Assisted Dying

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for opening the debate in the way that she did. I understand how difficult this issue is, and I ought to say that I am a member of the APPG for dying well and that I chair the APPG on brain tumours, although I speak for myself this afternoon. I have sat at the bedside of people as they have neared the end of their lives, and I have met many constituents who mourn the loss of loved ones and who are distressed by the manner in which they died. I am really grateful to all those who have taken time to speak to me.

My own personal story is that my mum and dad travelled up to London to watch a parliamentary debate—I think it was in 2016—on assisted dying. At that time, my mum had been given a terminal diagnosis. She lived on after the debate, and my parents were absolutely opposed to assisted dying at the time. She suffered quite horribly at times, and she had fantastic support from the hospice to help her. My dad went through all of that journey, sometimes providing all the care she needed, but at no time—even since my mum passed away—has he changed his view about this issue, and I agree with him.

We must do something to change the status quo, but if the answer is to introduce assisted dying, as the petition proposes, it is my belief that this would mean the Government and the NHS admitting failure in the way we care for, support and treat people at the end of their life. The tragedy that this debate has highlighted once again is that, despite making tremendous efforts and improvements in end-of-life care, we have consistently failed to provide the best and most appropriate end-of-life care at the right time and in the right place.

Today my constituents do not have the right or opportunity to choose the best palliative care, because it just is not available to them. The sad truth is that much of the suffering that has been described this afternoon could have been managed and eased—much of it, not all—with higher standards of end-of-life care. That must be much further up the agenda. The workforce challenge in health and social care must be addressed and advances in pain control must be available to everyone who needs it. On that, I believe there is a consensus in this room.

I fully accept that if excellent palliative were readily available, it would not bring an end to suffering for everyone. I suspect that many of those who signed the petition we are considering today would have had a very different experience in the loss of their loved ones had the palliative care that we have all described been available. I suspect that many signed the petition because they lack confidence in the current availability and quality of end-of-life care.

We have made significant improvements in the way we care for those at the end of their life. I have seen the tremendous care and expertise of those in the hospice movement, and of the care staff and others such as community nurses and organisations such as Macmillan. However, despite that knowledge, we do not make palliative care available wherever and whenever it is needed. Even today there will be people—patients—in need of palliative care in an acute hospital setting, rather than at home or in a hospice. It is right that we have a grown-up conversation about death, not least because we plan end-of-life care far too late in many cases, which means that care treatment and support is not available and not in place when it is needed. I support the call for a proper parliamentary debate in the Chamber, but in the meantime the Government must get on and improve the palliative care available for all.

Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Bill [Lords]

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 17th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds]

If I may, in respect of others who wish to speak and time being short, I will move on.

This issue of conflict and the impact that it has on children is at the heart of the concern that I feel and, for me, the significance and the value of pressing ahead with this legislation. The organisations that I have cited previously in the discussions on this issue—the Early Intervention Foundation, Tavistock Relationships and the Local Government Association—have a huge stake in supporting children in our society. They may have a political or a religious affiliation or no affiliation whatever, but all identified that it is not the fact that a divorce is taking place, but the fact that there is conflict in the relationship between those two parents that causes the damage to children and their life chances. For me, that is incredibly important, and it is backed up not just by the evidence on the relationship damage caused by divorce, but, conversely, by very good evidence about the significance of really effective and positive co-parenting. Society, I think, has already moved in that direction. We see many, many examples of non-traditional couples, who are brilliant and effective parents, giving children a fantastic start in life. Of course, many of us enjoy and are positive about seeing that in the context of traditional marriage. However, we need to recognise that, when such a relationship runs into difficulty, the opportunity we can create through this Bill for a less acrimonious separation—to help preserve and support that effective co-parenting relationship between the two separating adults—is incredibly important for the future opportunities and life chances of those children.

Finally, I would like to make the point that I very much support what a number of colleagues have said about the significance and importance of counselling. When people have made the enormously important decision to get married, it is a very significant decision to move away from that, and counselling should be supported and made available as far as possible. However, that is not a reason not to support this legislation.

I am extremely passionate about the significance that the absence of conflict will have for ensuring that children, who could benefit from a constructive co-parenting relationship with adults who have none the less sought to divorce, is available to those children, rather than potentially perpetuating a situation in which acrimonious division between separating parents has a lifelong impact on those children for their futures. For those reasons, I remain strongly in support of the direction that the Government are taking.

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

Twenty-two years ago, I did a silly thing—I got married. It was not the marriage that was the problem; it was a fact that I coincided it with my wife’s birthday, thinking it would be a money-saving tip. It has been nothing of the sort, and it has caused me hardship on 27 June ever since. However, in tune with my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), when we talk about the marriage, I say, “I would never leave my wife—I just couldn’t go through this again.” Again, that is not a negative; it is because I know the hard work that we have both had to put in to get to what is now a rich and fulfilling marriage, which is also raising three fantastic children.

The truth is that, in 22 years of marriage, the only involvement of the state has been when we signed the register and when we received the marriage certificate. I am fortunate to be one of those who still received a certificate when it was handwritten, and beautifully handwritten at that. The only thing I have received from the Government in support of my marriage is the certificate.

It is true that Parliament has played quite a big part in my marriage. It has not always helped. In fact, looking back, the last three years have made it somewhat stronger. However, I often think of my wife, as well as the many wives, husbands and partners around the House, having to go through a pretty torrid time because of the life that we have chosen.

I have some sympathy with the intention of the Bill, because if it can lead to easing additional acrimony in family breakdown, I would support that. However, I have risen to speak today in support of amendment 1 and new clause 1, basically because I believe there is an argument, as has been said already, for extra time and for extra money. I appreciated a lengthy conversation with the Minister before the debate last week—it was really helpful—and I appreciated and listened carefully to all that was said on Second Reading last Monday, but I believe there is something of an identity crisis for marriage, which has partly been exposed by this Bill.

I guess the question is: who owns responsibility for marriage—is it the Government, the Church or faith groups, the spouses themselves, or close family, close friends and society as a whole? I would suggest that all share some responsibility and some part, but today we are talking about the arrangements made in law when a marriage fails. Because the state sets the rules for the marriage to start and, sadly, at its end, it is my view that the state and the Government cannot shrug off responsibility for marriage itself.

As I have said, in 22 years of marriage, the state’s involvement has only been the certificate and signing the register at the time, and, as I have said, I am one of the fortunate people who received a handwritten certificate. My wife and I have enjoyed the support of the Church, close friends and family. That is not the privilege of many. Even if it was, the state has, over time, increasingly taken a back seat when it comes to helping marriages thrive.

With that in mind, it is imperative that the Government adopt these amendments, to give more time, to offer appropriate support, to give an opportunity for a marriage to be restored before it is too late and to commit much more finance towards tools and proven methods that help to strengthen marriage and family life, to avoid the devastating and acrimonious divorce proceedings that the Bill attempts to address. The arguments on those points have been made well this afternoon.

I will conclude, because I appreciate that time is short. The state taught me maths, English, science, rugby and even the Cornish language. It has never taught me how to have a strong marriage or any other relationship, how to manage my money or how to raise my children. As the Government consider how marriages can be brought to an end when necessary, we should also look at the causes of marriage breakdown and ensure that we provide support in all areas of life, not just academic support. Marriage, raising children and managing money are such a big part of today’s society—a part that the Government could do more to support.

[Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)]

I rise to support the Bill and to outline my concerns about some of the amendments that have been tabled. As a proud Conservative, I fundamentally believe in individual freedoms, and I believe that current divorce laws inhibit that freedom in the broad, vague name of keeping families together. In reality, these laws foster conflict and blame, driving families even further apart and affecting children the most. To be the child of a broken home is not easy, but nor is it easy being the child of parents forced to stay together, witnessing their arguments, the sheer unhappiness and the downward spiral of their parents’ mental health. That can be even more damaging for a child than a divorce, particularly a divorce that can be carried out swiftly and without blame, as the Bill intends, allowing both parents to move on, regain their happiness and provide not one unhappy home but two happy and loving homes for their children.

Nobody enters into a marriage lightly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) outlined in his typically well-considered speech, nobody gets married setting up to get divorced. Nobody enters into a marriage imagining or hoping that it will fail. Marriage vows often say, “until death do us part”, and that is taken very literally by many, but I believe that the death spoken of in marriage vows can occur without the loss of life; it can occur in the death of a relationship itself. It is a fact of life that sometimes relationships fail—marriages fail. Sometimes this is recognised by both parties, but in some circumstances, only one partner sees it. In those circumstances, the unhappy partner may be trapped in that marriage, with their spouse unwilling to accept it, ready to contest it or even to dither and delay and refuse to sign papers.

The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) spoke about the importance of considering how the legislation we discuss in this place will have very real consequences for people in our communities. For our constituents—those we are here to represent—our existing outdated divorce laws can have real impacts. Let me give an example. A couple of days ago, I received a Twitter message from a young man thanking me for supporting the Bill on Second Reading, because for over two years, his mum had been trying to divorce his dad, but his dad refused to give consent. He spoke of the devastating impact that this had on his mum and on him, and of the bitterness, anger and hardship of living in a friction-filled home. In this place, we can help those people by passing this Bill.

I personally know people who are deeply unhappy in their marriages and are desperate to separate but are fearful of filing for divorce because they cannot afford the legal costs, should it be contested. Let me make this point really clear: a divorce should not be a luxury item. Our constituents on low incomes—those we are here to represent—should not be priced out of their happiness. Allowing blameless divorces and divorces without contest in the courts reduces the amount of legal representation needed and will help to keep the cost of divorce down.

For some in our society, our existing and outdated divorce laws mean being trapped in abusive relationships. There are women in our country behind closed doors pulling down their sleeves and putting on extra make-up to cover up bruises—women checking their bank statements, fearing that they cannot afford a divorce were it to be contested, and knowing that if it were, they would have to battle through the courts and face potential repercussions from their partner before they can escape. This Bill is for them.

On that note, I cannot support amendments 2 or 4. Giving those in abusive relationships the breathing space of submitting their divorce petition, knowing it cannot be unfairly dragged out by abusive partners, is a way to help them escape that coercive control.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

We recognise that there is more we can do in relation to probation, which is why we are changing the system, but “Transforming Rehabilitation” brought 40,000 people back into supervision, and we are ensuring that the new procedure will work well.

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

Good probation can be the means to transform young people’s lives and help to rehabilitate them in communities. We do not have a prison in Cornwall, but we have many people who are involved in this process. What can the Minister do to help those organisations to get the funds they need to support those young lives, so that they can play a full part in life?

[Lucy Frazer]

The new system will ensure that, while offender management is brought in-house, private sector innovation will be involved in providing unpaid work, and there will be a dynamic framework to enable new schemes and charities to bid to provide bespoke local services. I am happy to talk to my hon. Friend about what might be provided in Cornwall.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Lady is right to identify the fact that dealing with housing issues is important. As at today’s date, there is at least one provider offering housing and debt services in all the 134 procurement areas except for seven, and the Legal Aid Agency is doing what it can to ensure that appropriate services are available in those seven areas. It is due to launch a further tender in areas where there is currently low access to services, and that tender will begin on 17 December.

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

Across Cornwall, access to a legal aid lawyer for housing and families is particularly difficult. I have raised that matter before. What can the Minister do to create a greater incentive for lawyers to take up that work?

[Lucy Frazer]

Cornwall is a sparsely populated area and there are difficulties there, but there is always access to the telephone service. It is right that we should look not only at face-to-face advice but at where technology can help to deliver legal advice to people.

Road Safety and the Legal Framework

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) and my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for bringing this important issue to the House’s attention. It is right that we adequately address the problem of accidents that lead to death and serious injury on our roads. I am grateful for the attention given to providing the safest possible road network through good legislation, and for the tangible impact it will have in saving lives in my constituency and across the country. That is to be welcomed.

However, I implore the Government to consider the safety of horses and their riders in any measures to improve the law for vulnerable road users. Having listened carefully to concerns raised by constituents in west Cornwall, and having worked closely with the British Horse Society over recent years, I am disappointed that the opportunity created by reviewing and altering both the guidance and the law has not been adequately used to consider the safety of horses and their riders.

Horses and their riders are often forgotten as vulnerable road users compared with cyclists and pedestrians. Given the direct similarities between the way in which drivers should view cyclists and horse riders when passing, it makes sense to link the two in the review of guidance and legislation. My friends in the British Horse Society recently provided me with the current statistics on horses and riders who have been injured or killed as a result of road traffic accidents, and they are truly damning. Some 237 horses have been killed, 40 riders have been killed and 899 horses have been seriously injured. Furthermore, 85% of those incidents have been a result of drivers passing too fast or too close. For a rural constituency such as mine where there are many horse riders, that is a wake-up call, and the Government should recognise it as such.

There have been improvements in the awareness and consideration given to horses and their riders, in large part as a result of education campaigns such as the British Horse Society’s “Dead Slow” campaign and partnerships with the police and driving institutions. However, that is not enough. More needs to be done at Government level to ensure that horses and their riders are a key part of the national debate on road safety. I call on the Government to include in any change to legislation strengthened sections relating to the safety of that important and vulnerable group.

Fresh advice and guidance should explain not only why drivers should take extra care and slow down when passing horses but the consequences of passing too close and too fast. At present, only section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988—“Careless, and inconsiderate, driving”—can be used if horses are passed too fast or too close. I am simply asking for a more conscious and deliberate effort across the nation to educate drivers on the needs and risks of those riding a horse, and for the definition of a road traffic offence to be strengthened. Those measures would save lives of drivers, riders and horses, and spare all those concerned the distress of dealing with such dreadful accidents.

More must be done. I urge the Minister to work with the Roads Minister to take seriously recent requests that the Government consider and then implement speed limits and minimum distances when drivers are passing horses. That is not a perfect answer, but it would be a significant step and a statement of intent that horses and their riders are recognised as a vulnerable group and will no longer be overlooked in this debate.

I urge the Minister not to overlook the matter of equestrian safety when exploring new road traffic offences and subsequent sentencing. The similarities to cyclists are stark. It therefore makes no sense to turn a blind eye to the matter of horse safety, given the opportunity to improve road safety for vulnerable road users.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

Absolutely. We have a lot to learn from Scotland, specifically on community sentences, and indeed we will be looking at what more we can do to emphasise that a custodial sentence in the short term should be a final resort. In reoffending terms, it is often much better for somebody to be given a community sentence.

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

In Cornwall, I work closely with Konnect Cornwall, headed up by Ian Curnow, which does a lot of work on behalf of the Government and the Department for Work and Pensions to support ex-offenders and people who are on the way into trouble. What more resources can be made available so that no one is left behind?

[Rory Stewart]

A lot of this is about identifying those key local providers. The real challenge that we need to overcome, which is true not just for justice but for local councils, is that of making sure that when we work with the third sector we work, not with big national providers, but with small, grassroots local charities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

There are a number of complex issues relating to homelessness, but we absolutely agree that this is unacceptable and shocking. We need to work much more closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, with local authorities and with prisons to ensure that we cut those numbers.

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to ensure that legal aid is available to people who are entitled to that aid.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

The provision of legal aid to support the most vulnerable is an important part of our justice system. We spend £1.6 billion a year on legal aid, which is more than a fifth of the Ministry of Justice’s budget. In terms of accessing legal aid, there is an online tool at gov.uk to help people to check their entitlement to it.

[Derek Thomas]

I welcome that answer, but people in my constituency in west Cornwall find it hard to access the legal aid that they are entitled to. In fact, there is only one office there that holds a legal aid contract, and it deals only with family law. Will the Department assess how the changes in legal aid funding have affected rural people, and consider measures to address the shortage?

Prisoners: Parental Rights

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for securing this important debate. I found her contribution and the other speeches interesting and profound, and I have learned a great deal.

I could have left the role of prisons and what goes on there for other colleagues to debate. I represent St Ives and the Isles of Scilly, and there are no prisons nearby and crime is relatively low. I can count on one hand the people I have met who have had contact with prisons, and only two of them, as far as I could see, should ever have ended up there. There are therefore plenty far more pressing concerns that could legitimately occupy my time. However, within each person is a heartbeat, and I believe that we have a responsibility to work to create an environment and opportunity that allows everyone to play their full part in society. On that basis, how we treat and manage prisoners is important and can lead either to full lives and safer communities, or to broken lives and chaos.

For me this is about the purpose of prisons. Prison is a method of keeping communities safe for the time that the prisoner is inside, but it is also a place where lives can be reset and people can be rehabilitated. It is right to take someone who is judged to be a risk to society out of that community, but I believe that from the day a prisoner arrives in prison, work must be done to prepare for their release.

Other than keeping an individual away from a life of crime, prison achieves little if nothing is done to address their behaviour when he or she is released. Families play an important part in that process and I want to spend a few moments considering the need to enable prisoners to fulfil their parental responsibilities, which I believe could, and should, be a focus for reform. Bringing men in particular face to face with their enduring responsibilities to the family is indispensable to the rehabilitation culture that we urgently need to develop in our penal system, and that must be integral to the changes sought. Consistently good family work can help to equip a father to play his role in the home, and that will pay dividends once the sentence is served.

The inspirational prison reformer Elizabeth Fry—she has also been mentioned by the Justice Secretary—called for arrangements by which prisons

“may be rendered schools of industry and virtue.”

The best family work taking place in prisons has brought men face to face with their enduring responsibilities to the family left in the community, particularly their wives, partners and children, but also their parents, siblings and grandparents. It helps them to forge a new identity for themselves—an important precursor to desistance from crime—based on being a good role model for their children, a caring husband, partner and friend, and a reliable provider through legal employment. Some men are already alive to those responsibilities when they go to prison, but they mistakenly think that using the proceeds of crime is the best way to fulfil them. If prison is to have any role in rehabilitation, work must be done to harness the virtue but adjust the means.

Responsibilities are not discharged in a vacuum. Families need to be willing and able to engage with the rehabilitation process, and harnessing the resource of good family relationships must be a golden thread that runs through processes in all prisons—my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) also made that point. Prisoners’ responsibilities to their families should be seen as an important lever for change, and families are often significant assets for offender management during and at the end of sentences. Prison staff find that their responsibilities and efforts are aided when good family contact and engagement is nurtured and maintained. Unfortunately, however, experience has shown that sentence planning by the offender management team rarely takes into account the understanding and knowledge that family members have about a prisoner. There are exceptions such as HMP Forest Bank and those Scottish prisons that involve a prisoner’s family in release planning, but it is uncommon.

In Scotland, the integrated case management case conference provides a mechanism for involving a prisoner’s family in release planning. An ICM case conference is a meeting held at set intervals during a prisoner’s sentence, between the ICM case co-ordinator, prison and community-based social work, and the prisoner. The prisoner may invite his family to those meetings if he wishes. The ICM case conference provides an important opportunity to prepare and advise families about the issues arising on a prisoner’s release, thereby supporting them in their own right as well as preventing reoffending.

At one men’s prison in Louisiana USA, families are involved as soon as the individual arrives in prison. The director of re-entry invites a family member or someone close to the prisoner to the prison for an informal meeting, allowing the director to learn about the prisoner’s background and how he can be best supported. There are further examples of where families are integral to the penal system. For example, in HMP Winchester, staff from the charity Spurgeons carry out first-night screening, which includes detailed questions about a father’s responsibilities. That also gives them an opportunity to hand out dad packs, where appropriate, which include top tips on how to be a father inside prison. That is an early way of grounding someone in their family responsibilities at the start of their sentence, when it is easy for them to turn in on themselves.

A new personal officer model is being trialled in 10 pathfinder establishments. That could be used to carry out a more ongoing form of assessment. Those officers will have daily contact with the prisoners, and be aware of how their family relationships are faring. I researched the role of the personal officer. The article I read stated:

“During your first few days in prison you will be allocated a Personal Officer. This is a prison officer who has been assigned to act as your point of contact while within prison, and is the officer who is expected to provide a ‘reference’ for you whenever you apply for jobs, change of status from Basic to Enhanced etc. The duties of this officer are not very much, but a good officer will come and speak to you and ask if you have any issues they can help with, a poor officer will introduce themselves once and then may favour you with a grunt as you pass on the landing.”

It seems to me that a personal officer model could and should be extended to include a family liaison aspect, which could make the role much more rewarding and productive.

[Fiona Bruce]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, particularly given the examples of best practice that we have heard today, there is a need for that to be drawn together, from across the country, so that it can be shared more effectively among different prisons?

[Derek Thomas]

That is right, and I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention because it helps to support the point I want to make in concluding. As I said earlier, everyone has a heartbeat and we need to do what we can to support prisoners, their families and the wider community. The gold standard would be to ensure that, whatever their sentence and wherever they were sent, they will receive equal support and access.

There is a further matter to consider if we are serious about parental rights and parental responsibility. My constituency covers west Cornwall and Scilly, and a prisoner from Cornwall can be sent a very long way from home. If someone is sentenced to prison, the prison should be as close to their home as possible, wherever they live in the UK. Addressing the parental responsibilities of a prisoner is a significant part of the journey to a reformed life and a safer society. Therefore, where the prisoner is held in relation to their family home is an important consideration.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Derek Thomas Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

I welcome the Second Reading of this Bill, and I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander).

My constituency voted decisively to leave the European Union, and I am determined that the process of leaving the EU gives the people of west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly the certainty, continuity and control that this Bill accomplishes. When they voted to leave the EU, the good people of west Cornwall did not expect this House to implement their decision chaotically. Instead, they voted for a smooth exit from the EU, with the ultimate goal being that Parliament would take back control of UK laws. The Bill is an important and necessary step towards that goal and will ensure that the statute book does not contain huge gaps after Brexit.

Perhaps reflecting the momentousness of the Bill, I have had a great deal of correspondence from concerned constituents who are anxious that it might side-line democracy. I understand why people are concerned. People voted to take back control, which, to be faithful to democracy, means bringing back control to a sovereign Parliament, not to Government in Whitehall.

However, there is a need to strike the right balance. People’s concerns about the use of so-called Henry VIII powers are well articulated and sincere but, given the breadth and volume of European legislation that will have to be transferred into British law, I do not see any other practical solution. It is vital that businesses in my constituency, most of which are small, local enterprises, have certainty on the Brexit process and beyond. I hope the Bill will give them that certainty and foster a smooth transition back to UK control. It is important that we prevent a cliff-edge Brexit by providing continuity in our laws after exit day.

I agree that the Bill must not simply hand Ministers and their civil servants the freedom to do as they please with future legislation and reform of existing legislation. I recognise that the intent of the Bill is to make a success of Brexit, but there is a need for proper scrutiny. In their defence, Ministers have made it clear that powers taken by Government through the Bill are time-limited. I therefore look forward to the opportunity in Committee for Members on both sides of the House, including me, to hold Ministers to account.

I welcome that the Bill will, in time, restore to Parliament full responsibility for UK legislation for the first time in several decades, which is something that my constituents and the nation were in favour of when they voted to leave the EU. In the furore surrounding the unusual powers being taken by Ministers through this Bill, however, scant attention has been paid to one of its key positive objectives: greater devolution. I hope that can be swiftly rectified, as it is likely to be one of the most valuable aspects of our leaving the EU to my constituents and the people of Cornwall.

If the devolution benefits of Brexit are to be felt in my constituency, devolution needs to reach beyond just the borders of the devolved nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We must seize the opportunity to devolve power ever closer to the people of the UK. Greater devolution would help to build on the success of existing devolution arrangements, such as the 2015 Cornwall devolution deal. It will enable us, as a nation, to tackle issues better locally. Cornwall should no longer have to accept its low-wage economy. Our low wages harm people’s ability to access the housing they need; encourage an exodus of young people, as they seek well-paid jobs elsewhere; reduce the money that people have to spend in our town centres; and hamper efforts to provide well-resourced community facilities and services.

Leading on from that, does the Minister welcome that local authorities are rising to the challenge following the referendum result? Local authorities want to address these problems. Cornwall Council, for example, set up the Cornwall futures group after the referendum to look at the opportunities and benefits our exit will bring to Cornwall and Scilly specifically. That work includes considering areas of legislation that the council would like to see passported down to Cornwall and tailored to meet local demographic and geographic demands, such as the ability to strengthen water quality on our beaches, fishing policy for our unique mixed fishery in the south-west and other environmental legislation. Getting back this control is perhaps why so many Cornish people voted to leave the EU last year.

In summary, this Bill is the only game in town if we want to achieve a smooth Brexit in March 2019 and ensure that the electorate and businesses have confidence in Great Britain’s future. However, I would like to hear how and when Ministers intend to ensure we have a full parliamentary process when deciding future UK laws, and what aspirations Ministers have on devolving further powers to regions and counties such as Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. I know my constituents would like to know what kind of legislation will be decided closer to home.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Thomas Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Contributions to topical questions must be brief, whether from the Back Benches or the Front. There is a lot to get through and not much time in which to do so.

[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

T3. I would never excuse criminal behaviour but some prisoners and former prisoners I have met have been denied opportunities in life that many of us take for granted. What are the Department and other Departments doing to ensure the life chances agenda extends to prisoners?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. Some of the problems in society are magnified in our prisons. As the Prime Minister said, if we are going to have a country that works for everyone, prison reform is very much a part of that, including on literacy, training, work in prisons and employment opportunities when people are released.