Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

I can give my hon. Friend good news on that front. Under this Government we have rolled out the liaison and diversion service—only last week, I visited the excellent scheme up in Wakefield—which is going to cover 50% of the country. It has made very good progress and is an excellent example of partnership working, and I look to seeing it expanded further.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

9. What steps he plans to take to ensure access to justice regardless of ability to pay.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

The Government’s reform programme to promote access to justice aims to deliver a justice system that is more accessible to the public. It aims to support people in resolving their disputes through simpler, more informal remedies, and to limit the scope for inappropriate litigation and the involvement of lawyers in issues which do not need legal input.

[Julie Hilling]

Let me give the Minister one more chance to answer a question on last week’s Justice Committee report on the civil legal aid cuts, which revealed that the Government have failed to achieve all three of their targets. Can the Minister confirm that there has been an underspend in the legal aid budget, and that exceptional case funding has failed to achieve the aim of protecting access to justice for the most vulnerable?

[Mr Vara]

For the benefit of the hon. Lady, let me say once again that if it were not for the Government whom she supported causing the mess that they did, we would not have been obliged to make the cuts we have had to make. Despite making them, we still have one of the most generous legal aid budgets in the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the campaigning work she has done on this subject. The type of crime she describes is just as illegal if it is done online as it would be if it was done face to face. We are trying to support everybody, but there are difficulties, not least in getting people to come forward. TrackMyCrime will help. If a crime has been perpetrated in a domestic situation, for instance, people can get the e-mails at work; it is their choice where they get the information from.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

21. Further to that point, what discussion has the Minister had with colleagues in the Home Office about how victims of cybercrime and other fraud are being treated by Action Fraud, when they are not even told whether their case is being investigated, let alone prosecuted?

[Mike Penning]

I am a Minister in the Home Office, as I am sure you are aware, Mr Speaker, as well as the Ministry of Justice, so I am very close to this issue. Through TrackMyCrime people will know exactly where in the criminal justice system their case lies. Across the House, we should congratulate Avon and Somerset on bringing forward the initiative, which is now in 43 police authorities around the country.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman says “all the time”. Will he give us a notion of how often that is—once a day, once a week, once a month? How many times have such cases happened since April, for instance? He is giving the impression that they happen all the time, but what does that mean?

[Chris Grayling]

A Minister is confronted by the practical threat of the arrival of a judicial review case virtually every week of the year. It is happening all the time. There are pre-action protocols all the time, and cases are brought regularly. Looking across the majority of a Department’s activities, I would say that Ministers face judicial review very regularly indeed. It happens weeks apart rather than months apart.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous]

I hope that I can reassure the hon. Lady on that point. I understand the concerns that she raises. Is she aware of how the secure college is designed? We will, for example, have 12-bed units for the more vulnerable groups, which could include girls and children under 15. There are 20-bed and 10-bed units. We believe that it will be possible to offer that proper support. The set-up will allow smaller groups of young people to foster that sense of community, belonging and close relationship with those that will be looked after.

[Julie Hilling]

rose—

[Andrew Selous]

I will just finish this point and then I will let the hon. Lady in, not least because her mother is one of my constituents. There will be no occasion when all 300 or so young people will be milling around together in any part of the secure college. I hope that that allays the hon. Lady’s concerns.

[Julie Hilling]

I share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi). Nobody involved in rehabilitation or education has said that this is a good idea. The Minister did not quite answer the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) about whether the teaching staff will be qualified teachers. Moreover, what sort of ratio of children to teachers does he expect in that learning environment?

[Andrew Selous]

As I think the hon. Lady knows, we will be running a competition, and we will be looking for innovation and creativity from providers. We will assess the bids very rigorously on the basis of the best quality of education, so we are a little way off being specific on that at the moment. The hon. Lady will have heard me say very clearly that this is an institution that will have education at its core, and that we would not be doing this if we were not absolutely determined to do better than is currently done on the education front.

Now, if colleagues will allow me, I will make a little progress. Both measures will ensure that girls, and boys aged under 15, receive the tailored support that they need in secure colleges. Throughout the passage of the Bill, and indeed the development of our plans for the secure college pathfinder, we have actively engaged with interested parliamentarians in both Houses and wider stakeholders and experts, including both NHS England and the Department for Education. In the light of the feedback that we have received from peers, we have made changes to the plans to enlarge the site of the pathfinder by two acres to ensure that the younger and more vulnerable groups have sports and recreational facilities near their accommodation, and that there is greater separation between the larger and smaller units on the site. I am therefore satisfied that the secure college pathfinder would be able to deliver a distinct regime that caters for the specific needs of girls and under-15s while always keeping them safe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

The Minister is aware that I am strongly against the creation of his secure college. Of all the witnesses we saw in Committee, not one was in favour of creating this prison for children. Indeed, most considered it a joke as it goes against the evidence and recommendations on rehabilitating vulnerable young children. The Government’s proposal for a secure college will introduce a new and dangerous kind of child custody. The Government plan to detain girls and boys aged between 12 and 17 in a 320-bed prison.

There is no doubt in my mind that if these plans go ahead, younger children will be extremely vulnerable. It is inevitable that they will experience higher levels of intimidation by older children and that their needs will be relegated because of a focus on the majority. Evidence shows that girls and younger children are likely to withdraw by refusing to engage in educational programmes or other activities in that environment, which completely counters the professed reason for creating this prison. There has been no impact assessment, so it is impossible to comprehend the implications for those groups.

Currently, young offender institutions only hold boys over 15 because it is recognised that larger institutions are unsuitable for younger children and girls. Girls and under-15s are currently held in secure training centres or secure children’s homes, which are smaller and have a higher staff-to-child ratio. Why cannot that tried and tested model be allowed to continue?

The reality of the secure college is that girls and younger children will still be sharing the same resources. Yes, they may have segregated use, but they will still see, hear and be intimidated by older boys. The vast majority of girls in the penal system have a history of sexual abuse. Imagine what it will be like for them in a testosterone-fuelled environment of boys trying to out-macho each other for fear of appearing weak. The Minister said that he has daughters so I am sure he can imagine how it will be for those girls when they try to sleep at night. How will they move on from the horrors that plagued their earlier lives or be able to develop as individuals when they are outnumbered by 19 to one?

The idea of a giant prison for children is a bad one. We have excellent youth offending schemes that have very positive results in rehabilitating young people. However, I have been in Parliament long enough to know that once the Government have decided on something, they plough on regardless. I beg the Minister to do the right thing and allow Lords amendment 74 to stand.

[Julie Hilling]

The notion of a secure college is flawed. Nobody except Ministers thinks it is a good idea—no educationalist, nobody who works in young offender institutions, nobody who works in the criminal justice system and nobody who campaigns for improvements in the way we treat children and young people in the criminal justice system. It seems to be based on a notion that going off to boarding school is a good thing, but this is not going to be like Eton. It will bring together large numbers of young people from very disturbed backgrounds who have committed serious offences. That is not a good idea.

Let us think about many of the young people who are in custody. Many have spent time in care and are likely to have had an absent parent. They have probably experienced neglect or abuse, and the prevalence of mental illness is high. Some 86% of young people in the criminal justice system have been excluded from school, 23% have learning difficulties and 36% have borderline learning difficulties. Boys aged 15 to 17 in prison are 18 times more likely to commit suicide than children of the same age in the community, and 11% of children in prison have attempted suicide. Simply trying to put knowledge into these young people without addressing their fundamental issues is doomed to failure. Young people need to be in the right place psychologically before they can start to learn. Simply trying to shove knowledge into young people who are disturbed, who have come from bad backgrounds and whose mental health is rubbish will not work; they need to be in the right place if they are to learn.

The average length of time spent in custody is 79 days, so how are those young people really going to learn a great deal in that period? The Minister talked about young people learning to read in a short period of time. There might be some successes in basic literacy and numeracy, but I do not see how it can work for their wider education process. We will be putting them in a college many miles away from home and the other support services they will need after their time in custody. They will then, after 79 days, have to reintegrate into their old school, or into a new school, and into those support services, which will not be on the doorstep to help them with their drug problems, mental health problems or all the other issues that young people face.

In Committee it was indicated to us that the teaching staff will not necessarily be qualified teachers. We are not sure about that, because the Minister will not tell us. The Government cannot just say that they will leave it until they have had a competition for people to apply to run the institution. Surely to goodness they need to lay down some firm guidelines on the qualifications and experience that those who will be working with the young people should have.

Why on earth will the Government not look at models that actually work? They should look to Scandinavia, where learning environments are in the community, where people down the street will not even know that the house on the corner is a youth custody premises, and where young people are treated holistically so that not just their education is dealt with, but all the other problems that have lead them to offend and have messed up their lives. They need that whole range of support services. We need that sort of therapeutic community, not a place where 320 young people will, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) said, vie for attention and to prove who is the most macho.

I do not believe that a secure college is a place for 15 to 17-year-olds, but it is very definitely not a place for girls and younger children, who should be in the community. The therapeutic programmes that work for young people are those that are close to the community and that are small and specific. As my hon. Friend said, so many of the young women who end up in the penal system have suffered sexual abuse and other forms of physical abuse. The Government should rule out ever putting them in a place with 320 young boys, which would make the experience awful for them.

I do not believe that we will change reoffending by locking up 320 young people together. I do not believe that we will change educational outcomes for those young people by doing that. I really wish that the Government would accept the Lords amendment, but I also wish that they would reconsider the whole proposal. If nobody else thinks that it is going to work, why are the Government arrogant enough to believe that it will? Surely they should start listening to the professionals, to those who work with young people and understand them, and not go ahead with the college, and they should certainly never contemplate putting young children and women into that place.

[Andrew Selous]

I thank hon. Members for their contributions. The Government are committed to improving outcomes for young people in custody. As I said, 68% of young people reoffend within a year of leaving custody, at an average cost of £100,000 a year to the taxpayer. We simply cannot be satisfied with the status quo and need to try something new. Education needs to be at the heart of the offer we put in front of those young people, and so does health.

We have engaged with parliamentarians, stakeholders, practitioners, experts and young offenders themselves on our plans and, in response to Parliament’s concerns, have amended the Bill to ensure that secure college rules are subject to the affirmative procedure to the extent that they authorise the use of force. We want to continue that dialogue as we implement our vision for secure colleges.

I say to the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) that our vision is to have, rather than just a prison with some education in it, a building that is designed as a school—the plans have changed considerably since the first version. We do not think that it is right to educate those young people somewhere with bars on the windows; we think they deserve a better environment in which to learn. The published plans have changed hugely and, as I have said, there will be a considerable health offer within the establishment. Girls are already taught and looked after alongside boys in secure training colleges and children’s homes. We do not expect a delay. Blaby district council supported the proposals unanimously and the local further education college is very supportive of what we are doing.

On the equality impact statement, in accordance with the Ministry of Justice’s duties under the Equality Act 2010, we considered the impact of the proposals set out in the Government response to the transforming youth custody consultation in January 2014. That was made clear in the parliamentary question, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, on 16 June. I say to the other Members who spoke from the Opposition Benches that girls are already in youth custody, in secure training centres and in secure children’s homes, and many are sentenced there for a considerable time. We have a duty to give them a better offer. What we do at the moment is simply not good enough, and it costs us a huge amount of money. A Government with ambition are right to try to do the best for those young people.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 74.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Last but not least, Julie Hilling.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

The Joint Committee on Human Rights has reported that the Government do not appear to have carried out an equality impact assessment of secure colleges. Many experts, and many in this House, are concerned about the impact of those colleges on girls and young children. Why has no impact assessment been carried out and what is the Minister going to do about it?

[Andrew Selous]

Any introduction of under-15s and girls to those colleges would be carefully phased; they would not be placed in such a college from its opening. At the moment, seven out of 10 young offenders reoffend within a year. They cost on average £100,000 and sometimes up to £200,000. The hon. Lady will know very well that details of assessments have generally not been released by any Government.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Robert Neill]

I am sorry to say—perhaps not for the first time—gently, and with the affection of one legal professional to another, that the hon. Gentleman rather misses the point. We all want good decision making and nobody is saying that there is not a role for judicial review. When I listen to some of the rhetoric from the Labour Benches, I am tempted to think that my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor is proposing to abolish judicial review. No such thing is proposed and it is nonsense to say so. But there has been a significant degree of mission creep, to use a popular term, in judicial review. It is reasonable to say that that now needs to be rolled back. That is what the Bill seeks to do.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that the real risk here is that those people who are least able to access justice—people with the least means to pay for advice—are the most likely to be squeezed? I hope later to give examples of where judicial review has really helped the little people. The problem with these clauses is that we risk giving ordinary people less access to justice.

[Robert Neill]

I cannot say that that has been my experience. If we were removing the process of judicial review and challenge, that would be a legitimate criticism. But we are not. To change a threshold around, for example, the “highly likely” test does not exclude a deserving case from seeking remedy. To deal with the issue of interveners does not remove a deserving case from the prospect of remedy through judicial review. If it imposes a degree of discipline in the thinking behind the bringing of such challenges, that is a good thing and we should not apologise for it.

[Julie Hilling]

But the issue is who will pay for the interveners for those people who have least access to finance and justice. Interveners will be allowed but who will foot the bill for people who do not have the means to pay?

[Robert Neill]

With respect to the hon. Lady, it is seldom persons in that category who are the interveners; they are much more likely to be the bringers of the review. I will come to the role of interveners in a moment, but let me finish the point about the way in which there has been mission creep in judicial review and the sometimes damaging effect that that has on the decision-making process.

The situation is a little like what we found with local government finance at one time, when officials tended to play tick the box so that someone qualified for the right number of grants. There is an element of that sometimes in the decision-making process, where decisions are always taken with an eye over the shoulder at the risk of judicial review rather than getting to the merits of the matter. If these clauses help, as I think they will, to move away from that culture, that is a good thing, as it will then encourage imaginative and radical, but always fact-based, decision making. It will always have to be fact-based because, after all, the Wednesbury reasonableness test is unchanged; it remains in any event. There will always be scope for challenge of irrational decisions, or of decisions that are genuinely not based on evidence. But removing the threat of judicial review to the extent that it now hangs over decision makers is sensible and proportionate.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Morris]

I will not give way again. I am drawing my remarks to a conclusion.

We should not create an environment in which people have the expectation that going for a judicial review will somehow impact on a decision. I welcome the changes in the Bill. We need to improve the balance between judicial review and local democratic accountability to enable public bodies to make long-term decisions on behalf of communities and constituents.

[Julie Hilling]

I rise to speak with some trepidation as I face a Chamber full of lawyers and barristers; I am neither, and never have been. I want to put it on the record that I am a member of the Howard League for Penal Reform.

All those who gave evidence to the Bill Committee spoke as one against the clauses under discussion. They said that the Government should not be making such moves. This is one of the nastiest bits of the Bill: it is very much a David and Goliath situation. From my perspective, and that of my constituents, the Government have already curtailed legal aid, and are now further curtailing access to justice. I understand why the Government want these changes. As a parent, an employer or a Minister, we never want our decisions to be challenged. I am sure that when Labour is in power, I will not want our decisions to be challenged. However, politicians are not always right. I know that that might come as a dreadful shock, but it is the truth.

Interestingly, Government Members on the Bill Committee were very concerned that interventions were coming from some of the most dreadful left-wing groups; in fact, the challenges came from everywhere. People were saying, “Actually you have got things wrong and we want them to be looked at again.” This is about people having access to justice and being able to go to judicial review; it is about David being able to stand up to Goliath. Those organisations that are prepared to support people are helping to hold the powerful to account. They are organisations that Members on both sides of the Chamber support, through subscriptions and fund raising, to help those who are least able to find the financial means to take their cases to court.

Much of this Bill is about secrecy and limiting access to justice, but David does need help to fight Goliath. By placing financial barriers in the Bill, we are saying that those organisations should not be part of our judicial system, but they are the part of civil society that ensures that society stays civilised. They are not a barrier to ensuring that the law is imparted properly, but part of ensuring that everyone in this country, whatever their means, has access to justice.

The Howard League, in its evidence, said that when experts receive permission to address the court through the provision of argument or evidence, they do so neutrally with the aim of assisting the court, and I very much believe in that. It has always been an established principle that the loser pays the winner’s costs, yet neutral interveners are unable to win or lose as another party may, and are almost always unable to recoup their costs. The proposals reinforce the position, and even make it worse, as they put additional costs against the interveners.

The proposals create perverse incentives. The better the case put forward, the more chance of higher costs being charged against the interveners. Let us think about those situations in which third parties have intervened. Last year, the Howard League intervened in a successful case brought by Just for Kids, which established the right of 17-year-olds to see an appropriate adult on being taken into police custody. Members might remember the tragic deaths of two 17-year-olds who were denied that right. In that case, the court recognised that many important arguments emerged from the intervener’s submissions. The Howard League said:

“It would have been perverse for the charity to be saddled with the costs of the government in responding to our legitimate and expert legal argument that was designed to aid the court in its decision making.”

The changes to the cost rules on interventions go directly against the advice of senior judiciary in their response to the Government consultation on the reform of judicial review in September 2013. Indeed, the courts can already impose cost orders against third parties, but the fact that such orders are rarely made shows that courts benefit from hearing from third parties.

Given that the Government took the advice of the judiciary not to bar third sector organisations from bringing claims by changing the rules on standing, the decision to introduce onerous cost consequences for those seeking merely to assist the court defies logic.

[Mr Redwood]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the main way in which our constituents should get redress from bad decisions, or influence bad decisions in a better direction, is through the representation of their MP or councillor?

[Julie Hilling]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but he puts forward a false position. In this House, I can speak on behalf of my constituents and attempt to get Ministers to act on their behalf, but I cannot overthrow the rule of the court. We can of course attempt to change the law in future cases, but it is judicial review that enables our constituents to have recourse to justice, ensuring that justice works on their behalf, not just on behalf of the state.

I wanted to give a number of other examples of where judicial review has been used, but I will instead finish by saying that the Government should be ashamed that they are taking these steps to limit even further access to justice. They are further limiting the ability of the ordinary person to challenge the state and to say, “Actually, you’ve got it wrong on this occasion.” We will have better law and better justice if we do not curtail access for those who need it the most. I am most concerned about the little people at the bottom who will, thanks to these measures, not be able to access justice. I hope that the Government will see reason and accept our amendments. If they want to ensure that we continue to have a civilised society, they must support access to justice, and they must support David against Goliath.

[Mr Vara]

I thank all those who have contributed to the debate, and I hope that I can put on the record at least some of the points that I wish to make before the clock runs out at 2.39 pm. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) and, through him, the legal fraternity for all their help in ensuring that we have tidied up some matters relating to planning.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. I have never said that people should not be imprisoned. When people commit serious offences, or repeat an offence, they should be given prison sentences. My point is that we incarcerate too many people for far too long. No one here will disagree with that point—[Interruption.] Well, some seem to think that people should be in prison for ever. But we know that if we bang people up for a long time, it just costs hundreds of thousands of pounds, whereas if they are on the outside and we help them by rehabilitating them and perhaps finding them accommodation and a job, their lives can turn around. That is where the money should go, but that does not take away from the fact that some people should be imprisoned for a long time, depending on the seriousness of their offences.

[Julie Hilling]

Does my hon. Friend agree that some people, both young and older, need to be removed from society, but where we put them while we attempt to rehabilitate them is an important factor? Putting a lot of young people together in a secure college does not work. The most effective form of “treatment” for young offenders is small units where they can get individual attention and help to divert them from the path of offending.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

rose—

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not accept that magistrates are not told why people have already cited exceptional circumstances? The magistrate has no idea what previous plea of exceptional circumstance was given. My amendment is about that issue, so that magistrates are made aware.

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Lady has just made a wider point than would apply simply to the single justice procedure. The point we are addressing in relation to her amendment is that there should be no significant disadvantage for those who are dealt with under the single justice procedure; nor should there be any disadvantage to the court under that procedure in ascertaining the facts of the case. If someone were wanting to assert particular hardship, which might exclude the possibility of disqualification, they would need to come to court and do it themselves. The court should then do the necessary investigations. However, I take her point and will consider carefully whether there are improvements that we can make to more general procedures.

Amendment 9 is also related to the single justice procedure. It would introduce a new requirement that the documents sent to the defendant with the single justice procedure notice should include a submission from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to the court informing the court of any penalty points on the defendant’s driver record. I agree that up-to-date DVLA information is important when deciding the sentence for such offences. The House is aware that that very issue was raised in Committee, and as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), made clear, our intention then was to consider the point further.

Under the existing procedure, when dealing with an offender in their absence, courts are able to check the DVLA position when sentencing for certain road traffic offences—we have discussed that point and, as I said, I accept that it is important that they are able to do the same under the new procedure. We need to ensure that the legislation allows for that in cases dealt with under the new single justice procedure as well. As I said, we have undertaken to look at the matter, and it is still under consideration. We will ensure the necessary consideration. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Member for Bolton West and her colleague the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), whom I do not see here, will be satisfied.

New clause 10 makes an amendment to schedule 21 to the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which provides guidance to the courts in assessing the seriousness of all cases of murder in order to determine the appropriate minimum term to be imposed under the mandatory life sentence. The amendment would raise the starting point for offenders aged 21 and over from 30 years to a whole life order for the murder of a police or prison officer in the course of his or her duty.

I do not need to remind the House of the vital role that those officers play every day in keeping our communities safe and in managing difficult and dangerous offenders. Tragically, some officers have paid the ultimate price while carrying out these duties on our behalf. The Government consider it essential that those officers feel the full weight of the state behind them in the execution of their duties. Changing the starting point to a whole life order for those who murder police and prison officers will send a powerful message of support for the work that those vital public servants do. It will show that we place the highest value on their safety and that we recognise the dangerous job they perform on a daily basis.

Those officers can be distinguished from other public servants by the role they perform in terms of routine contact with dangerous offenders. Their daily duties and risks mean that they stand apart from others. That unique and important status should be recognised, and those who murder police or prison officers on duty should know that they face the most severe sentence possible under the law. I should make it clear that the change in the law does not necessarily mean that a whole life order will be imposed in every case involving the murder of a police or prison officer in the course of duty. The court must always have the discretion to impose the appropriate sentence based on all the facts of each case, but offenders should be in no doubt that they face the severest consequences for such murders. I therefore hope that the House will support the new clause.

Finally, new clause 11 is designed to close a gap in the sentencing power of criminal courts that could prevent an adequate sentence being imposed where it turns out that the offending is more serious than it appeared when the case was initially accepted by the youth court. We believe the gap might tend to undermine efforts to encourage youth courts to try grave crimes in suitable cases and might restrict sentencing powers unduly. The category of offences that includes cases such as those that involve allegations of serious sexual offending against under-18s, for example—also known as grave crimes—are serious enough to be capable of being sent to the Crown court for trial, but not all of them necessarily require the highest sentencing powers of the Crown court. It might be possible to deal with some of them satisfactorily using sentencing options available in the youth court, and if so there is an advantage in retaining them in the youth court. The youth court is particularly attuned to inquiries into the alleged activities of children, and serious sexual offences can be tried there by authorised district judges who have been specially trained to deal with them.

A defendant under 18 charged with such an offence is invited to indicate a plea, and when a guilty plea is indicated the youth court may commit him or her to the Crown court for sentence where appropriate. On the other hand, if the indication is not guilty and the youth court decides to retain the case and tries and convicts the defendant, there is no general power to commit the offender to the Crown court for sentence. That means that if information emerges during the trial that suggests that a more severe sentence is appropriate, the youth court will simply have to make do with its own sentencing powers. The only exception is when the conditions for imposing an extended determinate sentence are met, but they are stringent. That is at odds with the position for adults, where there is a general power to commit cases to the Crown court for sentence, not merely after a guilty plea.

It is possible that the absence of a safety net allowing for committal for sentence leads youth courts to be unnecessarily cautious in deciding whether to retain grave sexual crimes. A provision permitting committal to the Crown court for sentence whenever a defendant is convicted of a grave crime in the youth court, as is already possible after a guilty plea indication, might encourage the youth court to retain more cases and ensure adequate sentencing powers are available in every case. I hope that the House will therefore support new clause 11.

--- Later in debate ---

I would love it if we could get things on the statute book before the general election. I understand that the processes of law are very slow, but I hope that we can have cross-party consensus for this part of the review. Knowing that all three parties are signed up to change will be a great comfort for the families.

[Julie Hilling]

I wish to talk specifically to amendments 8 and 9 that are in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane). There is something very strange happening with driving penalties. The law says that a driver should be banned if they receive 12 points on their licence, unless they would face exceptional hardship. It also says that the same plea for exceptional hardship should be used only once. I would not be surprised if there were a few people driving legally with 15 points, but I would not expect there to be 8,000 people frequently driving with many more points. I would not expect a person in Liverpool to be driving with 47 points on their licence, or a woman in Bolton to be driving with 27 points on her licence. I wonder how many pleas of exceptional hardship they have made. I am not sure I could even think up that many pleas to put before the courts.

Exceptional hardship is not about losing one’s job, but it could be about losing one’s home or about other people losing their job. The terms of exceptional hardship are very narrow, so why did the Squeeze singer Chris Difford escape a driving ban after pleading that it would cause exceptional hardship as he would no longer be able to travel the country playing gigs? The 47-year-old earns up to £100,000 a year performing around the country and was caught doing 88 mph on a 70 mph road.

The son of Tony Christie, famous for his song “Is this the way to Amarillo” claimed exceptional hardship because he would not be able to drive his dad to gigs after he totted up 25 points. The jockey Kieren Fallon escaped a driving ban after he claimed that it would cause exceptional hardship because the state of the racing industry was such that he could not afford a full-time driver. Premiership footballer Zak Whitbread, who admitted speeding at 97 mph with 17 points already on his licence, escaped a ban after saying that he would not be able to find another football job if he could not drive.

There are many other cases of people who have escaped bans. Not all of those 8,000 people are famous, but often they are rich enough to pay a good barrister to get them off. Alex Williams, the Tory candidate for Stretford and Urmston at the last general election, got off because he said that he would not be able to afford to pay his £2,000 a month mortgage if he could not drive. I do not understand why those people could not pay somebody to drive them around. They could have taken a taxi, train or bus like the rest of us.

As I have already said, drivers cannot use the same exceptional hardship plea each time they are taken to court, but there is no central record of which plea has been used. There is also no record of whether these drivers are involved in later accidents. If a driver can clock up 47, 27 or even just 15 points, they must have a disregard for the law and therefore pose a risk to other road users.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her campaign in her constituency. When the points system was established, it was never intended that so many people would get away with so many sob stories, and that we would have so many thousands of people driving on our roads. Magistrates do not know, because the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has not informed them, that sob stories are repeated and used time and again.

[Julie Hilling]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I remember the days of endorsements. We introduced the points system to give us more flexibility, but 12 points was regarded as the threshold for losing one’s licence. If more people are driving around with more than 12 points on their licence, it lessens the effect of the deterrent. It may lead people to think, “Perhaps I can get away with driving around with more than 12 points on my licence.” The whole threat of people losing their licence after 12 points, so therefore driving within the law, has been weakened.

Of course we need to tackle the sentencing of people convicted of causing death or serious injury by dangerous driving or driving while banned, but the whole issue of driving offences—and the way that cars can be used as weapons—needs to be addressed. We need drivers to realise, at every level of offence, that bad behaviour will be punished in order to make our roads safer. The Bolton News, my local daily paper, has been campaigning on this issue for some time. It ran a survey a while ago in which 83% of people agreed that 12 points should mean that drivers are banned. There is real support for that proposition.

We know that young people aged 15 to 24 are more likely to die in road accidents than as a result of any other single cause and, sadly, the number of deaths is increasing. Of course we need justice for those who have lost loved ones, but we also need deterrence. We have to take road safety and driver behaviour seriously, and do everything we can across the spectrum, from the point at which people start offending behaviour in a car to the final catastrophic effect of a terrible accident.

I have been trying to raise the issue of 12 points in various ways for several years, often with the support of Brake. Transport Ministers told me to speak to Justice Ministers, who told me to talk to the Sentencing Council, which told me to go back and speak to Transport Ministers. I am therefore relieved to have a place in which to raise this issue, although I accept—given what the Minister said—that the issue will not be solved in its entirety. I have spoken to magistrates and the Institute of Advanced Motorists about this very issue, and they are very concerned about it. The magistrates raised the issue of the difficulty of getting accurate information from the DVLA about the number of points that a driver has. Secondly, magistrates are concerned that there is no record of the pleas used. Although a driver cannot officially use the same plea of exceptional hardship, the magistrates have no way of knowing whether it has been used before. Thirdly, the magistrates worry about a lack of consistency. Different magistrates accept different pleas of exceptional hardship, so some drivers are allowed to keep their licence in some courts whereas others in other courts are not.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I am listening with great interest to the hon. Lady’s excellent speech, and I am very sympathetic to the important points that she makes. One other area she might want to consider is whether the police national computer, which records the previous convictions of everybody in England and Wales, should be enhanced so that exceptional circumstance pleas could be set out briefly in a document which would then be put before any court considering a fresh application.

[Julie Hilling]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting and important point. However we capture such information, it needs to be made available to magistrates, and that is an excellent suggestion.

I accept that the amendments would not solve all of the problems that I want to address of people driving with more than 12 points on their licences, of consistency of sentencing and of magistrates having the correct information. If the Minister will specifically commit to looking at the issue of 12 points and sentencing, I will not press my amendment to a vote.

[Dr Huppert]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) who spoke so clearly on this issue. I agreed with much of what she said about this huge problem. It is astonishing how many people get off time after time. Some law firms even advertise their incredible success rates in achieving that, which we do not want to see.

There may be extenuating circumstances or special cases occasionally, but once someone has said they know they should be banned, and then makes a desperate plea, they should be more careful afterwards. It is not impossible to drive for quite a long time without breaking any rules or getting any points on your licence—some people have clean driving licences. Certainly if I had nine points, or even 12 points, I would try very hard indeed not to speed or drive dangerously. I hope that the Minister will listen carefully to the review.

I have a couple of pedantic points about the hon. Lady’s amendment, as I do not think it covers everything that it needs to. However, that is not the point for today. I hope that we can get the right changes that most of the House would want to see. I welcome the Government’s announcement of a review, and I hope that it will be a substantial review. I also hope that the Minister is successful in obtaining parliamentary time to ensure that the results of the review become law. A review will not solve the problem on its own.

I pay tribute to the work done by the CTC’s road justice campaign, which produced an excellent report called “Road Justice: the role of the police”—I know that the Minister has had some discussions with that organisation—which looked not only at the legal aspects, but at the role of the police and the prosecution. The law is not the only issue. Too often, especially when pedestrians or cyclists are the victims of collisions, the police do not investigate sufficiently to allow charges to be brought. In several cases, people have come to my surgery having been involved in a collision in which someone else behaved very dangerously and the police simply were not interested in doing the basic groundwork, such as taking photographs of the scene at the time. There is very little point us getting the law right if the police do not investigate and prosecutors do not take action. I know that the Minister is not responsible for the police, but I hope the review will look more broadly at the issue to ensure that its proposals will make a difference.

The campaign has had some 12,000 signatures, so we need some action in response. Some of the cases are astonishing. In one case, a gentleman had been drinking and smoking cannabis and then was speeding, with his girlfriend riding pillion, and crashed and killed a pedestrian. He had 45 previous traffic offences but apparently there was not enough evidence to charge him with causing death by dangerous driving, even though there was a clear cause of death—dangerous driving—and he had a long track record. He did get 18 months in jail, but the fact that prosecutors did not even feel able to bring a charge of death by dangerous driving is a problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Wright]

As I have tried to indicate to the hon. Gentleman, I would want to look at all those things. He is right—I do not know. We have to look at the matter carefully and I am sure he would want us to do that. Between the point at which he decided to table new clause 22 and this debate taking place, there has not been an opportunity to do that work, which we would want to do. He is welcome to continue looking a gift horse in the mouth if he so wishes, but what I am saying to him, I hope very clearly, is that we are certainly not shutting the door on what he is proposing, but neither are we going to accept it today without doing the proper work. No responsible Government could do otherwise. He may or may not want to be part of a responsible Government, and if it is not a responsible Government, he may want to do things differently, but that is the way we do things for as long as we are in government.

Let me move on to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood. Again, he spoke movingly, as he has before, of justice for Ross and Clare Simons. He also made the case for including in the review the issues of death by dangerous driving by those who are disqualified, and we will certainly consider that matter also.

The hon. Member for Bolton West (Julie Hilling) made, as she has done before, a good case in relation to those who have multiple points on their licence and are somehow not yet disqualified. She is right to be concerned about that, as are we. We would want to consider that matter, too, at greater length. There is, as she knows and as I have said to her before, an issue in relation to how much we can sensibly trespass on judicial discretion. In each and every case a bench of magistrates would have to have concluded that the exceptional hardship case was made out, such that they thought it appropriate not to disqualify in those cases. There will always be exceptional cases, but her argument is that those cases should, indeed, be exceptional; they should not be regular, and I have a good deal of sympathy for that view. The specific point around exceptional hardship claims—

[Julie Hilling]

Does the Minister therefore think that perhaps a stronger direction should be given to magistrates on what should be exceptional hardship?

[Jeremy Wright]

I would be wary of doing that, but we can look at how we ensure that magistrates are doing all necessary due diligence on the nature of past exceptional hardship claims, perhaps before other benches. That was the hon. Lady’s second point that I was just coming on to. There is something in that. We need to consider how to ensure that benches take the opportunity to look carefully at what has been said to their brethren in other cases involving the same defendant, who may be running the same argument on exceptional hardship multiple times and continually avoiding disqualification. We will need to look carefully at that.

That does not mean that running the same argument cannot necessarily amount to exceptional hardship more than once—again, that is a matter for each bench to determine—but they should do so, as she says, with their eyes open and in possession of all the relevant facts. We will look at whether there are ways in which we can ensure that they do more to get those facts. However, it is not the case that they do not have access to those facts now. The DVLA already retains the information on whether an exceptional hardship claim has been made by the same defendant in a previous case. It is there to be looked at, but further inquiries may then be necessary to find out exactly what was said in the making of that exceptional hardship claim. We will take that away and look at it. As I have already said, there is a good case for including in the review the hon. Lady’s point about multiple points on a licence and the totting-up offences.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) made a number of points around the vulnerability of cyclists, with which, of course, I agree. We must always be conscious of that, not just in the Ministry of Justice but in other Departments too, as I know colleagues in the Department for Transport in particular are. He is right to say that this is not simply about sanctions, but also about changing behaviour. He will recognise that in the Ministry of Justice we are pretty much all about sanctions, so there is a limited amount that can be done by this Department, but certainly in conjunction with other Departments there may be a great deal more that can be done. He will understand, too, that the review will be into the penalties available to the judiciary under the criminal law. It will not, of course, sensibly be able to reach wider than that, although he will wish to take advantage of his opportunities to make submissions to it none the less.

My hon. Friend will recognise that new clause 10 deals with the starting point for decisions on the appropriate tariff for a life sentence. We think it appropriate for the reasons that I set out earlier that the starting point for murders of police officers and prison officers should be a whole life tariff, but sentencing judges can move up or down from that starting point as they think fit, and that applies in both directions. If one starts with the murder of a police officer and believes for particular reasons that it is appropriate to go below a whole life tariff, the sentencing judge can do that, and will want to set out why they choose to do that. I anticipate, following this change, that that will be very much the exception, and that as a matter of course, those who are sentenced for murder of a police or prison officer in the performance of their duties should expect to receive a whole life tariff. That is the purpose of this change. But the reason I say that it operates in both directions is that if somebody were to be convicted of murder, not necessarily of a police or prison officer attracting a whole life tariff starting point but a lower starting point, that may still result in a whole life tariff if the judge thought it appropriate to revise that sentence upwards from the starting point. I hope that is helpful to my hon. Friend. With those remarks, again I invite the House to support the Government new clauses, and not the Opposition’s new clause.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 14 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 22

Penalty for driving while disqualified

‘(1) In Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 (prosecution and punishment of offences under the Traffic Acts) in the entry relating to the offence of obtaining licence, or driving, while disqualified, section 103(1)(b) of the Road Traffic Act 1988—

(a) in column 3 leave out “6 months” and insert “12 months”;

(b) in column 2 below “(c) On indictment, in Scotland”, insert “(d) On indictment, in England and Wales”; and

(c) in column 3 below “(c) 12 months or a fine or both” insert “(d) 2 years or a fine or both”.

(2) In relation to an offence committed before section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 comes into force, the reference to 12 months is to be read as reference to six months.

(3) The amendment made by this section applies only in relation to an offence committed on or after the day on which it comes into force.’.

Makes the offence of driving while disqualified triable either way, with a maximum penalty of 2 years’ imprisonment for conviction on indictment.—(Mr Slaughter.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I will be brief so that other colleagues can speak in this important debate. I was pleased that the Front-Bench spokesman gave way to me earlier because, having visited a number of young offenders institutions through my membership of the Justice Committee, I am alarmed by the background of many of the young people in those institutions. They are often the victims of abuse, neglect or simply an uncaring society and a lack of care throughout their lives. They often end up brutalised by the system, then come out and commit further offences. Life gets worse and worse for them.

The endless answer appears to be a bigger and bigger plethora of agencies, contractors and others who are supposed to assist these young people who are going through serious traumas in their lives. One problem is that too many agencies, too many people and too many organisations are intervening, often on a profit-centred basis rather than a care-centred basis. The people who lose out are the young people. The rest of society also loses out because the skills and abilities of those young people are lost to us as they set off on a life of crime and further imprisonment.

The Government now propose these very large secure training colleges. I am appalled by the whole idea. I agree with what has been said from the Opposition Front Bench and by the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) and others. We do not need big institutions, where people get lost, where self-harm takes place and suicides occur, and where bullying and harassment become a daily fact of life. That culture can become a form of control over those within the centres. We need something that is far more caring and far more focused on educational achievement and building social skills for the future.

I will make one last point so that others can contribute to the debate. During the investigation into youth justice, a number of us on the Justice Committee had the good fortune to visit young offenders institutions in Denmark and Norway. That was very instructive. They spend a great deal more money than us on dealing with young offenders. They have much smaller units in which to deal with them. They focus heavily on education and social skill development, and heavily encourage family visits and, where possible, education in a normal college outside the institution. The person who goes through the process of rehabilitation while in custody maintains a high degree of contact with the rest of society, rather than being totally locked away and coming out after some years having lost lots of social skills, if not lots of contacts. The results in Denmark and Norway are very low levels of reoffending compared with what we have, much lower levels of self-harm and attempted suicide, and, in the long run, a much lower level of crime in society.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) pointed to the obsession with the contract culture. That seems to be driving the Ministry of Justice at every turn. There are teams of people in the Ministry of Justice working out how to hive off, sell off, privatise and get rid of services, rather than focusing on the core function, which is the administration of a service and reducing the rate of reoffending—not creating profit centres for companies such as G4S and many others. Please can we not go down that road? I hope that the Minister understands that many of us feel passionately about this. We want to see young people being valued, not having their lives destroyed in these kinds of institutions.

[Julie Hilling]

Nobody except the Minister thinks that secure colleges are a good idea—no educationist, no one who works in young offenders institutions, no one who works in the criminal justice system and no one who campaigns for improvements in the way that we treat children and young people in the justice system.

We do know that the vast majority of young people who end up in the criminal justice system have very poor literacy, numeracy and linguistic skills. The statistics show that 86% of offenders in young offenders institutions have been excluded from school. I maintain that the majority of those young people will have special educational needs because of physical or mental disabilities or emotional difficulties, whether or not those needs have been previously identified. Such children need to be educated in small groups and to do a wide range of activities. Simply sitting them at a desk and expecting them to learn does not work, and it has never worked for them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Victims funding is enormously important. Through the various changes that we have made to the levy on those who are convicted of offences, we have provided far more funding for the support of victims than we ever had before. A couple of weeks ago we announced an additional £13 million worth of funding to ensure what my hon. Friend talked about a moment ago—that we could provide support to those families who are victims of pre-2010 homicides. I have made it clear to the Home Secretary that from the victims funding that I have available, I am also prepared to make additional support available if it is necessary to support victims of modern slavery and human trafficking.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

T2. I am pleased to see that the Government are planning to do more about banned driving, but when will they do anything about the travesty of many thousands of people driving legally with more than 12 points on their licence, including a person in Liverpool driving with 47 points and a woman in Bolton with 27 points?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

The whole House will share the hon. Lady’s concern about these cases, where a large number of points are accumulated by someone who does not end up being disqualified. She will know that courts have discretion not to disqualify in those cases and we cannot affect individual decisions in individual cases. However, as she knows, we will conduct a review of driving offences ranging more widely than the changes that we have announced today, and I think what she has described is a good candidate for inclusion in that review.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Helen Jones]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. He is right that incidents of domestic violence do not always make it to court for a number of reasons, usually involving the vulnerability of the victims, but in such cases the police would have to find credible evidence of domestic violence or drug or alcohol abuse, and that refusal could be challenged in court. As a first premise, we should be clear that we should not put guns in the hands of people with such a record. We know that there are people who need to hold guns for a number of reasons. For example, farmers—some of my relatives are farmers—and vets do, but we should not be putting guns into the hands of people with a record of domestic violence. I hope that in time the Government will see that.

I shall comment briefly on the amendments to deal with child sexual exploitation, particularly amendment 76, which allows closure of premises suspected of harbouring those who have committed child abuse. We know from the cases that have happened in Rochdale, Oxford and other towns in this country how horrific some of this abuse has been. The reviews from Oxford and Rochdale were very clear that certain premises were repeatedly used for grooming and sexual exploitation. It was, in my view, impossible for the proprietors of those premises not to know what was taking place there. In Oxford it was guest houses in particular, and it was horrific beyond belief.

When the Minister responds to the debate, will he clarify one point in particular? For a closure order there has to be reasonable suspicion that a criminal offence has occurred. This could be a sexual offence against a child, but the obvious thing that we are likely to be dealing with in such situations is grooming, and the offence of grooming is quite a hard one to establish. That is why there are few convictions for it. The adult has to have met and communicated with the child twice, and the adult must then meet the child and, at that time, the offender must have the intention of committing a relevant sexual offence.

Perhaps the Minister could clarify for us how the police will have a reasonable suspicion of all aspects of the offence of grooming, and whether the difficulties in establishing this will prevent the power from being used. If that is found to be the case as time goes on, will he undertake to come back to the House with further proposals if necessary? This issue is causing deep disquiet in some of our communities, and rightly so. When we are talking about protecting children, we should err on the side of caution—on the side of children, as it were, rather than anyone else.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Before my hon. Friend sits down, will she say whether she, like me, welcomes Lords amendment 69, which strengthens the penalties for attacks by dogs, but does she regret, as I do, the fact that the Government have not accepted amendments to introduce dog control notices or to continue to review the progress of these changes?

[Helen Jones]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I well recall the horrific case in her constituency. I do regret the fact that the Government did not accept what were reasonable suggestions on that issue. I hope we will be able to return to them in future, because we have seen some awful attacks, against children in particular but also against adults. This is something we will have to deal with in future.

We have reservations about some of the Lords amendments, but all in all we are glad that the Government have accepted them. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply to some of my queries when he sums up.

Dangerous Driving

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I too congratulate the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) on securing this important debate. I want to approach the matter in a slightly different way and to talk a little more about what precedes a death caused by dangerous driving. I want to talk about how we do not take driving laws seriously in this country. We still believe that driving is a right and that, often, laws are there to be broken. Consider the attitude of many hon. Members to speed cameras. People talk about them being cash cows, not recognising them as devices to get us to obey the law or that they are often in place because of long campaigns by local residents about the dangers associated with a particular piece of road. We know that excessive speed is a contributory factor to the vast majority of serious accidents.

I want to talk specifically about the number of people legally driving on our roads at this moment in time with more than 12 points on their licence. A person in Liverpool is driving with 47 points on their licence, a woman in Bolton with 27 points on her licence, and 8,000 other people with more than 12 points. What does that say about the seriousness with which we treat driving laws? The law says that people should be banned when they have 12 points, unless they would face exceptional hardship. Exceptional hardship is not about losing one’s job, but it could be about losing one’s home or other people losing their job.

I wonder why the Squeeze singer, Chris Difford, escaped a driving ban after pleading that it would cause exceptional hardship as he would no longer be able to travel the country playing gigs. The 57-year-old, who earns up to £100,000 a year performing around the country, was caught doing 88 mph on a 70 mph road. The son of Tony Christie, famous for his song “Amarillo”, claimed exceptional hardship because he would not be able to drive his dad to gigs after he had totted up 25 points. The jockey Kieren Fallon escaped a driving ban after he claimed that it would cause exceptional hardship because the state of the racing industry was such that he could not afford a full-time driver. Premiership footballer Zak Whitbread who admitted speeding at 97 mph with 17 points escaped a ban after saying that he would not be able to find another football job if he could not drive. There are many other cases of people who have escaped bans. Not all those 8,000 people are famous, but often they are rich enough to pay a good barrister to get them off.

Drivers cannot use the same exceptional hardship plea each time they are taken to court, but there is no central record of which plea has been used. There is also no record of whether drivers are involved in later accidents. If a driver can clock up 47 points, 27 points, or even just 15 points, it seems to me that they have a disregard for the law and therefore pose a risk to other road users.

We need to tackle not only the sentencing of people convicted of causing death or serious injury by dangerous driving, but the whole issue of driving offences and our attitude to the way cars can be used as weapons. We need drivers to realise at every level of offence that bad behaviour will be punished in order to make our roads safer. Some 83% of the people who took The Bolton News survey believe that 12 points should mean that people are banned. We know that young people aged between 15 and 24 are more likely to die in road traffic accidents than as a result of any other single cause.

We also need to do a great deal more to educate people about the consequences of driving badly. I was visited in my surgery on Friday by the brother of a man who was involved in a road traffic accident 30 years ago. A 14-year-old girl was killed in the accident and the man’s brother—I will call him Peter—suffered devastating injuries. He is now unable to walk properly and cannot go out without assistance. More crucially, he has an acquired brain injury that leaves him dependent on care 24 hours a day. Yes, he got compensation to help pay for the carers, but the money is now running out. His life has been ruined by the accident, and the lives of his parents and siblings have been drastically affected. Of course, a young life was also lost in the accident. What makes it worse is the fact that he was partly to blame, because he was speeding—a Jack the lad who thought that he was invincible. Still, a life was ruined and a life was lost.

For me, this is not just about increasing penalties but about enforcing the law and educating young people about the consequences of road accidents. We need to look at graduated licences for young people. We need to ensure that action is taken rapidly on dangerous roads. I have one such road in my constituency where there have been a number of fatalities, but we have been very slow to alter the road to make it safer.

Of course we need justice for those who have lost loved ones. Yes, we need deterrents, but we know that the number of deaths is sadly increasing. We have to take road safety and driving behaviour seriously and do everything in our power across the whole spectrum, from the point at which people start offending behaviour in a car to the final catastrophic effects of a terrible accident. I urge the Minister to do everything possible to see how we could strengthen legislation to try to stop these terrible accidents happening in our communities.

Shrewsbury 24 (Release of Papers)

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

As the hon. Member for Shrewsbury, this matter is obviously of great interest to me. I want to put into context my initial question to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson). To have a strong debate and a point of view, we need to try to understand the other person’s perspective. That is why I asked him how much time he had spent in Shrewsbury interacting with the local people trying to find out their interpretation of what happened at that time. I say to him, and to other hon. Members, that, being the Member for this beautiful Shropshire town, I have spoken to a lot of my constituents who were there at the time. I was born in 1972 when these incidents occurred, so I have to rely on the first-hand accounts and experiences of my constituents. It was disappointing to have been shouted down by Opposition Members when I tried to make that point.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) said, 1972 was a time of great industrial strife. Some people felt that they had the right to intimidate and use violence to achieve their political objectives. Margaret Thatcher saw the danger to democracy of allowing this to continue. She saw a great danger to our parliamentary process and to the rule of law by not tackling people who felt that the use of violence was a perfectly legitimate tool to pursue their aims. We must not forget how damaging militant trade union vandalism was, and we must never allow it to return.

I spoke to the police officer who was first on the scene, Mr Aubrey Kirkham. He is a respected member of the Shrewsbury community. He described the people descending on our small town that day—400 people, I think he said to me, came on coaches from outside Shropshire—as a “marauding mob”. He felt that they meted out huge intimidation to local people and massive violence to local workers. Police suffered great violence and were massively outnumbered. He told me of one bricklayer from Heathgates in Shrewsbury who had a brick thrown at him for refusing to come down from scaffolding. He subsequently fell and a year later he died. Some of his family think that he died as a direct result of that incident.

Many constituents say that these people have been tried and convicted by a jury, and they are bewildered that this debate has even been called. They think that Parliament should be looking at other, more pressing priorities.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

The issue we are debating is not whether what the hon. Gentleman is saying is correct, or whether what is being said by Opposition Members is correct. If the papers were to be released, we would be able to make that judgment, and that is what we are calling for in this debate.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

If the hon. Lady allows me to finish, I will come on to exactly that point.

Obviously, I have also spoken to many people in the building trade in the past few days, in advance of this debate, for their first-hand accounts. If any hon. Members are genuinely interested in finding out what the people on the ground felt at that time about the violence, I very much hope they will approach me.

Coming on to the point raised by the hon. Lady, the hon. Member for Blaydon asked for the documents to be released. I have two questions. I will be very brief and let other hon. Members contribute. I reiterate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot: we have to ask why, over a long period—the Labour party was in office for three terms—former Labour Lord Chancellors decided not to release this information. That is a perfectly legitimate question to ask. If Opposition Members feel passionately about this issue—I clearly see that they do—they should challenge and scrutinise their colleagues to ask why the Labour Government did not release it.

I am very interested to hear from the Minister whether he will release the documents and, if not, why he is not prepared to release them. I have been approached by constituents who have a different perspective. They feel that they do not want documents to be withheld from the public domain if there is the potential for a cover-up of some kind, or some form of inappropriate behaviour. As a community, I think the argument is evenly balanced in Shrewsbury. There are people who want to remember the violence. We are a wonderful but quiet Salopian town. This was an extraordinary event in our history and they want people to remember the violence they experienced. They also want the Government to account for why they will not release the documents.