Criminal Justice Reform

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for the chance to address that. That system is coming to an end because it is 15 years old. It is right that we address that. I want there to be much better tech enablement across the Probation Service. I met staff and heard about the importance of AI transcription, which is able to reduce their paperwork load. We of course want to have effective workload management tools in place. That is what myself and my hon. Friend the Prisons Minister are working closely on as we move to the new model.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for grasping the nettle of IPP prisoners. I remind the House that it was Bob Neill, the Conservative Chair of the Justice Committee, who built consensus on that Committee and brought forward a report to urge the Government to act and set up a number of proposals. I see that Bob’s name is not on the list of advisers that the Secretary of State has mentioned. It would be useful having him on board, I believe.

[Alex Norris]

That is an excellent suggestion by my right hon. Friend; I will be in touch with Bob. We do not intend for this to be a long, drawn-out process. We want to build from the best evidence that is available from those who have been active in this space. I certainly will make sure that I contact Bob to see how he can help us in this process. I remember him very fondly from his time in this place.

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I am the secretary of the National Union of Journalists parliamentary group and will speak in that capacity, but I am also a victim of the Goldsmith foundation, which the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) referred to. If Members are unaware of what the Goldsmith foundation was all about, it was basically an organisation funded by James Goldsmith that employed Carter-Ruck to identify people who James Goldsmith politically disagreed with, and targeted them. In my instance, I was writing to expose the then MP for my constituency—a Conservative MP—who was being hosted on a series of trips to Iraq by Saddam Hussein and then coming back here to justify the gassing of the Kurds in Halabja, where 4,000 people were gassed to death. I was then sued by Carter-Ruck.

It was the same issue overall: you just cannot afford to fight. In fact, as a result of that action, I had to hand over the deeds to my property—we simply could not fund it. Even though there was some Labour party support for funding, the general view was that we could not match that sinking pit of funding. That is just one example of how the Goldsmith foundation operated. It is an example of the operation of SLAPPs, which, as the right hon. Gentleman said, have happened over a long period of time—that was way back in the ’90s.

Reference has been made to how the issue of SLAPPs is not just about journalists. It is not, but they have been the main target, and the consequences for some have been devastating because of the legal costs they have had to incur just to try to demonstrate that they have been writing truthful analyses of the events they have been trying to report. SLAPPs stifle free speech and undermine the right of the general public to know information. Exactly as has been said, there is a deterrence effect: they are a form of intimidation against telling the truth.

The previous Prime Minister gave a commitment with regard to legislation; unfortunately, that was not in the King’s speech. Now is the time to pick up the pace. I am grateful to the Minister for now offering briefings on how we can move forward, as well as for working on a cross-party basis. The issue for us is that although everyone who has spoken so far welcomed the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, it just applies to economic crime reportage. Therefore, even though some journalists will be protected under that legislation, the individual they have been reporting on will find another matter on which to take action, and as a result the journalist is not protected. The thresholds and criteria of judgments taking place—whereby the judge has to consider the intent of the SLAPP filer and the intent of the defendant—are far too high. We can cite case after case, but the most recent to have caught publicity was that of Dan Neidle. He exposed a firm operating a tax avoidance scam and won the case, but he was left with £146,000 of legal fees.

As has been said, there have been various attempts by hon. Members to try to tackle the issue. The Scottish Government have also said that they are awaiting an opportunity to bring forward legislation. The NUJ is part of the Anti-SLAPP Coalition. The proposals put forward include: clear, 10-point criteria to identify SLAPPs; a higher merits threshold for likely success at trial; and a filter mechanism for swift disposal of actions that clearly seek to gag individual journalists and others. We welcome the Government’s engagement now—hopefully including with the NUJ over these coming weeks—so that we can get this legislation on the statute book as rapidly as possible and protect freedom of speech.

Prison Officers: Mandatory Body Armour

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 26th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to talk about this very important matter under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I suspect there will be quite a degree of agreement across the House.

The first thing that struck me was a quote from some evidence that the Prison Officers’ Association submitted to the Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee last year:

“prisons are inherently violent institutions to live and work in because they are places where large numbers of often violent criminals are forced to stay against their will”.

That may seem rather obvious, but if it is true, and I think it is, then we need to take every step to minimise the levels and seriousness of violence. This would not be tolerated in any other profession or environment, and it should not be tolerated in prisons. I pay tribute to the courage and fortitude of all our prison officers, who have to put up not just with assaults, but with risk and vulnerability every day—10,000 assaults a year, or 30, including three serious assaults, a day. That is not acceptable.

As the Chair of the Justice Committee, I routinely receive the chief inspector’s reports, as well as urgent notifications when there are particular problems, and I will refer to two that I received in the past few days. One relates to HMP Woodhill, of which the chief inspector says:

“The prison was not safe. Rates of violence were very high and at the time of this inspection, only Swaleside (also subject to a UN) had a higher rate of violence among similar prisons. The rate of serious assaults on staff was the highest in the long-term high secure estate and around a third of all violent incidents involved the use of weapons. Unsurprisingly, 61% of prisoners said they had felt unsafe at some point.”

On Swaleside, the other prison referred to there, the chief inspector states:

“Our inspection of Swaleside, a category B training prison on the Isle of Sheppey, revealed a prison in disarray, with the lowest scores in my five years as chief inspector…levels of violence were some of the highest of any prison in England and Wales and assaults on staff, many of which were serious, had more than doubled since our last inspection in 2023.

Much of the violence had been driven by the large amounts of drugs being brought into the prison by drones. Drug debts and gang rivalry were often the cause of assaults, and many prisoners were routinely making and carrying weapons.”

I appreciate that that rather dystopian description is not typical of every prison in the country, and certainly not of every prisoner. However, if that is the level of harm, then we have to give proper protections to prison officers, including body armour. In principle, I support that, and I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) for securing this debate just before we pack up for the Easter recess. I am glad, as he is, to see so many people here, because it is a vital issue.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as an honorary life member of the Prison Officers Association. I also apologise as I am trying to represent my constituents in about four different debates today.

One of the issues that the POA has consistently raised is the nature of the people it is dealing with at the moment. Many prisoners have severe mental health problems. The POA says that they should not be in prison; they should be in specialist units, as should those who are drug dependent. Recently, there have been examples of the POA having tried and failed to negotiate safe practices with management. Limited action has taken place and the union has been dragged through the courts because of the ban on it being able to withdraw its members’ labour. That has to be addressed; there have to be some basic protections. As well as body armour, which I support, there has to be the protection of workers having the ability to take industrial action and negotiate a safe working place.

[Andy Slaughter]

I thank my right hon. Friend for all the work that he and other Members present do in supporting the POA and making sure that its voice is heard. It is often the case with prisons that out of sight is out of mind. Both because of the conditions in prisons, which are deplorable in many cases, and in particular for the welfare of staff, it is important that we speak loudly on this subject.

The basic principle of this debate is absolutely right and should be followed through, but I have three qualifications to make. First, I believe—we will no doubt hear this from the Minister—that the Government have done a substantial amount more to address this issue. Body armour was first available in particularly dangerous institutions and is now available in all high-category prisons. That is a huge improvement, which has been acknowledged on all sides, including by the staff. It is in the lower-category prisons where it is not routinely available. That may be where we are moving to, but I want to acknowledge what has been done so far because it is a significant development. Both the current and previous Lord Chancellors have been clear on their intention to give the upmost protection to staff.

Secondly, if there is a danger that, through the widespread, customary, routine use of body armour, we will get into a mode of accepting levels of violence. Violence should never be acceptable in our prisons. Yes, the first priority is to keep staff safe, but beyond that, we have to do something about the appalling conditions in prisons. My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned mental health; we could equally talk about the chronic levels of drug addiction, organised crime and overcrowding, and the conditions in prisons, all of which create an environment in which violence thrives. That is what I worry about.

The Prison Reform Trust has said:

“The real drivers of prison violence—unsafe conditions, lack of purposeful activity, and poor mental health—can only be addressed through improved safety, decency, and respect. That means better staff training, supporting leadership development, and the political will to invest in prison conditions and reduce demand for drugs.”

I hope that view will be echoed on all sides. Rolling out body armour across the entire prison estate may be the right thing to do, and it may be that what has been done so far needs to be improved upon, but it should not hide the systemic, dangerous problems and conditions in our prisons, which are the result of decades of neglect, overcrowding and failure to provide decent standards for prisoners and for staff, who have an incredibly difficult job.

Cammell Laird Workers’ Imprisonment: Public Inquiry

John McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jake Richards]

I take the suggestion seriously. As I have said on document disclosure, which I think is the first step for the campaign, and in my hon. Friend getting what she is seeking, tomorrow morning I will go to my Department and looking at this issue again. Her speech, this campaign and the Adjournment debate have meant that will happen. I can assure her that I will do that, and I take that seriously. We consider no options to be off the table.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

One of the areas that is worth exploring is the Cabinet papers and the discussions that took place. These Cammell Laird workers are the innocent victims of a political strategy that was devised in Cabinet to suppress all opposition to the introduction of monetary policies—monetarism—under the Thatcher Government during that period. The Minister may not have been born at the time, but I was. In any areas where there was resistance to the Government, the resistance was suppressed. I was a Greater London Council councillor, and the GLC was abolished. In Lambeth and in Liverpool, councillors were surcharged and removed from office. Individual trade unionists were suppressed in a way that was more brutal than we ever thought possible. The Government inflicted damage, having forced trade union action, and there was also the imprisonment. This is about the Cabinet discussions that took place at the time, and Nicholas Ridley and so on. As we saw in the Shrewsbury campaign, there is also the matter of the influence they had on the courts.

[Jake Richards]

I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s intervention. My point about the passage of time was not me being flippant about this serious issue. The Orgreave events occurred in my constituency, and I am pleased that this Labour Government have launched a public inquiry. I will not comment from the Dispatch Box on individual disclosure searches in different Departments and particular conversations; I am sure that he can appreciate that that would not be appropriate. I have given a commitment to look at this issue again when I go back to my Department tomorrow morning. I take that seriously, and will keep him and other Members updated.

One of the difficult aspects of the Cammell Laird workers’ imprisonment is that we are talking about committals for contempt of court, which is a civil matter, rather than convictions for criminal offences. This is a technical issue, but it means that the case does not meet the criteria for a miscarriage of justice, which relates to wrongful convictions. That might appear to be an issue of semantics, but distinct processes apply in cases in which a person has wrongfully been convicted of a criminal offence, so it is important for us to be clear about the distinction between a miscarriage of justice and what we may term a historic injustice. The Law Commission is reviewing the law on contempt of court, at the Government’s request. The first part of its report, on liability for contempt, was published last month. The second part will be published next year, and will include a review of the routes of appeal and the sanctions that courts are able to impose for different types of contempt.

I am deeply sympathetic to the case, to the campaign, and to the individuals who are affected by this. Industrial relations and how they were historically dealt with are not necessarily matters for the Ministry of Justice, but I have made a number of commitments from the Dispatch Box to looking at certain issues again as a result of this Adjournment debate. That is this House working. I confirm those commitments, and I will report back to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside. I thank her for initiating the debate, and for the opportunity that she has given me to respond to it and take action as a result of it.

Question put and agreed to.

Criminal Court Reform

John McDonnell Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman’s party did not come up with any solutions, and the backlog continued to rise. We commissioned an independent review, led by one of the country’s most eminent judges. Having reflected on that review, we are getting on with the business of recognising what he said: there is not a silver bullet, we have to do it all, and we are building on the reform that he asked us to do.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

May I welcome the additional money for the criminal legal aid advocates and for more pupillages? If we are to rely more on judges, often sitting alone, is there not a need for greater transparency with regard to the selection of those judges, even to the point of individual selection on individual cases? I wrote to the Secretary of State this morning on behalf of a number of our members about a particular instance of the disappearance of a judge. I would be grateful if he could read that letter and possibly meet a group of MPs concerned about that matter.

[Mr Lammy]

I will read that letter and commit to a meeting with my right hon. Friend and other MPs, either with me or with my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Courts and Legal Services. He is absolutely right; transparency is core. When I looked at this issue in the Lammy review, I was very concerned that too often there was no transcript of what happened in our magistrates courts and Crown courts and that it was not easy. That is absolutely part of what we are now investing in, particularly with AI technology, and we will come forward with it.

Sentencing Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Then I call John McDonnell.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I have only a couple of sentences, Madam Deputy Speaker.

To remind the Minister, in last week’s Committee, my new clause—which is effectively new clause 26 today—represented the views of a number of organisations, including the National Association of Probation Officers, recalling the problems that we faced with privatisation, particularly in relation to community service and unpaid work. In London in 2013, the supervision of unpaid work was privatised to Serco, and it was a catastrophic failure in providing both effective work and security for the community overall. It left a stain on the old process of managing community work. That was reflected when the previous Government totally privatised probation, which then had to be brought back in-house.

New clause 26 simply asks for an assurance from the Government that, although we will want to engage with voluntary organisations, charities and non-profit bodies, we will not seek the privatisation of community service and unpaid work, in particular the placement of former prisoners in work in which they could be exploited.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who I am sure will join me in supporting my new clauses 27 and 28, and new clause 25 in the name of the hon. Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson). My new clauses relate to probation capacity and the devolution of probation services to Wales, but in Committee we had no feedback whatsoever from the Minister at the close of the day. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that those four new clauses, including his own, warrant a response from the Minister?

[John McDonnell]

That is why I tabled my new clause in Committee. I did not want to be a pain in the neck; I just wanted the Minister to acknowledge our understanding of the implications of the measures and the Probation Service’s overall concerns about these matters. I have re-tabled the new clause simply to get the Minister’s view and to hear the Government’s attitude on those issues. A range of amendments have come from the justice unions parliamentary group, which the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) chairs.

Let me be absolutely clear: community service has always been state-supervised work with charities and non-profit organisations. At no stage do we want to allow private sector organisations to profiteer in that area of service. No matter what attitude the Minister takes, I hope that he can give us an assurance on that. If there is a need for further discussion and dialogue, I am sure that the justice unions parliamentary group will be willing to meet him to go through those issues in more detail.

[Andy Slaughter]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. Although commercial organisations may well be able to run community schemes, it is clear that the ambition of voluntary organisations is rehabilitation and the prevention of reoffending, and that really must be the goal of community sentencing, which is at the heart of the Bill.

[John McDonnell]

I can only draw on the experience that my hon. Friend and I had when Serco was in charge, which was about profiteering and reducing costs, largely through a reduction in staff. He might recall that on occasion we had reports that community service volunteers were turning up, and the tools were not available for them to do their work. There was a lack of supervision, and in a few instances we discovered that some of the vehicles that they used had been forced into and were unsafe.

We do not want to go back to that profiteering. That is why an assurance that this provision will be managed and orientated by the state, using non-profit-making voluntary organisations and charities, would reassure those professionals who have unfortunately experienced the privatisation that has taken place in the past, to the detriment of us all.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

Sentencing Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Tuesday 21st October 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Chairman of Ways and Means (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Catherine Atkinson. [Interruption.] I call John McDonnell.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Ms Ghani; it is nice to be a substitute.

Like others in the Chamber, I am a member of the justice unions parliamentary group, and I will speak very briefly to new clause 3. As many Members know, the justice unions group comprises the probation officers’ union, Napo, as well as the Prison Officers Association and the PCS. It acts as the voice of the frontline workers in Parliament from those particular unions. There is an overall welcoming of the Bill by the unions themselves, which is good, but a specific concern has been raised with us with regard to the development of unpaid work and community service, and how that is managed in the future.

Many Members will also know about the history of community service; in fact, in the past we have had a few Members in this House who did a bit of community service—but that is another issue all together. Historically, it has been a way in which people have been able to avoid prison sentences: by working in the community and making reparation for the damage that they have often caused in it. I think we can report that it has been relatively successful in most of our constituencies.

Unfortunately, though, there have been experiments with privatisation, including of the management of the service; and there has been debate about whether this could be unpaid labour for private companies. In London, in 2013, community service was privatised to Serco. It was an absolute disaster. There was a lack of supervision on site, a lack of workers, and a lack of tools being delivered. It was also exposed that offenders were sometimes being crammed into vehicles that were unsuitable and unsafe. As a result, that privatisation collapsed. The last Government then engaged in a wholesale privatisation of probation, under the title, “transformation of rehabilitation”. That included unpaid work and community service. Again, even the last Government had to accept that probation would have to be brought back in house because of a combination of incompetence and profiteering, alongside a failure to go for realistically effective rehabilitation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Dixon]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s clarification that charities would still be able to provide these placements. I have a fantastic charity in my constituency, upCYCLE, which teaches bike maintenance skills to help rehabilitate people. Currently, that is done in prisons, but when there are more community sentences, that sort of charity will want to give people skills and meaningful work in the community. I just want to clarify that this is not about excluding charities.

[John McDonnell]

That is exactly in the tradition of community service as it was founded and developed over the years, but the experiments with privatisation have been a disaster. There is an argument that once a system starts using the private sector, as in America, offenders become economic units for exploitation and profiteering. The Justice Unions Parliamentary Group warns that we should not venture down that path, both as a result of historical failures, and given what has happened in other countries when the private sector has been able to use offenders in that way. The new clause is about returning to the traditional community service approach in this country. It was relatively effective, but in this new Sentencing Bill, which we welcome, it will be expanded on a scale perhaps not envisaged in the past. It is as simple as that.

[Dr Mullan]

The right hon. Member is well known for his long-term support for the Prison Officers Association. While he is on his feet, will he commit to supporting our new clause 16, which would close the loophole relating to whole life orders for the murder of prison officers?

[John McDonnell]

I declare an interest as an honorary life member of the Prison Officers Association. This is about the only time I have disagreed with it. I will not support that measure, although I understand where it is coming from, and I understand that there may well be a review of sentencing, and what is taken into account, when these actions tragically occur. To have a mandatory sentence like that would most probably not be appropriate, although the shadow Minister is right that the Prison Officers Association has argued strongly for the measure, and I respect that.

My final point relates not to new clause 3, but to the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) on the naming and shaming of offenders and the idea that offenders’ photographs will be publicised locally. He suggests in his amendments that there should be much wider consultation on the issue, and probation officers are saying exactly the same thing. A lot of their role in rehabilitation is about ensuring that people have a connection with their families once again. They are concerned about the effect that naming and shaming has on the family, and in particular the children. Sometimes, the family serves the sentence alongside the offender, and we would not want any actions taken that increase the stigma for family members of offenders. If the Government are going down this path, there is a need for more detailed and widespread consultation and discussion.

[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Last week, I met one of my constituents, Tracey Hanson, in Parliament to honour the 10-year anniversary of the tragic loss of her son Josh, who was murdered in an unprovoked knife attack in Hillingdon, west London, in October 2015. We spoke about the tireless work that she has put into campaigning for victims’ rights, and I heard more about how the law that she wants to introduce—Josh’s law—would ensure that the rights of victims and their families to appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme are clear and equal to the rights of offenders.

I will speak specifically to new clause 12, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for the beautiful Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan). After cruelly taking the life of Josh Hanson, Shane O’Brien absconded and evaded police for three and a half years before he was finally caught. Dubbed Britain’s most wanted man at the time, O’Brien was sentenced to at least 26 years in prison, just one year above the minimum sentence. After just missing the deadline to appeal the sentence as a result of unclear information about victims’ families’ rights under the unduly lenient sentence scheme, Tracey has spent years campaigning to ensure that no other victims face what her family did. Unfortunately, far too many victims and their families face the same problems, simply because they are not being made aware of their right to appeal sentences.

There are also concerning numbers of cases in which clerical errors—in one case I heard of, it was an email stuck in a barrister’s outbox—lead to the Attorney General running out of time and missing the deadline to appeal a sentence. While appeals from offenders will still be considered by the Attorney General outside the 28-day window in exceptional circumstances, appeals from victims or their families will not. Historically, victims were at the centre of the justice system. Victims were the driving force in bringing criminal cases, and played a central role throughout the process. It was not until the 19th century that there was a significant shift towards state-led prosecutions, with the victims, rather than criminal cases, significantly diminished. The focus only started to shift back towards the victim with the very recent introduction of the first victim’s charter in 1990. I believe that we must recapture more of the focus from the state, and divert it back to those who are most directly impacted by crime.

The lives of Tracey and her family will never be the same again. They should have been a central focus in the criminal case, and should have received the same rights, and information about their right to appeal against the sentencing decision, as the offender did. It is vital that victims and their families are clearly informed about their right to appeal under the unduly lenient sentence scheme. New clause 12 would require the Crown Prosecution Service to write to victims, or their next of kin, within 10 working days of a sentence being passed, providing details of the unduly lenient sentence scheme, the application process for the scheme and the deadlines, which would also be extended, giving victims a better chance of benefiting from the scheme.

Sentencing Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)]

To respond to the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin), in 1997—I do not know if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was with us then—we were concerned that the prison population was 40,000; it is now 80,000 and it is predicted to go up to 112,000 if we continue on the current flightpath. I just say to the hon. Lady that we are all straining to do our best to make sure that all our constituents are safe and that there is a just and effective system in our society to deal with crime and injustices. However, based on what I heard of her understanding of the Bill, I suggest it would be worth her while to sit down with Justice Ministers so that they can take her through some of the detail of the Bill, because I genuinely think there are elements of it that she has completely misconstrued. I say that not in any party knockabout way; I just think that would be worth while, because we want, particularly with this Bill, to build as much consensus as possible to reassure people out there that this House cares about their concerns.

I declare an interest in that I am an honorary life member of the Prison Officers Association. There is no financial relationship or nexus to that and, as I have said before, the POA has made it clear that there is no benefit to me whatsoever—I would not get a south-facing cell, an extra pillow or anything like that; it is a privilege. I want to make four or five points very briefly, because I know that others want to speak, and they will to a certain extent echo those of my hon. Friends the Members for Easington (Grahame Morris) and for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter).

On the sentence management process, all the advice we get from Napo, which represents probation officers, shows that there is a shortfall of about 10,000 staff, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick said. The morale in the service itself—remember that probation officers have gone through privatisation, and then been brought back as a public service—is pretty low. They are very committed professionals, but having wages stagnate for a long period has had its effect, and recruitment and retention is a real issue that we need to address. I would not underestimate the stress they are under at the moment. We welcome the additional resource, but realistically there is a demand for more that we need to take on board.

One issue with resettlement that has been raised with us by probation officers and others is that because of the cutbacks in local government and other funding regimes, a lot of the voluntary sector bodies that they relied on to refer their clients to are no longer operating or have been starved of resources for a long period. A lot of those voluntary sector bodies were specialists in their own way, in particular with regard to drug abuse.

The second issue is about prison. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick that we need a lot more detail about earned progression, but prison officers tell us that the reality is that rehabilitation is almost impossible at the moment. Prisoners cannot access the courses that are needed. We do not even have the staff who will go to their cells to accompany them to rehabilitation and education courses. Again, the pressure staff are under is immense.

One specific issue with the skilled worker visa system has been raised by the Prison Officers Association. It has had an impact on the number of staff working in our prisons. I was not aware of this to be honest, but there were recruitment campaigns in Africa and elsewhere. Staff have been brought here and now we are at risk of losing them because they fall foul of the new visa regime. It does not just affect prisons—it affects a whole range of services—but it needs to be looked at again.

Another issue that has been discussed is the supervision of unpaid work. I am really worried that there are discussions about privatising that again. In London, we had the experience of Serco a number of years ago when it was privatised. To be frank, it was an absolute disaster. I am worried that it could be interpreted as simply exploiting prisoners for private profit in some instances.

There is not much reference in the Bill to children and I wonder whether we will come back to that, because unless we look at the regime for children as well, we could be in a situation where children will be serving longer sentences than some adults. One other point in relation to children that has been raised by a number of organisations, such as the Howard League, is the publication of a prisoner’s or convicted person’s photo. I can understand the motivation behind that, but I believe the family often serves the sentence just as much as the prisoner. As a result, stigma is attached to the whole family. What we have found from our experience is that children have suffered because of crimes perpetrated by the parent. We need to be very careful about how we use the identification process. We need to do it wisely and look at the implications for the whole family.

I will make two final points. On race, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been goaded by the Opposition, but the work he did on an exploration of the justice system highlighted discrimination in the system—we have to admit that. It is not about two-tier justice; it is about trying to get fair justice for everybody. The reality is that all the statistics demonstrate that for the same crime, those who are black or Asian will get a harsher sentence and will almost certainly have a harsher regime when in prison than others. We need to follow up the work done by my right hon. Friend. We need to be open and transparent, and get all the information out there again and re-examine it on intersectionality and the implications for the justice system.

Finally, I share the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick on IPP. We have been at this for a number of years and the Select Committee made its recommendation on re-sentencing. The Government rejected it, because they were worried about being branded as releasing prisoners into the community and worried that there would be risks. The re-sentencing exercise was about how to manage and minimise those risks.

Every time we have this debate and we do not move forward, what happens? We have had suicides of those IPP prisoners. I am worried that unless we speed up the resolution of this problem, we will have an injustice. Lord Blunkett, who introduced the system, has subsequently absolutely condemned it, saying it was one of the worst mistakes he ever made in politics. We will render those injustices continuing ones and do more harm to both the prisoners themselves and—as those who have had constituents who have endured this will know—their families. As I say, the families serve the sentence as much as the individuals concerned. Although there has been progress on this, I do think we need to revisit it in some legislative form in the near future.

Duty of Candour for Public Authorities and Legal Representation for Bereaved Families

John McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ian Byrne]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point; she is spot on.

Out of sheer desperation at the situation, in July I used a private Member’s Bill, the Public Authority (Accountability) Bill, to reintroduce the original Hillsborough law—the 2017 version. The Government rejected it, so here we are today, without the Hillsborough law, fighting against those same vested interests, and the clock continues to tick while people’s belief in politics and politicians continues to erode.

Let me be absolutely crystal clear for the Government: a full duty of candour with criminal sanctions is non-negotiable in any legislation bearing the name of Hillsborough. It is not a technicality; it is a moral imperative, and it is a moral and legal imperative that it sits at the heart of every inquiry, investigation and inquest, local and national—no exceptions. Nothing less will change the culture, because carve-outs become cover-ups, and this must never be allowed to happen again. Simply, if it had been law at the time of Hillsborough, we would not have waited decades for justice. So much pain and suffering could have been avoided, and families could have grieved for those lost instead of fighting the state for truth and justice. The duty of candour is about accountability. It is about preventing cover-ups, and it is about restoring public trust.

The second pillar of the Hillsborough law is legal parity, which is equally vital. Time and again, bereaved families have faced the might of the state with no legal support, while public bodies are armed to the teeth with expensive teams of lawyers. Parity of arms is essential to stop false narratives being spread and families feeling like it is them who are on trial. That imbalance is not just unfair; it is grotesque. I pay tribute to Deb Coles and the team at INQUEST for their constant championing of this. Their work was highlighted in “All or Nothing: A report on the Hillsborough Law Family Listening Day”. I urge everybody in this room and beyond to read it, to understand why parity of arms is so fundamental to gaining truth and justice.

If the Government resist a full duty of candour without exception, what does that say? Do they believe public officials should be allowed to lie with impunity? Do they believe families should continue to be denied justice? Opposition to this legislation is not about practicality. It highlights the power of vested interests. It is about protecting the status quo—a status quo that has caused untold harm to so many. The ball is now in the Government’s court. More specifically, it is in the Prime Minister’s court.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)]

I should explain to my hon. Friend that I will have to leave the debate to attend a meeting about the violence meted out in a demonstration outside an asylum hotel in my constituency, but I want to make this point very clear. Labour is going to Liverpool for its conference in three weeks’ time. If this legislation is not sorted by then, it should not expect a welcome from the people in Liverpool, because we have waited too long.

[Ian Byrne]

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend.

The Prime Minister has the ball in his court. He has made personal commitments to Liverpool, to the Hillsborough families and to survivors of other state-related scandals. He is perhaps the most qualified Prime Minister in history to understand why this matters, but understanding is not enough. We need courage, we need leadership, and we need action.

I have met countless campaigners who are formidable, tireless and brave. They have been underestimated by the establishment for far too long, but they will not go away, and neither will I. As somebody who was at Hillsborough, I carry this fight in my bones. I will not rest while injustice persists, not just for those who died at Hillsborough, but for everyone who has been wronged by the state. Unless the state learns from its mistakes, it will repeat them, and lives will continue to be destroyed. The time for delaying is over, and the time for diluting promises is over. We must legislate, we must protect truth, and we must honour those who have died at the hands of the state, and those who have fought for justice on their behalf, not with words, but with law.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

John McDonnell Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Friday 20th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)]

Briefly, to those who are saying that our attitude is, “We’ll debate the issues, but we’ll send the Bill off to the other place, for it to do our job,” I say that is not what I am here for. I believe that we are here to debate this Bill. In fact, I want to abolish the other place.

Ten years ago, when the issue was debated before—I could not give my speech but my position was repeated by many Members—I agreed with assisted dying in principle, but thought that we did not have the safeguards available. However, today I will support the Bill, because measures relating to many of the issues raised in that debate have been built into this Bill—measures on how the assessments would be done, and measures to ensure that the panel includes psychiatrists, clinicians and others. Ten years ago, I did not argue for a judicial review, as I do not have the confidence in the judiciary that some hon. Members have. I wanted more experts, but at that time, the experts were split. They have always been split on the issue, and there will never be unanimity across the professions on the subject.

One issue to which I have paid careful attention was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham North (Vicky Foxcroft). May I just say that I am so proud that she resigned over the benefits cuts? I know how difficult that was for her; she was my Whip—she was the nicest Whip I have ever had. She is right that the majority of the disability organisations—particularly the campaigning ones—are opposed to the legislation. That is why I tried to ensure that some of the issues that they have raised have been translated into the Bill. It was a huge breakthrough for this House to build in the disability advisory group, with representatives from a whole range of disability groups—including, I hope, Disabled People Against the Cuts, the radical group—that will advise on the implementation of the Bill.

Another issue raised was about whether the NHS is ready for the legislation. As I said 10 years ago, it will take years to build up that capacity, which is why the four-year implementation schedule is so important to me.

The choice is not between palliative care and assisted dying. We want the opportunity to have good palliative care. One of my closest friends died two weeks ago in Hillingdon hospital, and I want to thank the staff for the palliative care that they gave him so wonderfully. At the same time, I know others who have suffered greatly and wanted to go, but what have they been forced to do? Hide away the drugs over a period of time, send their families away, and then take the drugs and die a lonely death. Recently, another person starved themselves to death because there was no other option. I cannot stand by and allow that to happen any more.

The right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) said that what is most important at the end of life is control, but it is also dignity. Through this legislation, I want to provide that dignity for those who have decided that the time has come.