Transport for London Bill [Lords]

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Baroness Primarolo

Monday 16th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I will explain to the House what has happened before I take the point of order. The procedural motion that we just agreed to was that the motion be proposed, because the mover was on his feet. That means that the motion on new clause 1 has been proposed and the debate continues. It was not a closure motion, but what is called the Golding closure. The Minister needs to decide whether he would like to speak on new clause 1, because we are now debating new clause 1 and the other amendments on the selection list. Are there any takers?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Okay. This is very unusual, but I call Mr Corbyn on a point of order.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am unclear from the response you are getting from those on the Treasury Bench, Madam Deputy Speaker, whether the Minister intends to speak. Can you make that clear or ensure that it is made clear for the benefit of the House? After all, we are considering the disposal of a vast amount of public assets in this Bill and I would have thought that, at the very least, the Government would have a view on that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

That is not a point of order for the Chair. I cannot make the Minister speak.

Point of Order

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Baroness Primarolo

Thursday 18th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I notice that on today’s Order Paper there are 32 written statements by the Government, and Mr Speaker has kindly granted two urgent questions on one day. On the last day of the Session, is it on for the Government to put down 32 statements, many of which could and should have been oral statements so that Members could hold the Government to account for their policies?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

I will take that as a rhetorical question, on the basis that it is not a point of order or a matter for the Chair, but when we have concluded the next business on the Select Committee statement, the Adjournment provides for a wide-ranging debate. It is up to the Government to decide how many oral or written statements they put before the House; it is not within the remit of the Chair.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Baroness Primarolo

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that this debate ends at 6 o’clock and we have to go back to the mover of the new clause, which means that we will entirely lose the last group of amendments. It is not possible in the time available for every Member to speak for 25 minutes. Therefore I ask Members to speak for 10 minutes or less and to be courteous to their colleagues in order to try to make time for them.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I will restrict my remarks to new clauses 6 and 7 moved by the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), who has left the Chamber. Much as I respect his work and his commitment to dealing with knife crime, I cannot agree with or support his amendments. I agree very much with the points just made by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on mandatory sentencing. There is a principle at stake here. There is a Sentencing Council and legislation on what is and is not a crime, but surely it must be for the courts to determine what is appropriate for the prisoner in front of them, rather than to have that laid down by statute. Surely that is the right way forward, and we should respect it.

I do not underestimate the issue of knife crime. Less than two weeks ago a young man was killed in my constituency by yet another knife crime. As I have done with the other families concerned, I went to see the family afterwards. The shock, the horror, the loss and the waste, and then seeing the flowers placed alongside the spot where the young man died, and young people congregating around it—that is a pretty significant message to an awful lot of young people that that person died because of a knife crime. It is an important message to them about the loss involved in it.

I have been to funerals where the families have turned up grieving, and hundreds of young people have turned up. We have held memorial events at which an incredibly strong message has been given to young people that carrying knives is not a protection; it is in fact an increased danger to themselves and they are more likely to be injured by the knife they are carrying than they are to be able to defend themselves with it, and it is simply not the right way forward. Surely that is a strong message to get across. The sense of shock that affects young people is considerable. I was astonished when visiting a primary school last week to be asked questions about knife crime, because the pupils had all seen the stories of the murder in the community.

We must ask ourselves a number of questions. Is a mandatory sentence for someone who is carrying a knife for the second time the right thing to introduce? Will it reduce reoffending? Will it make the person who is convicted of carrying a knife for the second time more or less likely to reoffend, or is it more likely to brutalise them—because that is what our prison and youth justice system does—making them more likely to reoffend than someone who has not been given a custodial sentence?

The hon. Member for Enfield North kindly allowed me to intervene and I drew attention to the evidence taken in the Justice Committee when we were examining issues of youth justice. We visited a number of young offenders institutions and took evidence from former inmates and victims of crime. We took evidence from large numbers of people, and the piece of evidence that most strongly sticks in my mind is being told in no uncertain terms by a repeat offender—though not for knife crime—that their toughest sentence was a community service order in which they had to attend a place, carry out a task and do something to try to turn their lives around, because somebody was on their case, in a way that never happens when someone is in prison, and happens only to some extent in young offenders institutions.

Mandatory sentencing looks tough, sounds tough and will please some of the less thoughtful media in our society, but its implications are not helpful. I draw attention to the advisory note given to us for this debate by the Standing Committee for Youth Justice, which has looked at the issue and knows a thing or two about it. Its estimate is that 200 more young people—children actually, in law— will be put in prison as a result of the new clauses that we are discussing today, should they be agreed to and should the House of Lords want to put them into law.

I also draw attention to another, perhaps more difficult question. Those who are found in possession of a knife and convicted of that have not necessarily committed a crime. They have been found carrying a knife with a blade more than 3 inches in length. Often they have been found by stop and search or by intelligence gathering by the police. The House should not misunderstand me: I do not approve of anyone carrying a knife, but when one then looks at who is stopped and searched, one rapidly finds a wholly disproportionate picture of modern Britain and modern youth. A disproportionate number of black youngsters will have been stopped and searched, therefore a disproportionate number will be in possession of knives, and there will then be a disproportionate number in the prison system and a disproportionate number will reoffend. Surely the courts should have discretion on this matter, and instead we should redouble our efforts to provide young people with the opportunities, inspiration and ambition that takes them beyond gang culture and the idea that possession of a knife will protect them and provide them with some degree of security in the future.

The Prison Reform Trust has also looked at the issue in some detail and the latest Ministry of Justice figures show the rates of child and adult convictions for knife possession. In the first quarter of 2014, 652 offences involving knife possession were committed by children aged 10 to 17, resulting in a caution or a sentence. The adult figure was 3,262. The number of knife possession offences committed by children under 18 in the last quarter reduced by 34%, and I pay tribute to all those who have ensured that it has reduced. The number of knife possession offences committed in the last quarter by adults over 18 fell by 23% over the same period. It is also evidential that custodial sentences have the worst outcome of the sentencing options available, with nearly 70% of children and 58% of young people aged 18 to 20 being reconvicted within a year of release. The Prison Reform Trust says:

“Mandatory prison sentences for knife possession could drive up the numbers of children and young people in custody following a welcome period of decline both in youth imprisonment and youth crime.”

The Standing Committee for Youth Justice and the Prison Reform Trust have highlighted the disproportionate effect on black youngsters that will result if the new clause goes through.

Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords]

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Baroness Primarolo

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

We are all in favour of young people having a decent chance in life. If the hon. Gentleman had listened to what I said, he would have heard me suggest that we need to invest much more in young people in school and college and beforehand, so that they gain a wider range of life experiences, greater self-reliance and a greater sense of community involvement. I am concerned that he seemed to base his whole argument on the operations of the military, rather than on a much better form of community service and development.

I support the reasoned amendment and am pleased that it has been selected. I draw attention in particular to the last part, which points out that

“the Ministry of Justice’s own internal risk register warns that the Government’s proposals could result in a high risk of an unacceptable drop in operational performance”.

We on the Justice Committee will start taking evidence on this tomorrow. Despite the Secretary of State’s refusal—and, indeed, that of previous Governments—I think it is high time that Governments start, as a matter of routine, to publish the risk registers of any service for which they propose major change. It is a simple act of transparency on the way in which the Government operate.

The speed with which this Bill is being pursued is extraordinary. The Justice Committee will take evidence and I hope that we will come up with some conclusions, but that is for the Committee to decide, not me. I hope that any conclusions will be taken on board, but the Bill is going through the House today and has to be out of Committee in three weeks’ time, so there is hardly any time for any considered public discussion or debate or for Members of the Commons to take a proper look at it.

The fundamental issue is that this is about the Secretary of State’s obsession with the privatisation of services. I cannot forget the day when the Justice Committee visited the Ministry of Justice. When we met the Secretary of State, he had hardly sat down at his desk before he said that he was a complete convert to the idea of franchising out and privatising various MOJ services. There clearly is an obsessive attitude that only the private sector can produce results.

I am sure that when the hon. Member for South Dorset meets members of the probation service in Dorset, he tells them what a fine job they are doing and what wonderful people they are. That is because they are wonderful people who are doing a fine job, but how are we rewarding them? We are giving them more work to do with fewer resources and putting them in competition, in a race to the bottom, with the private sector, knowing full well that the financial argument will win out at the end of the day and that the private sector will win, with its profits, low wages and inadequately trained or qualified staff, and the public probation service, which all of us are proud of, will be the loser. This Bill is going down a very dangerous road.

The statistics helpfully provided today by the Library show that the total case load of the probation service in 2003 was 199,000, of which 120,000 cases came from court orders and 80,000 came from pre and post-release supervision. By 2012, the number from court orders had declined to 114,000, while the number from pre and post-release supervision had gone up to 111,000. There is already a significant change in what is going on.

The reoffending statistics quoted are from Doncaster and Peterborough. I welcome anything that brings about a better prison service, better education and less reoffending. That has to be a good thing. The Justice Committee visited Doncaster, and it was an extremely interesting experience, but the statistics show that its reoffending rate of over 40% is still way above the national average of about 30%. It is a privately run prison and many of the regime’s liberal aspects are interesting, but it is perfectly reasonable to ask questions of the company that runs it about the treatment of its inmates.

I will make one last point because I want to leave enough time for the Front Benchers. Both unions that are involved in the probation service—Unison, which has fewer members from the probation service, and the National Association of Probation Officers, which has more—made a number of strong points in the evidence that most Members have no doubt received from them. The Unison paper makes the point that

“probation operates as a seamless whole. Splitting the service in two will allow dangerous offenders to fall down the gap between the two parts.”

Other colleagues have supported that position. NAPO has the same view. I attended its meeting and will conclude with a quotation from it:

“Napo believes that the proposed…agenda will undermine pubic protection procedures and place communities at risk of harm from poorly managed offenders. It will have a detrimental impact on staff who will have limited senior management support and who will be based many miles away and will have little local knowledge of the area they are responsible for. This will place unnecessary pressures on middle managers and front line staff.”

This privatising will not save money, but will cost more through higher rates of reoffending, greater danger to the public and, ultimately, more people in prison, not fewer. We should support the reasoned amendment tonight and give—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I tried not to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but that was a very long quotation. We need to get on to the closing speeches.

Nuclear Deterrent

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Baroness Primarolo

Thursday 17th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

The very short answer is no, I cannot. That is not a point of order—I think the hon. Gentleman knows that. A point of order has to be a matter for this Chamber, but he has his point on the record, and I am afraid he will have to be satisfied with that.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to intervene on a point of order, but we have just had a good and interesting debate on nuclear weapons, and the time obviously had to be reduced. Some hon. Members did not get in and others withdrew from the debate because they were not going to do so. Could we invite the Backbench Business Committee to look favourably on having another debate on the subject in the foreseeable future, because there is far greater parliamentary interest than was anticipated when the debate was called for by the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and the number of hon. Members who supported him?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Mr Corbyn, I think you know that that is not a point of order either, particularly seeing as the Backbench Business Committee’s determination of business in the House is not a matter for the Chair. I am sure that when the Committee reads Hansard, it will take his remarks as an early bid, particularly if he has greater support for such a debate.