?

When transforming rehabilitation was first proposed, I thought that post-release supervision was a good idea, but having seen it in practice, I have changed my mind. In 2017, about 1,000 women were recalled to prison while on supervision following a custodial sentence of under 12 months. In the context of the female prison population as a whole, that is a lot of women. Its use appears to be ill judged, disproportionate and harmful.

Will the Minister consider ending post-release supervision and replacing it with holistic support, including housing, education, mental health and employment? No woman should ever be released into homelessness—can the Minister guarantee that that will not happen? Can he guarantee that no woman—or man—will ever be released on a Friday, when services are not available on the weekend to receive them? Will he once again press the Department for Work and Pensions to expedite the ability to start the universal credit application process before a woman is released from prison? Finally on my shopping list, will he ensure that a women’s centre link worker is placed in every single women’s prison?

I urge the Minister to continue the roll-out of the full-system approach across the country, because it works. In Cleveland, where they do not have it, 67 in every 100,000 women offenders are imprisoned, in Greater Manchester it is only 25 per 100,000. A whole-system approach should not be criminal justice driven. We need place-based, gender-informed, holistic preventative services in every local authority accessible to every vulnerable woman. That is the women’s strategy I would like to see; I urge the Government to embrace it.

Dangerous Driving

David Drew Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I am sorry to have missed the first two minutes, but I was otherwise engaged. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), who spoke movingly about the seriousness of this issue, and thank all hon. Friends and hon. Members who have contributed.

I want to look at two issues, starting with numbers, which we have not really talked about. These numbers are a bit dated—I hope the Minister accepts that they will be greater now—but between 2016 and 2017, approximately 90,000 people were banned from driving in this country. That is from a driving population of 33 million, so I estimate that to be 0.002% of the driving population.

To be banned, a driver has to receive 12 points or be convicted of a serious driving offence. My figures state that around 11,000 people are driving with more than 12 points because they have been let off for one reason or another. That is not necessarily part of the Minister’s brief, but it is interesting that people are let off so easily. Anyone who pleads that a conviction will have an injurious effect on their employment can get away with numerous points above 12—that needs to be looked at.

Over the last four years, some 300 people have been caught driving while disqualified in the county of Gloucestershire, while that figure was said to be 38,000 nationally—those figures come from a freedom of information request, so I suppose that they are right. Considerable numbers of people with a ban chance it when they should not be driving. In my view, driving is a privilege, not a right, but those people flagrantly disregard their bans. They go to court again and, presumably, some further action is taken against them.

An awful lot of people drive while disqualified or take huge risks because they are not suitable to be driving for whatever reason. I will not go into the age issue mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), but because of the deficiencies that come with age—that is what happens when we get older—some people should perhaps decide not to drive at all.

We have a huge cultural problem in that very few people are banned, and even when they are, they take risks for whatever reason. We have to change that culture in the same way that we did with drink and drug- driving. We have to nail people for those crimes because they are not just risking their own life and limb, but other people’s, too.

My second point is on road safety. I have done a lot of work with my local road safety group, and I am indebted to a gentleman called Charles Pedrick, whom I have mentioned before. He spends hours and hours of his time on local road safety issues, to the extent that he visits parish councils and local road safety groups, a number of which have taken the opportunity to install automatic number plate recognition cameras or use handheld devices.

Those groups found that most people drive reasonably safely and, although they may speed slightly, they are largely within safety parameters. A minority, however, drive exceedingly dangerously—not just occasionally, but regularly. Those people get caught out by the ANPR staff, but there is little that the volunteers can do, and because the activities are voluntary, not even the police can do much.

In my area, the police now go around, knock on the door and say, “We have got you n times. If you carry on this way, you will cause a serious accident.” Normally, that has the desired effect and people say, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have been doing that. I have learned my lesson.” Sadly, a minority of people flagrantly break the law and do not care at all because they think that they can get away with it. I know that this is not the Minister’s direct responsibility—he will have to talk to the Home Office and elements of law enforcement—but it would be helpful if those voluntary groups were given some traction to stop dangerous drivers.

Unless we stop dangerous drivers at source, they will continue to drive dangerously. It is important that the people who give up their time to monitor those who speed have the satisfaction of something coming of their work. The dangerous drivers will be the ones who kill others, because they do not care. Unless we stop them, the inevitable consequence is that they will kill.

I hear the heartrending stories and I sympathise. We have to stop the dangerous drivers at source. They should lose their licences and go through due process, and until they have learned to drive responsibly, they should not get their licences back. The people who track the dangerous drivers should have the satisfaction that something is being done about the issue. They are frustrated that the police only knock on the door and that is as far as it goes, and that they cannot prosecute because their activities are voluntary.

We know who the dangerous drivers are and we should be doing something about them. I hope that the Minister hears my plea and will get some activity going to make the ANPR information shareable and useable, so that people who drive dangerously cannot get away with it. I hope he has a good response to my plea.

Rehabilitation of Offenders

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend uses the word “proportionate”, and as a distinguished former Government lawyer, she knows what that means. I think many other people—Madam Deputy Speaker included—will know precisely what it means. It means, in effect, making sure that any measure does not defeat the purpose for which it was brought into force. In other words, it must not become self-defeating, and the response must be in line with the nature of the challenge. My hon. Friend is also absolutely right to talk about the wider context. We have to look at meaningful rehabilitation, and we have all seen plenty of examples of individuals who have committed offences and been punished for their crimes and who have been able to go on in later life to make a success of their work and family life and become the sort of citizens we want to see in our society. That is self-evident, and it is certainly the experience that all of us will have had at some point or other.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I think the Minister is putting all our fears to rest. Paragraph 7.6 of the accompanying explanatory memorandum refers only to independent inquiries into child sexual abuse. Is that in effect what this is all about, or is it going to be wider than that? I thought that if people had signed the sex offenders register, that was already admissible evidence, so could the Minister confirm that this is not just about historical child sex abuse and tell us what the status of the sex offenders register is?

[Robert Buckland]

I am looking again at paragraph 7.6, and I think its purpose is to illustrate other examples of inquiries that have been set up pursuant to the Inquiries Act 2005. I will go on to explain that, because that does not cover every public inquiry. I will give the House a few examples as I develop my argument. In this case, the ongoing independent inquiry into child sexual abuse is used as an example of a 2005 Act statutory inquiry that may need to consider criminal records in the course of its deliberations. It is therefore a useful illustration of another inquiry that was set up because there was a strong public interest to be served and one would benefit from not having to undergo what would otherwise be a rather cumbersome and lengthy process of looking at the admission of evidence on a case-by-case basis.

As we know, the independent inquiry is taking considerable time, and it would be in the wider public interest for its work to be sped up in this way.

The hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) talked about the register; as he knows, sex offenders are required to sign that on conviction. That public document is recorded and kept just as a conviction would be. From memory, how long an offender has to stay on the register will depend on the seriousness of the offence. Some very serious child sexual offences will, of course, rightly require life registration, so the matter will remain on public record.

The hon. Gentleman was a Member when that Act was passed; he might have a better institutional memory than mine when it comes to the debates that led up to that. My experience of it was as a practitioner and recorder, having to make sure that defendants complied with the requirement. The sex offenders register is not a court order but a statutory obligation that follows automatically on conviction.

I come back to the exceptions order, whose primary use is for employment purposes. The amendment that we are discussing is not, of course, employment related: it relates only to the consideration of evidence of spent convictions in inquiries caused to be held under the Inquiries Act 2005. Although a number of judicial proceedings are exempt from the protections of disclosure—in those proceedings, there is no restriction on considering or basing conclusions on spent conviction information—inquiries made under the 2005 Act are not currently exempt.

Examples of proceedings that are exempt include circumstances ranging from solicitor and police disciplinary proceedings, to proceedings relating to taxi driver and security licences. We feel that the work of inquiries set up under the 2005 Act is necessarily of such public interest and importance that they must have the ability to consider all the evidence relevant to their work. To extend that ability to these inquiries, we must amend the exceptions order.

The draft instrument is necessary to amend the order to enable inquiries caused to be held under the 2005 Act to admit and consider evidence of convictions and cautions that have become spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, where it is necessary to fulfil the terms of reference of that inquiry; the word “relevance” again comes very much into play.

We recognise the importance of the 1974 Act, which offers vital protections to people with convictions. We improved those protections in 2014, reducing the amount of time that most people with convictions had to wait before their convictions became spent. As I mentioned in responding to the intervention made by the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson), we are considering proposals for further reform to the 1974 Act following the recommendations made by various reviews in recent years, including those carried out by the Justice Committee, on which the right hon. Gentleman serves.

There are demanding criteria for inclusion on the exceptions order. Our proposed inclusion would be the first addition to the order in three years. As I said, the amendment proposed here is not about employment; it relates only to the consideration of evidence of spent convictions and cautions in judicial proceedings—namely, before inquiries caused to be held under the Inquiries Act 2005.

Understandably, their lordships raised concerns in the other place about granting all inquiries the right to consider spent convictions and the effect that would have on individual rights. I want to make it crystal clear that we have proposed to extend this power only to a limited number of inquiries; as I said, we are talking only about inquiries set up under the 2005 Act, so non-statutory inquiries, such as both the Butler and Chilcot inquiries on the Iraq war, would not be covered by this legislation.

This legislation applies only to inquiries where considering spent convictions is necessary to fulfil their terms of reference. An inquiry’s terms of reference are set by the Minister, in consultation with the chairman of the inquiry. That provides an element of individual consideration of whether the exception should apply to each inquiry that ensures that this will not apply indiscriminately. Frankly, considering spent convictions will not be necessary for the vast majority of inquiries. In other words, the measure already has a limited application.

Our view is that sufficient safeguards are in place to ensure that individual rights—the issue that concerned their lordships—are preserved as far as is necessary. Under section 1 of the Inquiries Act 2005, inquiries are caused to be held by a Minister when particular events have caused, or are capable of causing, public concern, or there is public concern that particular events have occurred. As such, inquiries by design are held only where they are in the public interest, so any limited interference with an offender’s article 8 right to private life under the European convention on human rights would be necessary and proportionate.

Article 8 enshrines the right to respect for private life, but that is a qualified right. Subsection (2) provides that there shall be no interference with that right except such as is in accordance with the law and necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety, or the economic wellbeing of the country, or else for the prevention of disorder or crime, the protection of health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. Section 19 of the 2005 Act has specific regard to these rights, in as far as they ought be protected, but it does so in a way that enables the inquiry to fulfil its terms of reference and consider matters necessary in the public interest. In that way, the 2005 Act directly reflects the qualified nature of the right to privacy.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not know if he is a clairvoyant, but if I recall my diary correctly I am due to visit Saracens at Feltham next week.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister broker arrangements with our primary sporting clubs—rugby, football and cricket—to make sure they have the opportunity to pair up with a prison, so that there is a relationship that can evolve over time? Does he think that is a good idea?

[Edward Argar]

I do think that is an excellent idea, which is exactly the principle behind the twinning project and exactly what is happening on the ground. The project is expanding to include more and more prisons. I have focused, given the nature of the question, on football, but the hon. Gentleman is right to highlight rugby, and from my perspective cricket is always a winner. He is absolutely right. The model is there with the twinning project and we want it to continue to expand.

Prisons and Probation

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. That fact should weigh heavily with the Government. It means that they should not dismiss this debate as being ideological driven and that they should instead look at the objective facts and think about what can be done to turn this situation around. Violence is at record levels, with an assault being recorded every 20 minutes in our prisons. The number of prisons labelled as being of “serious concern” is the highest for years. It is not enough simply to end prison and probation privatisation, but it is a necessary step if we are going to create a justice system that focuses on rehabilitation and public safety—values that are not consistent with maximising private profit.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

We heard earlier about the need for a women’s centre in Wales. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a tragedy that women, including those who have faced abuse in their lives, are leaving prison today with no accommodation to go to? Too many women are in that position, which is why the network of women’s centres is so important.

[Richard Burgon]

Women’s centres play a crucial role, and their work needs to be expanded. The female prison estate is a case study in illustrating that short-term custodial sentences do more harm than good to the individual, to wider society and to the public purse. My hon. Friend makes an important and powerful point.

Returning to private prisons, I want to focus on staffing levels, disproportionate violence, overcrowding, the lack of accountability, the extra costs incurred by the taxpayer, and the funds that could go towards public investment that actually go into private profits.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

I agree strongly with what my hon. Friend says, and indeed we are actively engaged in this; my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor will be in Romania to discuss these issues, and I am meeting the Albanian Justice Minister this afternoon. But it is important to understand that, if we are going to put someone back into prison in another country, that country’s police, courts and prison service need to be onside, and that is a diplomatic challenge.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the saddest groups in our prisons are those women from abroad, usually with children, who have been duped into being drug mules. In the past, the Government have helped with the building of prisons abroad to allow those women to go back to their country of origin; is that still this Government’s policy?

[Rory Stewart]

As a former Minister in the Department for International Development, I assure the hon. Gentleman that we remain open to that. We have recently faced problems in Jamaica because there has been political resistance, not from us but from the Jamaican Government, to British development money being used in that way. We remain open to investment in the rule of law, and if it helps us to return foreign national offenders, at the same time as helping prisoners in that country, we will do that.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

As my hon. Friend highlights, council tax debt is an important area in which we must ensure that bailiffs and enforcement agents are operating appropriately, and we will be looking at the enforcement work that bailiffs do.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister call for accurate statistics as part of the review? It is difficult to get to the facts in this area, including the number of people who are suffering because of bailiffs, so will she look into that as a matter of urgency?

[Lucy Frazer]

Of course, evidence is extremely important. I should mention that when we reviewed the legislation earlier this year, we found that not all bailiffs act inappropriately. A large number act in accordance with the regulations that we set out, but we need to look at the small number who do not.

Civil Liability Bill [Lords]

David Drew Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

Very much so. It remains our objective to ensure that people are properly compensated—that they get the right level of compensation. The current process systematically overcompensates, and it is right that we address that because that compensation could be spent on frontline services. I am sure that that is what we would all want to do.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State is being very generous in giving way. Does he accept that we will have to watch the impact of this Bill on personal injury lawyers, as it is already difficult to get lawyers to stay in that field? Will he monitor the situation to ensure that all those involved in serious accidents get proper legal representation?

[Mr Gauke]

I think that it would be fair to say that personal injury lawyers have demonstrated adaptability in recent years and that the sector has proved to be resilient. Of course, the purpose of our compensation regime and insurance system is to ensure that those who should be compensated are compensated, and that is what we seek to do. As I said in response to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), it is also right that we do not over- compensate.

The Bill contains provisions requiring the Lord Chancellor to review the rate promptly after Royal Assent and then at least once every five years, again providing greater certainty and clarity. Following amendments accepted by the Government in the other place, the first review will continue the current arrangements under which the Lord Chancellor consults the Government Actuary and Her Majesty’s Treasury before setting the rate. This will enable the benefits of the new system to be realised as soon as possible. All further reviews by the Lord Chancellor must be undertaken in consultation with an independent expert panel, chaired by the Government Actuary.

I stress that the Bill will not change the important role played by periodical payment orders, which account for a significant proportion of the compensation paid for future loss in cases involving the most serious and life-changing injuries. PPOs protect claimants against the risk inherent in relying on the investment of lump sums to produce a stream of income to meet their needs as they arise. PPOs are and will remain available in the vast majority of the highest-value NHS clinical negligence claims against hospitals, including those involving brain damage during childbirth, and in the large majority of long-term serious injury cases where the defendant is insured by a UK-regulated insurer.

Access Rights to Grandparents

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Nigel Huddleston]

I am pleased that my hon. Friend has raised that point. I focus today on English and Welsh law, but the laws are very similar in Scotland and Northern Ireland. I know that campaigning groups have been set up to argue the same case as we are making in England and Wales. The jurisdiction element causes great confusion, which I hope the Minister will also address.

I have heard horrendous stories about children being put up for adoption despite the grandparents wanting to care for them. They cannot, however, afford the legal costs to pursue the issue through the courts, which I will come on to in a minute. There are cases where grandparents are denied access to their grandchildren for perfectly legitimate reasons and in the best interests of the child, and I am not seeking to block that. Safeguarding children should be paramount. As the Prime Minister said when I raised this issue in Prime Minister’s questions,

“when making a decision about a child’s future, the first consideration must be their welfare”.

She also stated that

“grandparents...play an important role in the lives of their grandchildren.”—[Official Report, 22 November 2017; Vol. 631, c. 1035.]

With this debate, I am trying to draw attention to the growing number of cases where grandparents are denied access to their grandchildren for apparently little or no legitimate reason.

I have focused on the impact of family breakdown on the grandchildren. I turn now to how the breakdown of relationships can impact on the grandparents. As I said earlier, some of the grandparents who have contacted me have said that being cut off from their grandchildren is like a living bereavement. One grandparent poignantly said that the grief does not have

“the closure or finality of death”.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept and agree that time is not a healer? The cases I have dealt with have gone on for decades and the hurt grows rather than diminishes.

[Nigel Huddleston]

I do agree. Unfortunately, in the letters and emails I have received the stories go back years and years, and in some cases decades. They are absolutely heartrending. Many hon. Members will have received similar and seen people in surgeries over the past few years. The length of time is horrendous.

Another common feeling is, of course, guilt. Many grandparents feel that they must have failed their children somehow for the relationship to have deteriorated to such an extent, and they are ashamed that they were not able to hold their family together. One grandfather said:

“I have been to the blackest places you can imagine and felt total despair and loss of confidence in myself as a father.”

Hon. Members could be forgiven for assuming, as I perhaps did when I first started hearing about these cases, that some drastic event must have taken place for family breakdown to have happened, but that is often not the case. Too often, the family rift arises from a simple tiff that snowballs out of control. As one grandfather said,

“there is an inevitable feeling that no one cuts people off for no reason but it can happen for the slightest thing, it doesn’t take a full blown argument, just a wrong word or a badly timed comment”.

Another said that,

“a lot of the time, the grandparents have no idea what the problem is”.

I have heard some truly heartbreaking stories from grandparents detailing how their emotional anguish has led them to consider, and in some cases attempt, suicide. One grandmother who considered suicide said that

“the only thing that stops me is hoping that my daughter will have a change of heart and let me be part of my grandson’s life again”.

Sadly, three grandparents known to the Bristol Grandparents Support Group felt unable to continue their lives without seeing their grandchildren. I was shocked to hear from one grandparent who told me that seven members of their support group had committed suicide.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

David Drew Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 27th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

The one issue that the hon. Gentleman missed out is the lack of prison officers. As the POA will tell him, the numbers are insufficient and they are going down because of the problems in our jails. We need to recruit more prison officers.

[Philip Davies]

Madam Deputy Speaker, you would rightly start to pull me up if I were to go down the rabbit hole that the hon. Gentleman is trying to take me down, as that would not be relevant, particularly to these measures. However, I think that everybody has accepted that there is a shortage of prison officers. To be fair to the Government, they have done a pretty good job of recruiting quite a lot of additional officers over a fairly short timescale. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I would say that his point is one with which everyone agrees, which is why the Government have done something to increase the numbers. Whether or not that is enough is a different question, but we should give the Government credit where it is due.

There are 21 assaults on prison staff each and every day, two of which are serious. Prison officers have a hard and dangerous job, and I am sick of hearing about the pathetic additions to sentences for prisoners who assault them. Members might be as shocked as I was to learn that, in 2015, the average number of extra days given to prisoners who assaulted prison staff was 16— absolutely ridiculous! I believe that if someone assaults a prison officer, they should immediately lose their right to automatic release. Let the message go out that the Government are on the side of prison officers, and that those who assault them can expect to be properly punished, not just given the derisory slap on the wrist that they are given at the moment.

I have spoken to the Minister about this, so I know that he is passionate about protecting our prison officers. If he wants to do something tangible to stop assaults on prison officers, he should accept my proposal, because that will make the biggest single difference to reduce the number of such assaults. It would make an enormous difference if criminals knew that they would no longer be allowed automatic early release.

My new clauses in this group relate to three categories of people. The first set—new clauses 4 to 6 and 8—relates to prisoners assaulting all emergency workers, as defined in the Bill. The second set—new clauses 9 to 11 and 13—relates to all prison officers and those acting in a similar capacity in prisons. The third, which is new clauses 14 to 16 and 18, relates just to prison officers. The measures were designed to give the House the maximum range to choose from so that we could select the most appropriate route. The provisions would stop prisoners from being released automatically or early from various types of prison sentences if they assaulted a relevant person during their sentences.

I think that new clauses 4 to 6 and 8, which cover all emergency workers, fit best with the Bill because, of course, prisoners can come into contact with health professionals and other emergency workers, such as police officers investigating subsequent offences. It seems to me that an assault on those people should also be covered. If Members feel that only assaults on prison staff should be covered, however, they can pick alternative new clauses, and if they think that only assaults on prison officers should be covered, new clauses 14 to 16 and 18 are available.

Any of those approaches would be better than the status quo. They would mean that prisoners serving sentences of less than 12 months in prison could not be released automatically after six months or less if they had perpetrated an assault while in prison against any of the people I have mentioned. Prisoners serving fixed-term sentences of more than 12 months would also not be eligible for automatic release following an assault. Finally, the proposals would stop those who assault a relevant person from being eligible for early release.

In an ideal world, this would all be happening anyway—it would just be a matter of common sense—but I fear that common sense was thrown out of our criminal justice system an awfully long time ago. I understand that those serving life sentences and indeterminate sentences for public protection will already have any assaults and the like considered by the Parole Board before their release. I certainly hope that assaults are treated as a good reason not to release anybody, and that they would be a bar to people being released as early as would otherwise be the case. Otherwise, Parole Board hearings would be a farce, although some might argue that many already are.

If somebody has assaulted a person inside prison, they are perfectly capable of doing so outside prison, which is another thing that the Parole Board must bear in mind before release, and another reason why we should not automatically release such people early. At a time when assaults seem to be on the increase, we need much tougher action to protect those who come into contact with prisoners. Prisoners are clearly in prison for a reason. It is quite hard to be sent to prison these days, so those who are there, especially if they are serving long sentences, either have already committed a significant crime, or are repeat offenders. That is the only way to get incarcerated these days. If such people thought that they would have to serve their full sentence, rather than just a derisory extra 16 days in prison, they might well think twice about assaulting those who work in prisons to look after them and keep order. Anything that would reduce the number of assaults would surely be welcomed, and this would be a very effective deterrent.

I do not intend to speak to the two amendments in the group that were tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda, as I am sure that he will do an excellent job of doing so, but I have added my name to them. They relate to spitting and sexual assault. I think we can all agree that spitting is absolutely disgusting and incredible dangerous, particularly to the emergency workers who face it. I appreciate that spitting already constitutes an assault, but I certainly see no harm in highlighting it separately, as the hon. Gentleman has. The West Yorkshire police federation says that spitting affected 21% of all police officers in the latest year, so the Minister should not underestimate how big a problem it is. I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman that sexual assault should be covered by the Bill—it would be perverse if it was not. Any assault, including sexual assault, should not be tolerated at all, and making this an aggravating factor is a welcome move. I hope that the Government will accept both the hon. Gentleman’s amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

Later that evening, the police decided to try to get me into the building. They formed a phalanx of eight officers around me. One of the police officers was a woman of a Chinese ethnic background. Horrible racism was shouted at her by some of the protesters—really, really vile stuff—and because we were going through in tight formation, the spitting at the police officers was quite extraordinary. By the time we got through the door, the Chinese police officer’s face was dripping with saliva. Some of the people had deliberately bitten into their lips, so there was blood in the saliva. They were shouting and saying horrible things at the same time. It was deliberately offensive and intimidatory and designed to prevent the police officers from doing their work.

[Dr Drew]

I think I am correct in saying that these were supporters of foxhunting, rather than people who objected to foxhunting. Does my hon. Friend accept that one problem at the moment is the lack of clarity over spit hoods? Some forces have introduced them; others have not. This does not help the situation when arrests are being made. Does he agree with that?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, clearly there is an issue. It is entirely appropriate that different police forces should have autonomous powers to be able to take these issues in the direction that they want. Different police forces face different challenges at particular times, then there is the issue of resources as well.

It is absolutely true that this is a growing issue. One problem is that, because police officers may sort of have got used to this behaviour, other emergency workers are now being treated in exactly the same way. Let me read one case from the east midlands last November:

“A man spat at a newly recruited police woman 24 times while under arrest in the back of an ambulance. The handcuffed man laughs as he spits at the officer who warned him he was being recorded on her body camera. He repeatedly targets her face as he sat on the bed next to a paramedic. The police woman was in her first year on the job when she became a victim of the vile attack.”

I think that every single one of us wants to send out an absolutely clear, unambiguous message from this House—I know that the hon. Member for Shipley does not like sending out messages, but sometimes declaratory legislation has an effect as well—that spitting at emergency workers is not on and that the full force of the law should be used against those who do it.