Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Lopresti Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

12. What plans he has to increase public confidence in community sentences.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

14. What plans he has to increase public confidence in community sentences.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

The Government are determined to ensure that community sentences deliver punishment, rehabilitation and reparation. We are legislating to require courts to include a punitive element in every community order, as the public would expect, and to enable the electronic tracking of offenders.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

I am disappointed not to receive an invitation to Tamworth. None the less, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is important that we move forward with the work being done in Staffordshire and elsewhere with neighbourhood justice panels. We want to see what work can be done by and in communities to ensure that low-level offences are dealt with appropriately. The broader point about restorative justice is also right. This is an important innovation, and we can get a great deal out of it—mostly for victims, although there are reoffending benefits as well.

[Jack Lopresti]

Can my hon. Friend assure me that community orders will continue to address the problems that have caused—or at least contributed to—offending behaviour in the first place, such as drug abuse, alcoholism and mental health problems?

[Jeremy Wright]

Yes, I can. We are saying that there should be an element of punishment in every community order, unless there are exceptional circumstances, but that does not prevent a sentencer from passing whatever other measures in the order they believe appropriate for the purposes of rehabilitation. My hon. Friend is right to identify some of those, but there are of course many more. This is all about reducing reoffending. That is partly about punishment, but it is also about ensuring that someone does not go right back to the same cycle of offending.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

Of course, it is the role of Britain and other democratic nations to encourage non-democratic countries around the world to adopt democratic principles, the rule of law and a proper fair, independent judiciary. But I have to say that I do not believe it was ever the intention of those who created the human rights framework to which we are currently subject that people who have an avowed intent to do damage to this country should be able to use human rights laws to prevent their deportation back to their country of origin.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

T7. Does the Secretary of State believe that the election of police and crime commissioners on Thursday will help restore public confidence in the way that offences are dealt with in local communities?

[Damian Green]

I agree with my hon. Friend, not least because although they are police and crime commissioners, people may have focused too much on the policing aspect. The crime reduction aspect is at the heart of what these new elected bodies will do, and crime prevention and some of the things that we have been discussing earlier this morning, such as restorative justice, will play a very important part in each locality in improving the criminal justice system and improving public confidence in the criminal justice system. The PCCs will play a significant part in that.