Sentencing Council Guidelines
Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts(1 week, 1 day ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sir Nicholas Dakin
To be fair to the Conservatives, they did not work on the guidelines, but they were consulted on them, and they did respond to them in a positive way.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
I note the comments by the chair of the Sentencing Council Lord Justice William Davis, who said that both Labour and Conservative Ministers, or their representatives, had known about the plans since 2022 and did not object. While I am disappointed that the Government are only acting reactively now, does the Minister not agree that the shadow Secretary of State has no shame and that it is hard to take his faux outrage seriously when this is just another audition for Tory leader?
Sir Nicholas Dakin
The hon. Lady has said what everybody else in this House and outside it is thinking.
Drones: High-security Prisons
Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Sir Nicholas Dakin
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we need to work hard to address these issues, but if there were a simple solution, the previous Administration would have waved that magic wand and we would not be sitting here today. It is important that the ongoing work of prison governors, supported by HMPPS across the country and by Ministers, gets to the bottom of this and sorts things out, which is what we are trying to do.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
LiveLink Aerospace in my constituency is a surveillance company that has created a technology that is being used on Royal Navy ships, in airports and on private yachts. This technology could be crucial to maintaining the no-fly zones above prisons, which were introduced in January last year. Will the Minister explore this technology? Will he come to my constituency to visit LiveLink Aerospace and see what the technology can do?
Sir Nicholas Dakin
It is important that we take advantage of what intelligence is out there. If the hon. Lady writes to me, I will be happy to follow that up appropriately with her and the business involved.
Oral Answers to Questions
Jess Brown-Fuller Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Alex Davies-Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for that important question. Video links are available in all courts to help vulnerable and intimidated witnesses give evidence. We have recently invested £50,000 to transform witness facilities and upgrade video link rooms in 10 Crown courts. Pre-recorded evidence is also available in all Crown courts for eligible victims to spare them the trauma of giving evidence at a live trial.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
To ensure that victims see justice, criminal cases need to be heard in a timely manner, which relies on a number of courts being in place to be able to hear them. The future of Chichester Crown court, which is the only Crown court in west Sussex, has been under threat for nearly a decade. Local campaigners fought to save that provision, leading to its reopening to clear the backlog, but its future remains uncertain. Will the Minister meet me to ensure the future of Chichester Crown court?
Alex Davies-Jones
We know that courtroom availability is essential to dealing with the backlog, and I will pass on that message to the courts Minister—the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon South (Heidi Alexander).