Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

Levels of literacy in prisons are shocking. About 54% of prisoners currently have a reading level below that which we would expect in an 11-year-old. Let me put that in context. Nearly 50% of prisoners have been excluded from school at some point, compared with about 2% of the general population. Our solution is to give governors more control of their education budgets, and to ensure that literacy training is available in every prison as part of the core curriculum.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

The Minister’s earlier answers to questions about violence in prisons focused on prisoner violence. Our hard-working prison officers face daily violence in their jobs. I have just written to the Minister about a constituent who had urine and excrement poured over him, but let me now ask him a wider question. What is the Department doing to ensure that prison officers are given full support when they are assaulted, and also to ensure that mental health services become better than they are at present?

[Rory Stewart]

We have a huge obligation to prison officers, particularly when they are assaulted. We can deal with the problem in a number of ways. We need to ensure that prisoners are punished for assaults, and to make it clear that they will be punished. We need to reduce drugs, and we need violence reduction strategies. We are already using more CCTV cameras and body-held cameras to record assaults, but our prison officers must feel safe in their environment. [Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

There is no reason to doubt it; the Secretary of State seems remarkably well informed about these important matters.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Getting ex-prisoners into employment is clearly very important, as the Secretary of State has said. What assessment has her Department made of the number of prisoners who leave prison and get into employment and stay in it for more than six months?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to talk about the longevity of such employment. We are designing the measures on which prison governors and probation services will be held to account on the basis of getting people into sustainable employment. That is very important.

Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good speech. Increasing numbers of women in my constituency have been coming to my surgery and writing to me about this, many of whom I have known for many years because I was born and bred in the constituency. I am absolutely convinced of their sincerity and that they knew nothing about this because of the lack of notification. We saw earlier at Prime Minister’s Question Time the Prime Minister’s complete lack of understanding, or even care, for these women.

[Owen Smith]

My hon. Friend is of course entirely right. He will know, because he was part of the previous Labour Government, that we tried to improve this set of circumstances. We conducted the survey that showed that there was a worryingly low level of understanding. Between 2004 and 2009, the then Labour Government instituted several million-pound advertising campaigns and sent out 800,000 personalised letters to the affected women, such as the one I have here, which, in stark contrast to the Tory letter I cited, says on the first page that the addressee will be affected by the change in age from 60 to 65.

The reality is testified to by many of my hon. Friends and by the brilliant women of the WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality—campaign, whose tenacity and truth-telling we should pay tribute to right across this House, because they speak for hundreds of thousands of women who did not know that they were in the firing line.

State Pension Age Equalisation

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) on securing this debate and on her excellent speech. There is not a great deal more that I can say, but I will try to add something. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), who has campaigned assiduously on this issue and would have added greatly to the debate if he were here today.

There is no doubt in my mind that great hardship is being caused here. The unfairness and inequality stand out a mile. People have been hit twice—in 1995 and by the changes in 2011. One of the things that strikes me most clearly is that just because a person is born a few months either side of a particular date, they can lose out considerably. That patent unfairness is one of the key issues that my constituents have raised.

I have had numerous letters over the past few years about this issue. In October, a group of my constituents who support the WASPI campaign came to my advice surgery and set out starkly how the issue has affected their lives. That struck home to me how difficult and how much of a burden it is for women—particularly those in the 53 to 55 age group. They stressed that the main issue—some did not oppose the rise—is the way in which the change was implemented and the lack of personal notification in 1995 and 2011. Those aged 53 to 55 have been hit hardest.

My constituents also spoke about the financial hardship—we have heard examples of that today. Women in that period who became pregnant left work and, in many cases, never went back. That generation’s circumstances were different, in terms of the help and support they got and their ability to work. One of the key points that my constituents made to me is that they had no time to re-plan their lives; they reiterated that time and again.

The only available information was in the media, and that is not good enough. That seems to be part of the defence: the issue was discussed in the media and a few papers ran with it, so that is okay, but that is not good enough. The key issue for my constituents is not just that they are not able to plan, but that they have not been given enough time to add to their pension pots.

The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) talked about the £27 billion leeway that the Chancellor found. This is a great example of how some of that money can be used, and if the money were used in that way, it would be reinvested back into the economy. The Government should look at that option and consider how they can recompense those women and make the change in a better way to ensure that they do not undergo financial hardship. I hope the Minister will revisit this issue.

[Geraint Davies (in the Chair)]

Thank you for your brevity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend may find that we disagree on this issue. I stand four-square by the rights that we signed up to in 1948: I do not stand by the way in which courts have evolved the jurisprudence since then into areas that are a long way from the original intentions of those 1948 authors. I personally believe—but it would be a matter for a future Government—that we need major change in that area.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State just said that the convention had moved into areas away from its original intention. One such issue is votes for prisoners. When will the Government give the House an opportunity to vote on votes for prisoners?

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the recommendations by a Committee of this House on a draft Bill were wide-ranging and posed an interesting question about how one would manage a process of giving votes to those serving the last few months of their sentence, given that not all sentences are determinate. That is a matter that continues to be under the consideration of the Government, and he will be aware that the Council of Europe indicated recently that it would not seek to return to the issue until September next year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I do not agree with my hon. Friend. In particular, I do not agree with his suggestion that his area will lose out. The fact is that every area in the country will receive more money under our proposed system than it was receiving under the previous system, so no one will lose out.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that victims of assaults, especially serious assaults, should be warned when the offenders are due to leave prison? If he does agree, will he tell me what he is doing to ensure that that happens?

[Damian Green]

I do agree with the hon. Gentleman, and the system is there to enable that to happen. However, if he can cite individual cases in which it is not happening, I urge him to write to me, and I will investigate.

Electronic Tagging

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I give my hon. Friend that assurance absolutely. I say again that, as of today, I do not have evidence of dishonesty in either company. What I do have is legal advice that says that, on the back of the audit we have carried out, I have a duty to do further detailed forensic work to establish where there is a possibility of dishonesty. Serco has agreed to co-operate with that work. To my regret, G4S has not. That is what has prompted me to believe that I have no option but to ask the Serious Fraud Office to consider whether a formal investigation should take place.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

First, I put on record that I welcome the firm action the right hon. Gentleman has taken today. I would like to push him a little further on the point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw). Although we have established that no Ministers were told of this, the Secretary of State said:

“contract managers had only a limited idea of the scope and scale…nothing substantive was done”.

What does he mean by “limited idea” and “substantive”? To use the word “substantive” means that something must have been done. On the “limited idea” of the scale of the problem, why was that then not followed up with further action?

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Gentleman raises a good point to which I do not yet know the answer fully. It is clear that, between 2008 and the present, on various occasions information has reached the Department that suggests something was amiss. It is also clear that that information was never followed up in a way that would have presented the true picture of the problem. We are now launching formal proceedings internally, which are likely or may well include—depending on the circumstances of the individuals—disciplinary proceedings to establish precisely what did go wrong. Something clearly did go wrong. Enough knowledge came into the Department to flag this issue some years ago, but it was not acted on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Of course, I regard the qualifications available to both the solicitors’ profession and the Bar in this country as of a high international standard. If a qualified solicitor or barrister is available to help somebody in a legal predicament, that is a sign that we are doing the right thing to support them and that will not change.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Why, then, did the Secretary of State think it was a good idea to limit whom a person can pick to be their solicitor?

[Chris Grayling]

My key concern is to ensure that we have universal coverage, even in tough times. I have consulted the legal profession, put forward ideas and listened, which I think is what they hoped a Government would do. I have made a modification, but nobody, and certainly not the Labour party, should be under any illusions: we have to meet financial targets and tough decisions lie ahead. The question is whether the Opposition support those changes, because I have heard no suggestion that they would reverse them.

Rehabilitation of Offenders

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I rather agree with my hon. Friend. He and I both sit on the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative party, but one thing I welcome within the confines of the European Union is the prisoner transfer agreement. That is being ratified across the EU, and I hope it will soon allow us to send quite a lot of the people he is talking about back to their home countries where they belong.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman cannot avoid the fact that under the previous Labour Government, reoffending rates fell. I have a specific question that he keeps avoiding. One key determining factor in stopping people reoffending is getting a job and housing. Given that thousands of people in my constituency who are not offenders and have not been to prison cannot get a job or housing, what practical measures will he put in place to provide better access to jobs and housing for offenders?

[Chris Grayling]

We want to try to ensure that everyone gets a job and is housed. Everyone in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency has a vested interest in ensuring we bring down reoffending, because otherwise there will be more victims of crime. One thing I expect to see—this is already happening in parts of the provider community —is housing capabilities being part of the bids, and we already have partnerships between voluntary sector organisations and housing organisations to deliver better support for offenders. I want closer ties between Jobcentre Plus, Work programme providers and those delivering rehabilitation. We must ensure that we get as many offenders as possible back on the straight and narrow when they leave prison, to avoid having more victims of crime than we have today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Derek Twigg Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman’s sentiment with regard to drugs, prisons and when offenders move back into the community. I have spoken to prison officers who are deeply frustrated by the fact that treatment begins in prison but then stops at the prison gate. I can assure him that one of the things we are working on is ensuring that the conditionality we introduced to surround our rehabilitation revolution will mean that treatment flows through the prison gate and continues after the prisoner has been released.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

Can I ask the Secretary of State specifically about what he and his Department are doing to support former members of the armed forces who are in prison? I am thinking particularly of those who have served on operations. How is the Department helping them with rehabilitation and making sure that support mechanisms are in place so that they can get on with their lives and do not reoffend?

[Chris Grayling]

I regard it as a national shame that so many former members of our armed forces are in our prisons. I have discussions with the Minister with responsibility for veterans issues, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois). I see the issue as something that we need to take forward in the next few months. It is certainly sitting high in my in-tray as a priority for us all.