Sentencing Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to make a brief contribution to this Second Reading debate. I hope to add to points that I have raised during the progress of the Victims and Prisoners Bill. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). He always makes substantial contributions, on these matters and others, to which it is always a pleasure to listen.

In January 2020, my constituent Mike O’Leary was murdered in what prosecutors during the subsequent trial labelled a “carefully planned execution”. His body was desecrated in an attempt to hide the crime. The key bit of evidence that secured the guilty verdict was found only in March 2020, when a search of the murderer’s property found tissue matter that matched Mike’s DNA: a piece of small intestine in an oil barrel.

As I have said in previous debates, it is difficult to imagine the suffering of the bereaved family. Losing a loved one is bad enough, but being unable to process grief with a proper burial or cremation brings extra suffering, as does knowing what was done to their remains. The family have been extremely brave. Discussing the history of the case with Mike’s mother, Val, will haunt me. I knew Mike’s sister, Lesley, many years before entering this place—she has become an active campaigner on victims’ issues—as well as Mike’s wife, Sian, and their sons Wayne, Simon and Phillip. I pay tribute to them all for their strength and courage.

The family have thrown their energy at the campaign for a second Helen’s law. Ministers will remember the campaign for the first Helen’s law, led by the family of Helen McCourt, who was murdered in 1988 at the age of only 22. Her body has never been recovered. Her mother, Marie, successfully campaigned for a law—the Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Act 2020—to make it more difficult for perpetrators to obtain parole if they do not reveal the location of remains. I met Marie and her husband John to discuss her campaign for a second Helen’s law. They are also an incredible family and a source of inspiration; they find the strength to carry on despite the worst that life throws at them.

Both the families that I have mentioned support a new crime of desecration or concealment of a murdered body, to reflect the extra suffering caused for bereaved families. Another option would be for the Government to revise the sentencing guidelines so that perpetrators of such heinous crimes receive an extra penalty. The families tell me that there is currently no consistency in sentencing. In some cases, murderers receive longer sentences than the killer of my constituent despite there having been no premeditation or effort to destroy or conceal the body. I am sure that Members across the House would agree that desecration or concealment of a murdered body is an additional cruel act that deserves additional punishment and should be reflected in the law. Regrettably, such acts are becoming more prevalent. The law must be used as a disincentive. The Bill is the perfect opportunity for the Government to act, and I hope that Ministers will use it to make it clear that those who commit evil acts of that nature will be punished accordingly.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on domestic violence and abuse, I will concentrate my remarks on amendments and new clauses relating to domestic abuse.

I recognise that there has been some progress on domestic abuse, but survivors are being failed by the criminal justice system. Repeatedly saying that tackling domestic abuse is a priority does not mean that it is a priority. Survivors deserve much more than posturing and rhetoric; in fact, virtue signalling at the same time as failing us becomes a form of gaslighting in and of itself. Urgent and immediate action is overdue. All too often, survivors do not have faith in the systems that are meant to protect and support them. The situation for black, Asian and minoritised women is even more dire, as they are disproportionately victims of violence against women and girls, yet also experience poorer outcomes in access to justice and support. As such, my new clause 35 would compel the Secretary of State to conduct a review into the experience of victims of domestic abuse in the criminal justice system.

Survivors of domestic abuse currently face overwhelming barriers to justice: we are routinely subject to double standards and outright misogyny in policing, sentencing and imprisonment. I have first-hand experience of the fact that courts are even used by abusers to perpetuate abuse. Police forces share migrant victims’ data with immigration enforcement, which stops migrants from reporting to the police and others out of fear that they will be treated as offenders themselves, facing potential criminalisation, detention and even deportation. I therefore support new clause 30, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), which would ensure that the personal data of a victim of a crime is not used for any immigration control purpose without the consent of that person. In fact, I believe we need a firewall between all public services and the Home Office, so that every survivor can report abuse and access justice and safety, and perpetrators cannot evade justice.

Recovery is an essential part of justice; the funding of services can mean the difference between life and death, hope and despair, and imprisonment and empowerment. My new clause 34 would compel the Secretary of State to conduct a review into the level of funding and provision for domestic abuse services, considering both counselling and advocacy services and refuges. In light of the impact of the cost of living crisis on domestic abuse survivors, urgent changes to housing, health and social security systems are also needed, and I urge the Government to support new clause 8, which would ensure that victims of domestic abuse who do not have recourse to public funds are still entitled to be supported. I urge them to choose to properly reform the criminal justice system, fund specialist services, and ensure that the social security system is there for people when needed.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

Diolch yn fawr, Mr Deputy Speaker; it is a pleasure to contribute to this debate. I rise to speak to my new clause 33, a probing amendment based on concerns I expressed on Second Reading about the Victims’ Commissioner lacking enforcement power, undermining their ability to protect victims. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), made similar comments during his contribution. I welcome the fact that Baroness Newlove has been appointed as Victims Commissioner—that is a step forward from where we were on Second Reading. I hope she has had the opportunity to influence the Bill before today’s debate.

On Second Reading, I talked about my constituents, the family of the murdered Mike O’Leary. Since Mike’s death, the family have become avid campaigners for victims’ rights, and the main thing they consider is missing from this much-awaited Bill is the enforcement powers that would give the Victims’ Commissioner some teeth. The murder of Mr O’Leary was a particularly heinous crime—his body was desecrated—and I look forward to the Sentencing Bill on Wednesday, when we will have an opportunity to discuss whether a new crime should be introduced and whether sentencing guidelines should be amended to reflect the extra suffering of the bereaved families.

Baroness Newlove, in her response to the King’s Speech in the other place, mentioned a sobering survey that her office did on victims’ experience of the criminal justice system. Of the 500 people surveyed, 71% were dissatisfied with the approach of the police to the crime they experienced, 34% said they would not report another crime, less than 29% were aware of the victims code, only 29% were offered the opportunity to make a victim’s personal statement and only 8% were confident that they received justice by reporting a crime. If the aim of the Bill is to bring victims’ experience into the heart of the criminal justice system, it has its work cut out.

The commissioner should be the key role for driving the change that is needed. On Second Reading, I pointed out the powers of the Welsh Language Commissioner under the terms of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, introduced by the Welsh Government. The Welsh Language Commissioner’s enforcement powers range from offering advice and training to requiring an organisation to prepare a plan to prevent further continuation or repetition of the failure, requiring an organisation to take concrete steps to prevent further failure, publicising the failure of an organisation to comply with the measure and imposing a civil penalty of up to £5,000. Empowering the Victims’ Commissioner along the lines of the enforcement powers of other commissioners would considerably strengthen the hand of victims and help transform the criminal justice system so that victims are at its centre. I hope the other place may take up my new clause in its deliberations.

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

I rise to speak to new clause 1, and new clauses 2 and 3 in my name. When we talk about victims, it is important that we also discuss taking responsibility for the victims of Parliament’s activities, and some of the victims of Parliament’s activities are the IPP—imprisonment for public protection—prisoners. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) has campaigned on this matter for years, and the Justice Committee has undertaken detailed investigations and reports, which I think we need to take more seriously in this House because of the urgency of the matter.

There are nearly 3,000 IPP prisoners still in prison. They are in prison under legislation passed in this House by David Blunkett, who now recognises that there is an injustice—there has been a miscarriage of justice—and is appealing to us to correct that injustice by legislating now. There is example after example of people who have gone to prison on small tariffs. Martin Myers was sentenced on an 18-month tariff, and he has served 17 years. Wayne Bell has served 16 years on a two-year tariff, and Aaron Graham has served 18 years on a three-year tariff. This is Kafkaesque. These people have committed relatively minor offences, but are trapped within the prison system and cannot get out.

It therefore behoves us to address this issue, which is why the Justice Committee undertook the review and brought forward not a policy of releasing these prisoners without protection and security, or whatever, but of re-sentencing, with special expertise brought in to assess each prisoner and see whether it is safe at least to give them a determinate sentence so as to give them some hope. That is the problem here: we have lost 88 of these prisoners through suicide because they had no hope. If we listen to the Prison Officers Association, the Prison Reform Trust, Amnesty, Liberty and the families, we can understand why, because it is not just the prisoners who are serving these sentences, but their families.

What have we found in the last year? We have lost another eight prisoners who have committed suicide, with 1,600 self-harm incidents among this group of prisoners over the last 12 months. What we need to do now is to take forward the hon. Member’s proposals, and if the Government are not satisfied with them at the moment, let us work on them until the Bill goes to the House of Lords and see what we can do in the other place. In addition to that, I have put forward minor amendments saying that we should at least offer such prisoners—those inside, but also those on licence—advocacy and mentoring so that they can prepare themselves properly for resettlement and release from prison, but also so that when they are outside they are not recalled, as they are at scale at the moment.

Victims and Prisoners Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to speak on Second Reading. I commend right hon. and hon. Members for the contributions that we have heard so far. This House is undoubtedly at its best when we engage in serious debate free from tribal engagement.

My contribution is largely based on the experiences of the family of my constituent Michael O’Leary, who was murdered in what was described by prosecutors as a “carefully planned execution” in January 2020. His body was desecrated in an attempt to hide the crime. The key bit of evidence that secured the guilty verdict was only obtained in March 2020 when a search of the murderer’s property found tissue matter that matched Mr O’Leary’s DNA—a piece of the small intestine—in an oil barrel. I cannot imagine the suffering involved for the family, not only having lost a loved one in such a manner, but having been deprived of the opportunity to process their grief through burial of the body. Mr O’Leary’s son Wayne said that families face a “lifetime of unanswered questions.”

Following the murder trial, my constituents have campaigned for a new offence of desecration or concealment of a body, dubbed Helen’s law 2. Helen’s law, which was adopted in the Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Act 2020, means that an individual guilty of murder would not be eligible for parole if they refuse to reveal the location of a victim. I pay tribute to Helen McCourt’s family, and all the other families. Helen’s law 2 aims to increase punishment for those guilty of desecration or concealment, or in the very least to amend sentencing guidelines to reflect the extra suffering imposed on the families of victims. We await progress on the campaign.

I understand that there are complexities, but I hope that the UK Government continue to seek a way forward, considering that, unfortunately, these sorts of heinous crimes are becoming more common. I can certainly say that in the experience of my constituents, the additional suffering of knowing what was done to their loved one after he was murdered is beyond comprehension.

Following discussions with my constituents, I would like to take the opportunity to raise their views on the Bill. Victims’ families are concerned that a Bill on victims’ rights has been brought forward even though the Victims’ Commissioner post has been vacant since last September, following the resignation of Dame Vera Baird. Upon her resignation, Dame Vera said that she was disappointed by the lack of engagement from the Government in relation to her concerns about the Bill as the primary voice of victims. The resignation letter is quite damning, with the former commissioner accusing the Government of “downgrading” victims’ concerns. I am sure that Ministers appreciate families’ concerns that a Bill has been brought forward without a key advocate on their behalf being in post.

The Bill obviously concerns a very emotive subject for families. Changing the title from the Victims Bill to the Victims and Prisoners Bill is, in itself, offensive to them. Families believe that a victims Bill should stand on its own—a point made by the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle).

From a Welsh perspective, there is concern that the key parts of the Bill refer to England only. I am sure that that is only a drafting error, but both clauses 12 and 14 refer to police authorities in England alone. I suspect that the four Welsh police authorities should be included.

Victims’ campaigners are concerned that the rights set out in the Bill are not legally enforceable. The former Victims’ Commissioner pointed out in her response to the Bill that there is no accountability mechanism if a criminal justice partner does not deliver on those rights, and no right of recourse for families. Perhaps the Government are concerned about the extra cost that may be incurred as a result of any enforceable rights, but without a right of recourse it could be argued that the Bill’s content on victims is aspirational—a point made by the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill).

The former commissioner, Dame Vera, argues that the Bill should seek to emulate the Australian model. Policies pioneered in the state of Victoria provide a formal role for victims within criminal justice proceedings, leading to a cultural shift from, according to Dame Vera,

“agencies viewing victims as peripheral to their function – bystanders to proceedings – to a core and valued constituent part of the justice system.”

I am no expert, but strengthening the powers of the Victims’ Commissioner role would be one way forward. From what I can see, the Victims’ Commissioner performs an advocacy role at present. In Wales, the Welsh Language Commissioner has specific regulatory functions and powers, which include setting standards in the public sector and deciding on complaints and investigations. Following investigations, the commissioner has the power to initiate enforcement action. Strengthening the Bill in that manner would give the Victims’ Commissioner real teeth and would empower victims.

Under part 3, the new powers proposed will allow the Secretary of State to make Parole Board decisions on the release of prisoners. Families are concerned that they will not have the opportunity to make a victim impact statement or be included in licensing decisions, as is currently the case—a point made by the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel). Furthermore, families are concerned that they will not have a voice during the appeals stage, as prisoners would surely contest a decision by the Secretary of State to keep them incarcerated. They will further lose their rights to make a victim impact statement or contribute towards licensing decisions at this stage—a point made by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis).

The prisoners section of the Bill was not part of the original consultation; therefore. its removal should be considered. Campaigners believe that a second consultation should have been considered before the latest draft was published. Campaign groups raise concerns that the scope of the Bill is not wide enough to include other rights for victims. As I stated, it is vital that rights must be considered while putting victims at the heart of the criminal justice system, such as through free transcripts of trials involving loved ones. Campaigners tell me that a bereaved family were recently quoted £14,000 in costs for the transcript of a 17-day trial. Clearly, that is prohibitive.

The Human Rights Act 1998 is referred to only in part 3. That is upsetting to victims and bereaved families, as it implies that human rights apply only to prisoners and not victims. That further exacerbates the imbalances of power that they believe exist between victims and offenders. Before the Bill proceeds to Committee, I hope that Ministers will increase engagement with victims groups and bring forward necessary amendments to alleviate their concerns.

Police Grant Report

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Cheshire constabulary on their recruitment. I am told that they have recruited 149 officers to their complement, which is a fantastic achievement. They still have to get to their allocation by March, and their allocation next year will, I think, be a further 120 on top, so my hon. Friend should see plenty of uniforms across that beautiful county in the months and years to come.

My hon. Friend is quite right that recruitment is only half the battle; retention is the other half. We are monitoring the attitudes and experience of those new recruits incredibly closely. I know he will be pleased to hear that their satisfaction in the job, the fulfilment of their expectations of the job, is overwhelmingly positive, but we need to bear that in mind as we train them and instil the right values in them. As they hopefully embark on a long-term career, we will be staying in touch with their sentiments very closely.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

Will the Minister comment on capital investment support for police forces? My understanding is that the new joint firearms unit between Dyfed-Powys, Gwent and South Wales police will cost around £40 million, and that has largely been funded out of reserves. Clearly, that is not sustainable.

[Kit Malthouse]

Having been, effectively, a police and crime commissioner in the past, I must tell the hon. Gentleman that the removal of the distinction between capital and revenue receipts and spending would have been a blessed relief. In the old days of local government restrictions in that regard, in the police and in local authorities, there was an entire science devoted to the creation of capital as revenue and the conversion of revenue into capital, to get round the Treasury rules, but we have done away with that division now. [Interruption.] Of course, as a chartered accountant, I feel slightly bereft, having been put out of business. It was quite an art form, which was very satisfying to achieve.

However, the removal of that division means that a cheque goes to the police and crime commissioner, and along with the chief constable they may then decide on the division between capital and revenue as they wish. Having handled such budgets in the past, I think that is a very welcome development. I know, for example, that in Wales that has been used to great effect. In Dyfed-Powys the police and crime commissioner, on first coming into the role, made a huge investment in CCTV across the entire force area, which is paying enormous dividends, and he is able to do that as he wishes, capital and revenue being irrelevant. That is the kind of freedom that we want to give police and crime commissioners as they pursue their mission.

This is a crucial year for policing, particularly on the recruitment programme. The settlement is designed to ensure that we hit that important mark of 20,000 new officers. Forces have made outstanding progress to date, and that is testament to the hard work of all involved in the campaign. The recent statistical release of the police uplift programme demonstrates how many forces have already met, or in some cases exceeded, their year 2 target. PCCs are grabbing this investment with both hands and already a number of forces have more police officers on their books than they ever had before.

Ten-Year Drugs Strategy

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I agree that addiction is an illness or affliction that is outwith an individual’s control. Although addiction often drives individuals to commit crime, for which they must be punished, we have a duty to make sure that there is no repetition, which means that we need to treat the addiction in the best way possible in the circumstances. I am very sorry to hear that my hon. Friend has experienced that loss; there are too many families in this country who are in the same situation. I hope that our strategy will mean that those numbers reduce.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

Richard Lewis, the chief constable of Cleveland police who is soon to take the helm at Dyfed-Powys, wrote in The Guardian recently that problem drug use must be seen as a health issue as opposed to a policing issue. His view was based on his experiences of the heroin-assisted treatment pilot programme in Middlesbrough. Will the Minister work with the Welsh Government to roll out that pilot across Wales so that it is seen as a treatment-based alternative to street drugs, dismantling the demand that sustains the operations of criminal gangs?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am already working with the Welsh Government as much as possible. As the hon. Gentleman will know, we have an ADDER project in south Wales, and we are working in close partnership with the Welsh Government on the health side to try to drive the numbers down.

While I am interested in examining heroin-assisted treatment, I am more interested in the new pharmacological treatment that is being rolled out in Wales. A monthly injection of depot buprenorphine effectively kills the craving for opiates, particularly heroin. I think that 600 or 700 people are now receiving it in Wales and indeed in England, with fantastic results. That is the kind of innovation of which we would like to see more.

Prison Reform and Safety

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

The English prison system is in crisis. It is failing inmates, prison officers and, fundamentally, society, as the hard-hitting motion tabled by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and the right hon. Member for Delyn (David Hanson) makes clear. Building more prison places will not solve the problem. The prison population tends to expand to fill the places available, often even before the places are built.

As the Howard League puts it,

“trying to deal with only the supply of prison resources and prison places will not work. We now need to manage demand and, in the process, ask some fundamental questions about who we send to prison and why.”

It is therefore surprising that the UK Government are pursuing a strategy of building an industrial-scale prison complex in my nation.

With that in mind, I will focus on the UK Government’s decision to outsource the crisis in the English prison system to Wales, rather than fix it. On 27 February 2017, the Ministry of Justice opened the biggest prison in Europe in north Wales—HMP Berwyn. Once fully operational, the prison will have the capacity to hold more than 2,100 male prisoners. I am sure it will not be a revelation to many in this House that piling a few thousand prisoners into a small corner of north Wales is not expected to be conducive to rehabilitation. Whether it is the left-leaning Howard League or the Centre for Social Justice founded by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), there is agreement that these prisons do not rehabilitate.

Even more galling, HMP Berwyn will not meet the demands of the nation in which it is being built. HMP Berwyn alone will have 800 more places than there are inmates in Wales. In March 2017, the UK Government announced plans to build a new super-prison in Baglan, Port Talbot. Yet again, this prison is not being built for our needs. It will be for 1,600 inmates shipped into Port Talbot. A person does not need a Fields medal to work out that adding the 800 surplus places at Berwyn to the 1,600 surplus places at the proposed Baglan prison would mean 2,400 more places than are required in Wales.

The truth of the matter is that Wales is England’s affordable penal colony. Westminster is turning old south Wales into a homage to 19th-century New South Wales. Those are not my words but the comments of Frances Crook, the chief executive officer of the Howard League. Ms Crook went as far as to draw a parallel between the infamous Botany Bay penal colony and Wales—a rather extreme but, none the less, fitting analogy.

Plaid Cymru has always been against the building of these monstrous prisons in Wales. Currently, however, the plans are being taken ahead with the Labour Welsh Government’s blessing. In fact, the Labour Welsh Government in Cardiff could stop the development if they so decided, because the proposed Baglan prison would be built on Welsh Government land, if only they would, for once, put the interests and requirements of Wales first.

Wales does not want or need another super-prison, much as it did not need the first. Because of the lack of distinct legal jurisdiction, Westminster can still impose prisons on Wales. Northern Ireland and Scotland are off limits thanks to their more generous devolution settlements, but not my country. The existing prison estate in Wales is far from perfect, but we need Welsh solutions to Welsh problems.

Welsh young offenders and women offenders are being sent over the border to England, a damning indictment of the policy currently applied to Wales. Devolution of the prison estate and the criminal justice system must be a priority for the sake of offenders, taxpayers and the communities afflicted by the UK Government’s super-prison policies.

Piling thousands of prisoners on top of each other in these titan prisons is not conducive to rehabilitation or safety, be it for those detained or for those doing the detaining. Relying on some modern-day digital panopticon for the safety and operation of our prisons is neither sensible nor appropriate. All the evidence shows that smaller, more human prisons that do not put economies of scale ahead of outcomes are what our prison estates need.

I close with a plea to the UK and Welsh Governments: listen to the 9,000 signatories to the petition against the Port Talbot prison; listen to the experts from every inch of the political spectrum who advise against these behemoth prisons; listen to the former inmates; listen to the residents; and listen to Wales. We will not become England’s penal colony.

HMP Birmingham

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have discussed the issue the hon. Lady mentions with Lord Woolf. She is right that the disturbance at HMP Birmingham was very serious; that is why we are investing £1.3 billion in our prison build programme to create extra capacity and eliminate overcrowding in the prison estate.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

The Howard League published a report in the summer indicating all Welsh prisons had seen a fall in the number of officers compared with last year, so what is the Secretary of State doing to ensure the Welsh prison estate is equipped with sufficient staff, especially as it is the policy of the UK Government to build in Wrexham a Titan prison, one of the largest in Europe, primarily, as she has said in this debate, to house prisoners from overcrowded prisons in England?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We have great recruitment plans and programmes in place. We have already recruited a significant number for the first 10 prisons, including one in Wales, and we will follow that through with new apprenticeship programmes and graduate entry programmes and by making sure staff in our prison service are able to gain promotion and get the training they need to progress.

Policing and Crime Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I understand that the very fact of having to work to, and be answerable to, two agendas is the reason our colleagues in the Assembly, and the four police and crime commissioners in Wales, are calling for the devolution of policing.

What I am describing contrasts starkly with the situation in Wales. Power over policing is due to be devolved to English city regions: Manchester and Liverpool, for example. The present approach to devolution has been criticised in a House of Lords Constitutional Committee report, published last month, which described it as piecemeal and lacking a coherent vision. I would strongly argue that the devolution of policing to Wales would benefit the people of Wales, and that they are ill served by the antiquated England and Wales arrangement, which, inevitably, is designed with the priorities of English cities in mind.

Our demographics are different in Wales. The need to maintain effective services in rural areas with scattered populations cries out for better consideration. The impact of tourism—populations rocket at bank holidays and in summer months—stretches resources to the limit. Abersoch, in my constituency, has 1,000 year-round residents, yet North Wales police have to deal with an influx of 20,000 visitors in the summer season. I went on patrol with officers last August, and saw that drunken behaviour meant that police officers had to focus attention on that one community, travelling for hours back and forth along country roads to the nearest custody cells 30 miles away. The current arrangement of policing in England and Wales is dominated by English metropolitan concerns, and fails to provide for Wales's needs.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

My hon. Friend is making very strong points. Only recently, the UK Government introduced centralised helicopter services for the police in England and Wales. That did not affect Scotland and Northern Ireland, because their police forces were decentralised. They kept their helicopters, but we lost ours in Dyfed-Powys. Ministers should not smirk; this affects lives in my constituency. The police force in Dyfed-Powys called out the helicopter on more than 40 occasions, and it was sent out on only a handful of them.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. This is not like you, Mr Edwards. If you want to speak, you are allowed to speak, but you cannot make a speech and get carried away and start pointing at the Minister. Let us try to keep it calm. If you want to raise any points, there will certainly be time for you to do so. We will not miss you out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

I am absolutely not targeting the women at all. This is about the organised crime that is creating the number, printing the card, placing the card, and victimising the woman. It is about cutting off their access to cash, and therefore restricting their ability to build a business off the back of this free advertising.

Eventually, after a two-year campaign, we got the offence made illegal. I was helped by friends in the House of Lords. The night that it was enacted by Her Majesty the Queen, we arrested the first carder—an Italian law student. I remember it well. He was bailed and disappeared back to Italy. The very next week, I had a meeting with the mobile phone companies and they completely welched on the deal. They did not realise that we would get it done, and that by campaigning for two years and by having a bit of gumption, we would manage to achieve our goal.

[Jonathan Edwards]

The use of the term “welching” in that context is deeply disrespectful to the people of my country, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his comment.

[Kit Malthouse]

I do unreservedly withdraw it. It was an unfortunate use of the word. I think that the spelling is different, but the hon. Gentleman is quite right. Let me say that the phone companies reneged on the deal—I ask him to forgive me. It is a word in common parlance, but I should not have used it.

The phone companies completely reneged on the deal. As a result, I have been waiting for the opportunity to try to put to the Government the idea that there is this solution to the problem. I present here a simple solution, which is, effectively, if the chief officer of police finds a number being advertised in their area for the purposes of prostitution, they can apply to a magistrate to have the number barred. That means that both the police officer and the magistrate have to judge whether that is a measured thing to do; it is not automatic. It is for the police to decide. I would advise the police officers to warn the owner of the number that this is about to happen before they do it. It is a relatively simple solution, and I guarantee that it will result in the disappearance of these cards from Liverpool, Manchester, the west end or wherever they may be.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is right that the scheme could be extended. There could be numbers used for dealing drugs and for selling cigarettes. Numbers for prostitution and drugs could be on the internet. People can access such numbers quite freely at the moment. We need to cut the numbers. If we do it swiftly, we will certainly go a huge way towards suppressing the activity and making it difficult for criminal and customer to connect. I do not intend to press my amendment to a vote, but I ask the Government to look at it—the Minister has promised to do so—and hopefully it will come back in the Lords.

I have tabled another two new clauses. You will have noticed, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have had a theme during my time in this House, which is the protection of children. It has alarmed me for some time that the legislation protecting children is elderly, out of date and very patchy. The offence of child cruelty, which I am seeking to raise the tariff for tonight, dates back to the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. It still includes things such as allowing a child to be burned, which used to arise when we sent them up chimneys. The legislation is very elderly and is really not fit for purpose. The last time the sentence for child cruelty was looked at was in 1988. We have not looked at it for nearly 30 years, and yet the number of offences is rising quite significantly. Clearly, the deterrent effect is not working. I am given to understand that the Sentencing Council will review child cruelty over the coming summer. If it does so, we are duty bound to try to give it a bit of headroom and move the tariff up from 10 years to 14 years for the most severe offences.

New clause 15 is about reviewing all child offences. We have been very good in the House in seeking to protect vulnerable groups by legislation generally. If someone commits a crime against someone who is gay because they are gay, they will get an aggravated sentence. Similarly, if they commit a crime against someone who is black because they are black, they will get an aggravated sentence. If they commit an offence against someone on the grounds of their religion, they will get an aggravated sentence. Yet if they commit an offence against a child because they are a child, they will not necessarily get an aggravated sentence.

Children are not a protected group in law, unlike other minority and vulnerable groups, and they should be. I am grateful to Public Bill Office for helping me try to draft an amendment that would allow me to do that. The best way that we could find to do it was to require the Sentencing Council to review all offences for children within 12 months, to allow us all to have our say about aggravating the sentences when offences are committed against children.

I have attempted to insert this principle in previous Bills—principally, in the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. Sadly, the Government would not accept my amendment, which would have ensured that anyone who sold a psychoactive substance to a child would get a stiffer sentence than if they sold it to a 55-year-old man. It seems crazy to me that that would not happen, but the Government would not accept the amendment, so this is my attempt to do something similar.

All my amendments are probing. I am willing to give the Government time, in consultation, to look at them again. I hope that they will come back in the Lords, but if they do not, I gather that, pleasingly, we get a policing and crime Bill along in the House once every six months, so I will get another chance. On that basis, I hope that my hon. Friends will look at the amendments at least and give them a thumbs-up for future consideration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Edwards]

I was not going to make a speech, but I thought I had better use this opportunity to explain further my earlier intervention. Before I do so, I would like to apologise to Mr Deputy Speaker and the Minister. I do not usually make it a rule to get worked up in this place, not least because my mother watches BBC Parliament, but I do get very passionate about the issue of the old Dyfed-Powys police helicopter. I am delighted that the Policing Minister is in his place, because we have debated the issue on several occasions and he was kind enough to meet me during the course of those deliberations.

We lost our helicopter in Dyfed-Powys because policing is not devolved to Wales. Northern Ireland and Scotland have kept their helicopter services, yet Wales has been put in a centralised service called the National Police Air Service, which means that our helicopter has been pooled from Dyfed-Powys. The only figures available from the month of January—the first operational month for NPAS as far as Dyfed-Powys is concerned—show that 86% of requests by police officers in Dyfed-Powys were not honoured by NPAS.

This is not just about police officers not having the service and support that they deserve; the residents of Dyfed-Powys are also clearly being let down. Let us remember that we are now hitting high season, during which the population of Dyfed-Powys will swell considerably, not least with people who will enjoy our fantastic coastline, so use of the helicopter will become far more important.

Devolving policing is not just about securing equality for Wales. It is devolved to Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it will be devolved to cities in England, but why is it not being devolved to Wales?

I am very disappointed that the Labour party is abstaining on this issue, but I am delighted that we have the support of the Lib Dems. Where are the Welsh MPs? Not a single Tory MP who represents a Welsh constituency is here to debate a vital policy issue for my country. Only two Labour MPs from Wales have been in the Chamber—the hon. Members for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones)—and I am delighted that the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) is here as well. These debates will be recorded by the people of Wales and they will be reported by the press, I hope. The people of Wales will draw their own conclusions from the lack of action by the Unionist parties.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

This has been a wide-ranging debate. Before I respond to the many Opposition and Back-Bench amendments in this group, I hope hon. Members will forgive me if I touch briefly on the key Government amendments and new clauses.

--- Later in debate ---

New clause 67 deals with misconduct in a public office. In the last Parliament, we legislated for a new police corruption offence that supplements the common law offence of misconduct in public office and carries a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment. It has been in force since April 2015. New clause 2 covers the devolution of policing, which was raised by the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts). I hope she will forgive my pronunciation of the name of her constituency. Was that close enough? As we discussed in Committee, my pronunciation is poor but I will keep trying. She argued powerfully for the devolution of policing in Wales, but the Government have been clear that in the absence of consensus on the Silk commission’s proposals on this matter, policing should not be devolved to the Welsh Government and National Assembly until such consensus can be reached.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Does the Minister not understand that the Silk commission was in fact a cross-party commission set up by the UK Government and that it included her party?

[Karen Bradley]

I know that the hon. Gentleman feels strongly about this. I also accept his apology from earlier; I can promise him that I was not smirking at anything he was saying. The Policing Minister is here and he will be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman again to discuss the specific issue of the helicopter.

The current England and Wales-wide arrangements for policing work well, and the proponents of devolution have failed adequately to address the significant risks that would arise if those arrangements were disrupted. I disagree with the hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd when she says that policing in England and Wales is set up for urban areas in England. I represent a rural constituency in England, and the way in which policing operates by devolving power to the police and crime commissioners to ensure that we have the right policing for each area is certainly right for my constituency. However, we are debating the Wales Bill tomorrow, and it will be important to debate these matters fully then, as the hon. Member for Rotherham has also suggested.

I am conscious of the time, and I want to try to get through as much of my speech as possible, so I will turn to digital crime issues. We debated in Committee many of the points that have been raised. My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) made very important and powerful points about the law on digital crime. However, I do not accept the premise that the criminal law is defective in this area. It is important to acknowledge that the crimes are the same; the fact that they are committed online does not change anything. I would not wish to create a whole new suite of offences that may confuse the courts and make it more difficult to get convictions.

Access to Justice: Wales

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

One of my first contributions after being elected to the House of Commons in 2010 was to fight in this Chamber on behalf of the two magistrates courts that remained in my constituency: Ammanford and Llandovery. The Government proposed closing those courts on the basis that services would be provided in Carmarthen magistrates court, yet here we are debating the future of that court and the state-of-the-art family, tribunal and probate hearing centre that was opened in Carmarthen by the Lord Chief Justice in 2012. That goes to show, to use a famous Welsh political phrase, that centralisation is a process, not an event. I wonder how long it will be, with services being centralised in Llanelli, before we are arguing about the centralisation of services to Swansea, which is only a dozen miles to the east. It is easy for Ministers and their civil servants to sit here in London and draw lines on a map and crosses through budget lines without understanding the full effect of the changes on the communities we represent.

I oppose the proposals for the west of my country for five primary reasons. First, Carmarthen is the legal capital of the west of my country. It was afforded that status by James I in 1604, when he made it a county corporate by charter. I am struggling to understand why the Minister thinks he knows better than James I. Carmarthen is one of only two towns in Wales that still has a town sheriff, and that gives a clear indication of the importance of the role that Carmarthen has played in the legal system in the west of Wales.

Secondly, the Ministry of Justice has spent £1.7 million on the two courts in Carmarthen in the past seven years, so it would be a colossal waste of money to close those courts following such investment. When the family court was opened in 2012 by the Lord Chief Justice, it was seen as a pathfinder for the future of legal services in Wales and England because of all its video-conferencing technology. The Minister says that such technology is the way forward, but I am informed by magistrates that none of that equipment has actually been installed. I therefore find it difficult to understand how the Minister can make the case for closing that court in Carmarthen—it has just been opened—on the basis of a lack of operational capacity. He will argue that the way forward is remote justice but, as the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen) said, we are talking about areas that are known to have broadband “not spots” and to lack fast mobile provision. It will be difficult to deliver such a legal system in the areas we represent.

Thirdly, Carmarthen is the natural travel hub for the west, north and east of Carmarthenshire. It could take five hours by public transport for someone from Newcastle Emlyn or Llandovery to make it to Llanelli to attend court. The natural transport hub for Carmarthenshire is the county town, so it does not make any sense to close the courts in Carmarthen. Fourthly, as has been mentioned—

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

Order. To get all hon. Members in, we will need to move on. I call Liz Saville Roberts.

Police Funding Formula

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

There are more efficiencies that can be done without affecting front-line policing. Actually, some of the technology that is coming through will aid front-line policing, not least the body-worn video cameras. I intend to work with all 43 police and crime commissioners and their chief constables, and with Devon and Cornwall in particular, as they have some very good statisticians.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

The residents of Dyfed-Powys already contribute far more per head for their policing than those living in large urban areas in England. Will the Minister ensure that the new formula takes into consideration the extra costs of policing an area such as Dyfed-Powys, which covers two thirds of Wales, especially the extra infrastructure required to secure an effective emergency response?

[Mike Penning]

As I said earlier, one reason that people were calling for a new funding formula was the need to take into account the effects of modern policing in rural communities. That is exactly what we will do.