Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (Programme) (No. 2) Debate

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Department: Ministry of Justice

Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (Programme) (No. 2)

Jonathan Djanogly Excerpts
Monday 31st October 2011

(13 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jonathan Djanogly Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Jonathan Djanogly)
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I beg to move,

That the Order of 29 June 2011 (Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (Programme)) be varied as follows:

1. Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Order shall be omitted.

2. Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading shall be concluded in three days.

3. Proceedings on Consideration shall be taken in the order shown in the first column of the following Table.

4. The proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the times specified in the second column of the Table.



TABLE

Proceedings

Time for conclusion of proceedings

Amendments to, and new Clauses and new

Schedules relating to, Clauses 7 and 8 and Schedule 1.

10.00 pm on the first day

New Clauses and new Schedules relating

to sentences of imprisonment or detention for public protection, life sentences,

extended sentences and the release and recall of extended sentence prisoners.

6.00 pm on the second day

New Clauses and new Schedules relating

to referral fees; new Clauses and new Schedules relating to fines on conviction

in magistrates’ courts.

8.00 pm on the second day

New Clauses and new Schedules relating

to section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008; new Clauses and

new Schedules relating to squatting.

10.00 pm on the second day

New Clauses and new Schedules relating

to, and amendments to, Part 1 (other than Clauses 7 and 8 and Schedule 1); new

Clauses and new Schedules relating to, and amendments to, Part 2; remaining new

Clauses; remaining new Schedules; amendments to Parts 3 and 4; remaining

proceedings on Consideration.

6.00 pm on the third day



5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 7.00 pm on the third day.



I wish to declare, for the purposes of this motion, Report and Third Reading, all relevant disclosures made in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and the ministerial register. In particular, I mention any interest that I may have as a non-practising solicitor who has not received any payment under the legal aid scheme, and my brother-in-law’s ownership of two claims management companies in which I have no financial interest. May I also declare any interest I may have in the insurance sector? My investment holdings are in the hands of a blind trust, and although I do not know what they are, I know that they did include—and therefore might possibly still include—a minority share in the Lloyds Djanogly Family LLP and various other insurance and financial shareholdings as declared by me in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests at the start of this Parliament.

I will briefly introduce the motion. First, I wish to thank the Committee members, many of whom are here today, for the robust debate in Committee and the detailed scrutiny that they gave to the Bill. I look forward to their continued input to the debate over the next three days, which I am sure will be as comprehensive and informed as it was throughout our proceedings. In the 18 Committee sittings, we made excellent progress through this very significant Bill. We managed to consider all 119 clauses and 16 schedules without the use of knives or too many late sittings, and we still managed to finish early on the last day. Given that the Opposition called 47 Divisions, that was a particularly impressive achievement.

There are some considerable Government amendments to get through, and I accept that it is unusual to be adding new topics to a Bill at this stage, but the Justice Secretary explained the reason for that in the previous debate. However, three days on Report will provide adequate time to debate the amendments thoroughly. It is unusual to have three days on Report—indeed, this is the first time that this Government have made three days available for debate on Report. I hope that the additional time will be seen as reflecting our ongoing commitment to the thorough scrutiny of the Bill, and that it will be welcomed by all Members on both sides of the House. We have inserted a few knives—namely, on the second day—to ensure that we have proper time to debate the Government’s new clauses on extended determinate sentences, referral fees, fines, self-defence and squatting. I believe that the motion gives the House plenty of time to debate these matters thoroughly, and we look forward to the forthcoming debate.

--- Later in debate ---
Jonathan Djanogly Portrait Mr Djanogly
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The right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) mentioned various changes that have been proposed by the Government and the longer Bill that has resulted. We are not denying that, and that is why we have provided the third day. It was good to see the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) recognising that. The right hon. Member for Tooting says, “Any time, any place,” and that is today, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Question put.