Child Rape Gangs
Joy Morrissey Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Jess Phillips
What we have proposed is better because it is about acting now in areas where it is needed. We have already had a national inquiry, which took seven years and wrote a 200-page dossier on group-based sexual abuse—[Interruption.] There was a 200-page dossier specifically on that, and it took two years just to do that, and it made really good recommendations. I genuinely believe that the best thing for me to do is crack on with them.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
Will the Minister provide assurances from the Dispatch Box as to how the Government will compel councils—like Bradford, which has refused to participate in this inquiry or in a local inquiry—to take part? It may seem self-evident, but councils that are liable for child protection and that are found at fault are probably not going to want to participate in a local inquiry. That is why we are asking for a national inquiry. Will the Minister please set out what the Government are going to do to compel those councils to give evidence so that justice can be served for the victims?
Jess Phillips
I will wait for the review being undertaken by Baroness Casey and look at what it tells me, and then I will act on that.
Violent Disorder
Joy Morrissey Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Yvette Cooper
My hon. Friend is right that there has been continual misinformation about this—often deliberate misinformation. Those who made the decision to get involved in violent disorder—attacks on the police, attacks on shops, the looting and the disgraceful behaviour —have to take responsibility for their own actions. They cannot blame things that they saw online for that.
Equally, we have also made it clear that what is criminal offline is also criminal online. There is an important responsibility on those posting online and also on the social media companies to make sure that criminal content is taken down.
My hon. Friend is also right: we should be able to have a serious debate about issues around immigration, asylum, and the stronger border controls that this Government want to introduce, but that is separate from the kind of violent disorder that we saw. Nobody should use policy issues around crime, policing, or any other issue as being an excuse for violence on our streets.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
What percentage of these cases were dealt with by district judges rather than lay magistrates, and where was that change made in the CPS? And will those changes be applied to new disorders, for example those committed by Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil, and will they be applied to the Manchester airport incident?
Yvette Cooper
The hon. Member will know that decisions on charging and on which courts take the decisions is not a matter for Government and rightly so. Those are independent matters for the CPS and for the courts and the judicial system. I am happy to write to her with detailed information about the numbers of cases that have been dealt with in the different courts, as I do not have that to hand.