Sheep Farming: No-deal EU Exit

Debate between Jim Shannon and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I represent an urban constituency, but even in urban Darlington there are agricultural workers whose jobs would be affected by the effect of a no-deal Brexit on the sheep industry.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing this matter to the House for consideration. I spoke to her earlier today and perhaps her opinion on Brexit is very different from mine, but the Conservative Government have indicated that as long as they have the power to do so, they will maintain the grants that are available for farmers, and for sheep farmers in particular. Does she agree that the problems and the deficits there might be in lamb prices could be offset by the Government’s commitment to give what the EU gives now?

[Jenny Chapman]

If it was that simple, we would not need to have this debate. This is not just about farm payments; it is about loss of markets. That is something that has not been properly understood, and the Government have not given a decent account of what they intend to do to address it.

Prisons and Probation

Debate between Jim Shannon and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) for his tenacity in at last securing this Opposition day debate on prisons.

In preparing this speech, I thought about the different angles from which I could come at the topic. I could have picked radicalisation, women offenders, mental health, drugs, violence, opportunities for early intervention and diversion, or young people. There are plenty of ways to approach the topic of prisons, but I will talk mostly about staff. I spent five years shadowing prisons Ministers. As one would expect, I visited prisons regularly and met hundreds of prison staff, as well as offenders and victims of crime. I cannot tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, how poorly understood, undervalued and ignored our criminal justice workforce feel and, indeed, have become.

That was brought home to me in the starkest possible way when a custody officer, Lorraine Barwell, lost her life at the hands of a prisoner at work. When serving armed forces personnel lose their lives in the course of duty or when, occasionally, police officers sadly lose their lives in the course of duty, their names are rightly read out at the beginning of Prime Minister’s questions that week. No such honour was afforded to Lorraine. I know that no disrespect was intended, but it does illustrate the disparity in the esteem in which prison officers and other uniformed services are held.

Those of us in the House with an interest in prisons policy—it is great that there is so much interest today that there is a speaking limit—have the capability and, I would say, the duty to change that, and change it we must. There is no doubt in my mind that our prisons are in a dreadful state, but, with the right leadership from the Government, it is prison staff who hold the key to unlocking the rehabilitation revolution that we all want.

Several Government Members have said that it is all very well our presenting this motion to the House, but we could have presented it six years ago, in 2010, when things were just as bad. They should take absolutely no pride or comfort in that fact. I want to be part of a Parliament that sees improvement. The opportunity to deliver the rehabilitation revolution that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) promised us—and that I believe he so dearly wanted and tried to deliver—has been completely wasted in the last five years. We have seen a deterioration of standards in our prisons and no improvement at all.

So how bad is it really? It is my view—and the data from the Ministry of Justice bear this out—that our jails have never been less safe. Further, the interventions put in place by Government have been ineffective in putting prisons on course for improvement. They are getting worse; they are not getting better. Last year there were 95 self-inflicted deaths in prison. That means that, once every four days, someone in prison takes their own life. There have been seven murders in our prisons. These events are devastating for the families concerned, they sometimes leave victims feeling cheated and they can be deeply traumatic for staff.

The secret to safer prisons is in staffing, and I do not mean just staffing numbers—we have spoken about that already—although that is incredibly important. What I am talking about is what our staff actually do. All staff I have spoken to can tell us of occasions when they believed they made a difference, but they can also tell us of many more occasions when they wished they could have done more. I am all for bringing experts and specialists into prisons to help to deliver education, rehabilitative courses and the like—some of them work and do some good—but what we should be doing more of is using the experienced staff resource that is present on the wing, day in, day out. When a visit is cancelled, when news of a loved one dying needs imparting or when a fight breaks out, it is the officers who are there. They are the staff who should be demonstrating, and are demonstrating on a daily basis, how to keep one’s cool, de-escalate a situation or sometimes, for example, even just how to take a joke properly. It is not psychologists, counsellors or boards of visitors who are present; it is prison officers. They are undervalued, undertrained and underutilised.

There are undeniably problems with substance misuse and mental health, particularly for women prisoners, when we look at the suicide rate.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I am interested to hear the hon. Lady refer to substance abuse. She will know that the figures indicate that there is a greater incidence of those addicted to substances in prison than there is outside. There is also the issue of how the drugs come in. How does she feel the Prison Service should stop drugs coming through the prison gates—perhaps the Minister could respond to that—and ensure that those inside who were not drug users before do not become drug users when they leave?

[Jenny Chapman]

I am extremely grateful for that intervention. The way we solve that is through staff, because they are there and it is their job to deal with it. There are not enough of them and they are not sufficiently well trained to perform that task to the standard that we want them to. I want our prisons to be safer, because if they are safer, they are doing their job of rehabilitation properly.

I want to raise one thing with the Minister. The Harris report on deaths in custody recommended that the Minister should phone the family of anybody who dies in prison by taking their own life. He has rejected that recommendation, but I would ask him to adopt it today—to phone the family of anyone who takes their own life and any member of staff who finds somebody who has taken their own life. That would focus his attention, but just as importantly it would focus the attention of his officials and senior staff in NOMS. Facing that reality is something that no official wants to do. They certainly do not want to have to prepare their Minister to do it. There is one self-inflicted death every four days. That is not good enough. He needs to take personal responsibility for that. It would be a welcome move on his part if he could commit that small amount of time to contact the family of someone who dies in our prisons, in our care, each time it occurs.

Probation Service

Debate between Jim Shannon and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) on securing this important debate, which allows us to discuss the changes in great detail. I thank her for her speech, which accords with my thoughts. Policing and the probation service is a devolved matter, so the Minister is not directly responsible for what happens in Northern Ireland.

This debate is about probation changes. I want to make some brief comments about Northern Ireland, and then I will make some observations about what the hon. Lady said and raise my concerns. Often, when something happens on the UK mainland, it becomes a line of thought for Northern Ireland, and I would be concerned if that happened with probation services.

The changes to the probation service in Northern Ireland are all monetary. Budgets have been reduced, which has had the effect of increasing reoffending. The budget for the Probation Board for Northern Ireland has been reduced to approximately £18 million, which, it has said, is likely to increase reoffending. I, like probably everybody else here, believe that investing in probation saves money in the long term. It saves money in the criminal justice system and ensures that offenders do not reoffend. The 12% cut to the budget of the Probation Board for Northern Ireland has put the service under more pressure and will lead to more reoffending. That, in a nutshell, is where we are in Northern Ireland. Changes have been made to the Probation Board to cut costs. The hon. Lady outlined the potential changes in England and Wales, and I want to make a couple of observations about that.

I am concerned about what is being discussed here because we in Northern Ireland look to the mainland for policy direction. We look to the mainland for what is right so we can consider it when we make policy in the future. I am conscious that the difficulties in the Government’s proposals might affect us. Under the new plans, in England and Wales private companies and charities will be offered payment by results for supervising people released from jail. Every offender who leaves jail, including those who have spent only a few days in prison, will have to complete a year-long supervision period, and they will return to custody if they reoffend.

People have expressed concerns that the plans to privatise 70% of the probation service will lead to more criminals reoffending while on parole or probation while the changes are being put in place. The hon. Lady outlined that issue clearly. She put myriad questions to the Minister, for whom I have great respect. He is deeply interested in this subject, and I look forward to his response.

Some 400 serious crimes are committed by people on probation or parole each year. The National Association of Probation Officers, the probation union, claimed that that figure could rise, as there will not be enough staff in the private sector to recognise the risks properly. My concern is that restricting staff and changing criminals’ supervising officers will increase the chance that criminals will reoffend. The hon. Lady outlined that problem clearly. Under the Government’s plans, public sector probation will focus purely on public protection, and the winners of the rehabilitation services contracts will deliver reductions in reoffending. The statutory probation agency could continue to sit on boards, but, crucially, unless it manages the contracts for rehabilitation, it will have little authority and no budget to influence reconviction rates. There is a clear need for tougher reoffending targets. Perhaps the Minister in his response can indicate whether the Government’s intention is to set targets. If such targets are met by the companies, will they be rewarded in some way to encourage them to do more?

Undoubtedly, the system needs changes and the aims are admirable, but how effective the changes will be is another question altogether. More than half a million crimes are committed each year by those who have broken the law before. The reforms will finally address the gap that sees 50,000 short-sentence prisoners released on to the streets each year with no support or incentive not to reoffend.

Although the reforms are a welcome step in the right direction if done correctly, people have concerns. Payment by results is a frightening possibility, because for many of the people released from prison, the results can be a long time arriving. There is also a risk that that might mean that companies target those who will likely get them good results. I am sure that that is not the Government’s intention, but that is a potential result that we need to keep in mind and consider putting safeguards in place to prevent.

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making some considered points about how the programme may or may not apply in Northern Ireland. My advice would be that he could gain the benefits that the Government aspire to achieve from very different means that would have far fewer risks to public safety. We care about what happens in Northern Ireland, just as he cares about what happens on the mainland, so I urge him to consider alternative approaches that may be safer.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the shadow Minister for that valuable assistance to my line of thought. Westminster Hall debates provide an opportunity to discuss these matters and see what we can do. We all believe in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland altogether and I hope to see that retained.

One of the changes that perturbs me greatly—there are public safety concerns—relates to the access of all staff to detailed case records. Some cases contain details of victims, including rape victims. Access could mean that their names become known outside the system. What precautions will the Minister put in place to ensure that that does not happen?

The hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), who just left, mentioned a pilot scheme. In many cases, pilot schemes are an opportunity to get it right, which goes back to what the shadow Minister said. I wonder why such a scheme was not considered to bed the programme in, allow us to learn from what was wrong and improve on that. We in Northern Ireland could have taken from that the best way of operating, because, no doubt, we will consider such a programme in the future.

Undoubtedly, any work that supports offenders is welcome. We want to help to make staying out of trouble a reality. However, that needs to be achievable. This programme will certainly help in that process, but we need to be wary of cutting or changing the probation service so much that it can no longer function efficiently.

We want to keep our services working as well as they possibly can. That may mean encouraging private companies to work alongside them, but let us be mindful that it is just that—our services and private services working alongside one another in harmony for the benefit of the community—and not a replacement for the great probation service we already have. I thank the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston for giving me the chance to speak on this matter.

Protecting Children Online

Debate between Jim Shannon and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be able to contribute to today’s debate.

It is clear that neither the Minister nor anyone else can solve this problem on their own, but the Government can take action to help protect children online. My particular concern centres on the unmonitored use of the internet by those whom we already know to have a history of sex offending. The Government’s consultation on parental internet control stated that it was looking into the best way of shielding children from harmful and adult content, including sites that exposed children to online sexual grooming. Most of the debate and consultation in this area have focused on restricting access to adult, pornographic and child abuse material, but in looking at the most serious threat—of grooming and sexual abuse—we need to be serious not just about the online content, but about online users and those with whom children come into contact online.

In my maiden speech, I began with a few words about Ashleigh Hall, a young woman who lived in my constituency. When she was 17, she was murdered by a registered sex offender she met on Facebook. The 33-year-old offender used a fake identity, and for his profile took a picture of a younger man in order to start talking to and grooming Ashleigh. After she agreed to meet him, the offender posed as his internet personality’s father in order to pick her up, after which he abducted, raped and murdered her.

This man had a history of violent sexual offences, including multiple charges of sexual assault, rape and kidnapping. He was known to be dangerous and was a registered sex offender, but although he and his home were registered and expected to be monitored, his internet use was not. He was under no obligation to register his online identities, and I have learned that any refusal to do so would have been met with no action whatever. The authorities had no idea what images he was looking at or who he was communicating with.

We know that one quarter of 12 to 15-year-olds report using social networking sites to communicate with people they do not already know. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre receives more than 600 reports of grooming each month, yet as the situation stands, people we recognise as a serious threat to public safety are monitored in the community but not online, where they have as much access, if not perhaps more, to building relationships with young people and may pretend to be someone they are not.

[Jim Shannon]

One of the Labour party’s proposals refers to making extra resources available to the police to ensure that these things can be monitored. Could that have prevented that case from happening?

Careers Service (Young People)

Debate between Jim Shannon and Baroness Chapman of Darlington

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Chapman]

Fantastic! I am all for that. That is marvellous, but is it happening in every school in the country? Of course not. I have some brilliant engineering businesses which go into schools and inspire young people. They try to point young people in the right direction and show them that there are wonderful careers for them on their doorstep—international careers—but young people need more than a visit from such a company. They need proper face-to-face advice from people who will inspire them.

The businesses in Darlington to which I referred are recruiting senior engineers from Greece, Brazil and Turkey, because we are not producing the people to fill those senior roles. One reason for that is that people are not getting the right advice at the right age. I am not talking just about 16 and FE. I am talking about year 6 in primary school, before they take their options, so that they know that they have to take good science subjects and maths. I am glad to see the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) agreeing with me. Such careers advice will not happen via Google. It needs to be face-to-face, inspiring advice.

I am fortunate to have in Darlington the Queen Elizabeth sixth-form college. I shall shamelessly plug the work of one woman, Stella Barnes, who provides first-class careers advice to young people there. I am sure that despite the pressures that it faces, the college will find the funding to keep Stella doing such fantastic work, but that is one woman and she can only do so much.

In the turbulent world that our young people are entering, job prospects are not certain, the costs of higher education are putting people off, and EMA no longer incentivises young people to stay on post-16. That applies not only to the at-risk, the vulnerable, the people who would not have a job if their mother had not organised something for them. It applies to all young people from all kinds of backgrounds. It is not just about the children of people on benefits. It is about people whose parents are in professional careers but who lack the wherewithal to open other doors—people like myself.

The biggest shame is that the Government have over-promised on what they will do. When they said that there would be an all-age careers service, people took them at their word. They thought that that meant the same for everybody and that it would be fair, but that is not what we will find. Adults can get face-to-face advice, because the Government rightly recognise that they need it, so why can young people not get it? They need it more than anyone else. They need someone to look them in the eye, work out their personal circumstances, listen to their hopes, dreams and aspirations, perhaps give them some if they do not have any, and work out the best thing for them. Otherwise, we are leaving young people stranded.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

There are good examples across the United Kingdom, and some of those will be in Northern Ireland. I suggest that that might be a way forward.

[Mrs Chapman]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that inspiring contribution. I find myself now in a situation in which everything has been said, but probably not by everyone.