Oral Answers to Questions

Johnny Mercer Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I certainly agree with the principle that the European arrest warrant is an effective tool that is essential to the delivery of effective judgment on the murderers, rapists and paedophiles on whom we have managed to seek judgment. It is a priority for us to ensure that we remain part of the arrangement, and I can reassure Members in all parts of the House that our European partners want to achieve that as well.

[Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)]

5. What procedures have been put in place to prevent errors in the recording of licence conditions on the police national computer. [R]

[The Minister for Policing and the Fire Service (Brandon Lewis)]

The PNC central bureau is operated by the Metropolitan police, and it processes all licence notifications on behalf of police forces in England and Wales. A sample of transactions in the bureau are checked daily for accuracy by supervisors.

[Johnny Mercer]

I understand from Ministers that this problem was rectified last year, which I am happy to learn. However, is there any more the Department can do to work with families like the one here with me today whose son was murdered by an individual on licence? I pay tribute to Andrea Sharpe on her efforts to close this gap. Will the Department work with families to ensure that they get the support they need so that cases like that of Tanis Bhandari cannot happen again?

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Fortunately, very few of us in this House can ever understand or will ever have to go through what the family of Tanis Bhandari had to go through; that was a tragic incident that we all wish would never happen to anybody. My hon. Friend is right that the process around post-sentence supervision has changed following the implementation of the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, but I am always willing, as, I know, are colleagues at the Ministry of Justice—I think my hon. Friend has arranged for the family to meet the Secretary of State for Justice later today—to look at what more we can learn from the experiences of today and the past.