Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Lopresti and Jeremy Wright

Thursday 25th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

The answer to the first part of my hon. Friend’s question is yes, we will fulfil that commitment and, as she knows, we are looking carefully at how best to do so. I will also consider what she has said in relation to matters considered by the youth courts. There are difficulties with including all youth court cases, but we will consider carefully what she has said and see whether there is a way of accommodating it.

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

11. What steps he plans to take to improve the level of public understanding of the legal framework applicable to social media.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Lopresti and Jeremy Wright

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

I agree with the hon. Lady. She is entirely right that we need to ensure that victims are supported throughout the process. That starts when a report is made, which of course relies on the police adopting a sympathetic attitude. We then need to see referrals from the police to the CPS. As I mentioned, we are seeing an increasing number of referrals, which is a good sign. We then need to follow through the process, as she says, which is as much about communication as anything else. Giving evidence in court is intimidating for anyone, and even more so for the victims of this type of offending, so we need to ensure that everybody does what they can to ameliorate the process.

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

5. What steps he is taking to ensure that the rule of law continues to be upheld in line with the principles of Magna Carta.

[Victoria Atkins (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to ensure the rule of law continues to be upheld in line with Magna Carta.

[The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)]

Last month, along with guests from many other countries, I attended the commemoration of the sealing of Magna Carta 800 years ago at Runnymede. In the centuries since, the rule of law has played a fundamental part in our national identity. The Lord Chancellor and the Law Officers share a particular responsibility to promote it in Government—one that we all take extremely seriously.

[Jack Lopresti]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend assure me and the House that any future Bill of Rights will contain the principles of Magna Carta? Will he also join me in paying tribute to William Marshal, who later became the Earl of Pembroke? He was one of the original signatories of Magna Carta, served five English kings loyally, saved us from the French, and then reissued Magna Carta under his own seal in 1216.

[The Attorney General]

I am happy to join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to those who brought about the original Magna Carta; we all owe them a great debt. He will know that William Marshal and others would probably not recognise the human rights landscape now; a lot has changed. We want to promote a new and modern version of a Bill of Rights that I hope maintains all the important principles of Magna Carta but recognises what has changed in the past 800 years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jack Lopresti and Jeremy Wright

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[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.