Female Offender Strategy: One Year On
Debate between Joan Ryan and Phillip Lee(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Joan Ryan (in the Chair)
Order. May I remind the hon. Gentleman that six other Members have applied to speak in this debate? If he speaks for much longer, they will have less than four minutes each to speak.
Dr Lee
Okay. Forgive me; I was not aware of that fact. My point is that a hell of a lot of thought went into the strategy, most of which made it to publication.
If we could make progress in this space with women—reducing the prison population by half by 2030 was my internal private target—and if we could make a success of it, we could move into the male estate and apply exactly the same approach and principles and reduce our prison population across the board. That requires some thought on sentencing, tagging and various other punitive in-the-community options. It is difficult because of an uptick in violent and sexual crimes among men and women in recent years, which we obviously must address, but if we were to do this, we would get to a situation where our prison system, for men, women and young people, would be functioning, and doing what it should be doing—rehabilitating. Then we would get to a society with reduced crime and, more broadly, a society that we could all be proud of.
Joan Ryan (in the Chair)
Hon. Members have roughly four minutes each to speak. I call Chris Ruane.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Joan Ryan and Phillip Lee(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Dr Phillip Lee)
It is crucial that victims of crime are supported as effectively as possible. The victims code was revised in 2015. Victims of all criminal offences are now entitled to support from a wide range of organisations, as well as from criminal justice agencies. The reforms we are making to our courts will significantly improve services for victims and their families—for example, to enable them to give evidence remotely and digitally.
Joan Ryan
More than 23,000 individual crimes have been reported in Enfield during the past 12 months. For far too long, the victims of these crimes have been forgotten and ignored by the criminal justice system. Given that the Victims’ Commissioner supports the introduction of a law for victims of crime, when will the Government fulfil their election manifesto commitment to bring forward legislation on this issue?
Dr Lee
We want to make sure that all vulnerable and intimidated witnesses can give their best evidence in court and feel less anxious. We are committed to making sure that victims of crime get the support they need. We have protected the overall level of funding for victims across the spending review period, and we announced funding of more than £95 million in 2016-17 to fund critical support services. We will bring forward our legislation, as promised, in due course.