Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill (Programme) (No. 2) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateKeith Vaz
Main Page: Keith Vaz (Labour - Leicester East)Department Debates - View all Keith Vaz's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberOn knife crime, I do not know whether my right hon. Friend saw the Lord Chancellor’s helpful and entertaining evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs when he seemed to reject the idea of mandatory sentences for knife crime for those aged under 18? That was changed within 24 hours. Does my right hon. Friend accept that we need sufficient time to debate that important change? We welcome it, but it would be good to know what is behind the Government’s thinking.
I underscore the important contribution from my right hon. Friend, who chairs the Home Affairs Committee. When we discuss knife crime on Wednesday, we will also discuss legal aid, litigation funding and costs, sentencing, bail, and release and recall of prisoners. The suggestion that we can have anything like the substantive debate that our constituents demand is folly.