Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We come to the shadow Minister.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Over the past 10 years, more than 3,000 prison places have closed and community sentences have halved, and the three new prisons planned will not open before 2027 at the earliest. No wonder we have a prison capacity crisis, with the Government having to commandeer police cells and judges being told to jail fewer people. How can the public have faith that they will be protected and that crime will be punished when that is the Government’s record?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I have listened to what the Secretary of State has said, but the Government have had 13 years to compel criminals to attend courts to hear their sentences. The Government’s failure to do that has meant that in the last year alone the killers of Olivia Pratt-Korbel, Zara Aleena and Sabina Nessa have all avoided hearing their sentences, and avoided hearing the impact that their callous crimes have had on the families left behind. Will the Government urgently make this simple change, and stop cowardly offenders from evading their sentencing hearings?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I welcome the Justice Secretary to his place. Positive obligations are a cornerstone of the Human Rights Act 1998. They mean that the state must protect as well as refrain from restricting our rights. The victims of the black cab rapist John Worboys used these obligations to hold the police to account for failing to properly investigate more than 105 alleged rapes and sexual assaults perpetrated by him. How can this Government be trusted on ending violence against women and girls when the previous Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab) wanted to rip up that Act and those obligations? Will the new Justice Secretary commit himself to protecting them and the rights they give to victims?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

The Rape Crisis report, published yesterday, found that rape survivors are waiting 839 days for their cases to be heard in court—longer than for any other crime type. These delays are causing harm to some of the most traumatised victims. Many are dropping out of their cases altogether, while others have tried to take their own life. When will the Government fully commit to rolling out specialist rape courts in every Crown court in the country to fast-track cases, protect victims and punish rapists?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

An effective probation service is key to reducing reoffending, but ever since the disastrous Tory privatisation the probation service has been in crisis. Six serious further offences are committed each week, experienced staff are abandoning the service, and the chief inspector of probation has said that it is

“impossible to say the public is being properly protected”.

The Tories’ legacy is failing to protect the public, failing to punish criminals, and failing to prevent crime. Is it not time they stood aside and let Labour fix their mess?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the shadow Minister.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Two years on from the Government’s end-to-end rape review, rape allegations leading to a charge or summons stand at 1.6%, rape victims are waiting 1,113 days for their case to get to court, and only 2,500 rape prosecutions were completed last year—half the level of 2016. Is this not a Government who are letting rapists off and letting victims down?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 10th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

To protect the public, prisons must rehabilitate as well as punish, but under the Conservatives they have become colleges of crime: offenders going in clean but leaving as drug addicts; enrolment in rehabilitation programmes down nearly 90%; and the percentage of prisoners released with jobs to go to halved since 2010. When will the Government finally get a grip, fix our broken prison system, and keep the public safe?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister, Ellie Reeves.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Responsibility for ending violence against women and girls is a key role of Government, yet we have a Justice Secretary who could not get the definition of misogyny right, who is accused of bullying, and who is desperate to scrap the Human Rights Act—law that has helped to protect women against male violence. When domestic violence is up and rape charges are at 1.5%, does that send a message that tackling violence against women and girls is not a priority for the Justice Secretary?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister, Ellie Reeves.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome the Secretary of State and his ministerial team to their place.

Under the Tories, we have seen rape prosecutions reach record lows, court backlogs reach record highs and victims waiting more than three years for justice, yet in his conference speech, the Justice Secretary did not announce any tangible ways to change that. Labour, on the other hand, would introduce specialist rape courts to drive up prosecutions, reduce delays and fast-track cases through the system. Does that not show that the Tories have run out of ideas and that it is only under Labour that the public can again have confidence in our criminal justice system?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Dedicated probation officers are telling me that they cannot manage their workloads as it is. One said:

“I used to spend about an hour each week with my high risk cases, but that simply isn’t possible with my current caseload. I no longer have confidence I can manage my cases in a way that keeps the public safe”.

After the Prime Minister’s pledge to cut civil service numbers by a fifth, will the Minister now rule out any more cuts to the probation service?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call shadow Minister Ellie Reeves.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Three years on from the Government’s end-to-end rape review, little has changed, with victims waiting three years for their case to get to court, section 28 rolled out in 37 out of 77 Crown courts, and specialist rape courts to be piloted in just three. When I raised the Conservatives’ appalling record in Parliament last week, the Minister accused me of

“false, damaging and intemperate language”,

but I make no apology for standing up for victims. Does she accept that it is her Government’s actions and not my words that are letting rape survivors down?

Rape: Criminal Prosecutions

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

This feels like groundhog day. Yet again, we are debating this Government’s appalling record on tackling rape. As the latest scorecard shows, court delays are still at near-record highs, rape convictions are still at near-record lows, and countless prosecutions are not being taken forward. The Government promised to restore 2016 charging levels, but they are still way off target. When does the Minister think that they will meet that pledge?

The Conservatives first commissioned the end-to-end review of record low rape prosecutions back in 2019. Two years after that, we got a report that recommended only piecemeal changes. One year later, little has changed and only a fraction of what was promised has been implemented. When does the Minister expect this to be delivered in full?

The typical delay in the completion of cases in court has reached three years. The number of rape trials postponed with a day’s notice has risen fourfold, and 41% of rape survivors withdraw their cases before they even get to court. Labour pledged to roll out specialist rape courts across the country, but the Government have produced just three pilots. When will they extend this to every Crown court?

Section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999 has finally been rolled out, but to just 26 courts. Why has it taken so long, and why only 26 courts, when 77 Crown courts already have the equipment and facilities to support this? Furthermore, the joint inspectorates’ report found that section 28 has not been used consistently by the police or the Crown Prosecution Service. Why is the necessary awareness and training not already in place?

Labour has a plan to tackle rape because we are serious about ending violence against women and girls. That is why we published, more than a year ago, a survivors’ support package containing detailed measures to drive up prosecutions, secure more convictions, and put rapists where they belong: behind bars. This is a Government who are still tinkering around the edges, three years after recognising the shocking scale of their own failure. This is a Government with no serious plan to bring justice for victims of rape, and no serious plan to tackle violence against women and girls.

Bill of Rights

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Lindsay Hoyle

Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I am sure that the whole House will join me in sending our deepest condolences to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), who, following the death of his father last week, cannot be here today.

This is a very dark day for victims of crime, for women, for people in care—for everyone in this country who relies on the state to protect them from harm. This is not a Bill of Rights; it is a con. The Lord Chancellor knows this because he has been working on it for more than a decade. We know from the Queen’s Speech that the Bill will take away the duty of the state to protect everyone from harm by removing the positive obligations set out in the Human Rights Act. It will force victims of crime seeking justice to schlep to Strasbourg, creating endless delays and red tape.

Sir Peter Gross and the review panel do not think the Human Rights Act undermines parliamentary sovereignty or that the UK courts are undermined by the European Court, so why proceed with this Bill? Because this Government look to pick a fight to cover up their own failures, and then find someone else to blame. We have seen a succession of Conservative Members blame the European Court to deflect from their bungled and unworkable asylum policy. Shamefully, some have even demanded that the UK withdraw altogether from the European convention on human rights. For members of the party of Churchill, who inspired the convention, to want to do away with it altogether is quite something. I gather that the Deputy Prime Minister does not want to withdraw from the European convention, not least because he knows it would fatally undermine the Good Friday agreement and peace in Northern Ireland, so will he condemn members of his own party who have made that dangerous and reckless demand?

Labour Members are proud of the gift that Churchill gave to the world in the universal declaration and in the European convention that followed, but we are prouder still that it was a Labour Government who, in 1998, brought rights home from Strasbourg. The Human Rights Act is held up around the world as an exemplar of modern human rights legislation, which is why the European Court very rarely overrules our judges, as the review panel recognised in its report. It is a beacon of hope for people in countries where basic human rights are trampled over by strongmen and dictators. There is no better example than Ukraine, where the rights of millions are being crushed under the jackboot of Vladimir Putin. What stunning hypocrisy from this Government to preach to others about the importance of defending rights abroad while snatching away British people’s rights at home. This is a Government gimmick by a party that seeks headlines for botched policies and then blames others when they fail.

The answer to fixing the mess that this Conservative Government have made of the immigration and asylum system is not to take away British people’s rights given to them by the Human Rights Act. That Act has allowed people to object when doctors put “do not resuscitate” orders on their bed without their consent. It has allowed people with learning disabilities imprisoned in locked units to be reunited with their families. It has allowed families affected by major disasters such as Manchester or Hillsborough to seek justice when public bodies have let them down. It has allowed elderly married couples in residential care to object when care home managers try to separate them, and it has allowed victims of rapists such as John Worboys to force the police to investigate cases of rape.

This Bill of Rights con is not just an attack on victims of crime whom the state has failed to protect; it is an attack on women. Women have used the Human Rights Act to challenge the police when they have either failed or refused to investigate rape and sexual assault cases. We saw that in the case of John Worboys, who is thought to have assaulted more than 150 women. It should come as no surprise that this Bill has been brought forward by a Conservative Government who have effectively decriminalised rape. [Interruption.] Last week’s scorecard showed pitiful progress on the record low—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. People who have been wanting to catch my eye will not do it by shouting when somebody is speaking.

[Ellie Reeves]

Last week’s scorecard showed pitiful progress on the record low rate of convictions under this Government. The typical wait for cases to complete in court has reached three years, and a fifth have seen waits of four years—and that is if the case even gets to court. The number of rape trials postponed at a day’s notice in our Crown courts has risen fourfold. It is no wonder that rape survivors are dropping out of their cases in droves. Will victims even bother to report their case at all when they learn that the Deputy Prime Minister’s Bill of Rights will stop them forcing our under-resourced police to investigate? It says everything about a Lord Chancellor and a Government who are soft on rape, soft on rapists and hard on survivors, that they want to take away the final backstop available to victims to get justice. Women will be in no doubt that this is a Government who let off rapists and let survivors down, and today is the proof.

The Bill will see enormous amounts of red tape for victims of crime seeking justice. It is an attack on women and it undermines peace in Northern Ireland. It is the hallmark of a party out of ideas that can no longer govern.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister, Ellie Reeves.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Unpaid work gives offenders a chance to give back to their communities, but huge workloads and staff shortages in the probation service mean that in some areas there is a backlog of up to 100,000 hours owed by offenders, and some have even had their hours wiped because they have not been completed in time. Is this not just another example of our broken justice system—a system that lets offenders off while victims pay the price? When will the Government get serious and fix this?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Lindsay Hoyle

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I now call shadow Attorney General, Ellie Reeves, to whom I send birthday greetings. Happy birthday.

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and I congratulate the Attorney General on her happy news.

The CPS case backlog is up 55% since March; victims of domestic violence are being told by police to pursue civil action rather than criminal prosecutions because the courts are so overwhelmed; and the latest figures show that domestic abuse prosecutions are down by 19%. On the final day of 16 days of action against gender-based violence, it is clear that the Government are letting down victims on every front. What exactly is the Attorney General doing about this?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ellie Reeves and Lindsay Hoyle

Tuesday 28th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab) [V]]

I congratulate the Attorney General on her appointment; likewise, I look forward to a constructive working relationship with her.

Charities and police forces across the country anticipated a rise in domestic abuse during the lockdown. Indeed, the Met is currently arresting an average of 100 people a day, with charges and cautions up 24%. Devastatingly, domestic abuse killings doubled in the first three weeks of lockdown. Meanwhile, in January, a report by the Crown Prosecution Service inspectorate stated that the domestic abuse case load for both the CPS and police had increased by 88%, against the backdrop of a 25% reduction in funding, therefore stretching prosecutors’ workload and forcing them to make difficult decisions about priorities. I am extremely grateful for what the AG has said, but I urge her to significantly increase funding—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We have to bring in the Attorney General.