Infected Blood Compensation Scheme

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

Not for the first time, the right hon. Gentleman has made some wise points, and I am grateful to him for doing so. I accept much of what he has said about the concern surrounding tariffs, but these tariffs have not been set up with financial constraints; they have been set up with the input of a range of experts to reach a judgment on what would be appropriate versus what would be a legal entitlement. The assumptions behind those bandings—severity bandings, for instance—now need to be explained and scrutinised, and that is what is going to happen.

The right hon. Gentleman made a very reasonable point about claims by unscrupulous people; the question here is how we can put safeguards in place while expediting the claims of those who have qualified. He also made a reasonable point about the professional support of lawyers and financial advisers. That, too, is at the top of my mind as I learn from some of the other scandals with which I became familiar in my role as Economic Secretary to the Treasury. I will take those to heart in future.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Let me begin by paying tribute to my constituent Paul Bloor for his campaign. Paul started at Treloar College in 1974, and was infected with hepatitis C from contaminated blood products. I regret that I personally had not grasped the full horrendousness of what has gone on, and I thank Sir Brian for ensuring that we do all now understand. Paul welcomes the compensation, but he asked me to raise with the Minister the issue of accountability. What work is being done to ensure that we can now pursue any avenue towards personal accountability for those who deserve to have their conduct looked at?

[John Glen]

I completely understand why Paul would want that point to be raised. Those matters go beyond my brief when it comes to compensation, but I think the whole House will recognise that this matter is urgent and that Ministers in other Departments will need to address it properly and in full. I hope that the debate after Whitsun will give us an opportunity to open up all these matters as a House, and that the Government can then respond appropriately as quickly as possible.

Some of the things that happened were completely against the values of the institutions that those individuals were part of. We need to examine this fully and come to terms with it, and make sure that it can never happen again.

Iran-Israel Update

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Of course we want to see, and remain committed to, a two-state solution, and we are working hard to bring that about, but the biggest cause of regional instability is the pernicious influence of Iran, and nobody else.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that even those who want to link the conflict between Israel and Hamas with the conduct of this attack have to recognise that, since its inception decades ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran has sought the destruction not only of our way of life, but of Israel and its people, and we should never hesitate to play our part in preventing that?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I agree with him wholeheartedly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Last week I was pleased to deliver my report on the opportunities provided by deep geothermal energy, and I look forward to my visit next week to the opening of the Eden project’s deep geothermal plant, championed by my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double). Will the Prime Minister join me in meeting Members who want to emulate my hon. Friend by enjoying the benefits of a deep geothermal plant in their own constituencies?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work on that report: I know that he is rightly passionate about this area. The Government support the development of geothermal projects in the UK, provided that it can be done at an acceptable cost to consumers and in an environmentally friendly manner, and I will ensure that he gets a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss his report and ideas further.

Civil Service Impartiality

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

The tragedy is that a public servant’s hard work over a long period of time is called into question, given the nature of the process that appears to have taken place. That is incredibly unfortunate, but the Labour party could help to fix that by being a bit transparent, very open and saying, “This is what actually took place; these are the dates; this is who met and this is where they were.”

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

This is nothing to do with Sue Gray—the lady could be our first living saint, for all I care—but it is about the roles that she had in government. I could not think of a more sensitive position than head of propriety and ethics, where Ministers need trust. It is not about my party, either—seven Labour MPs have been sentenced to jail over the past 10 years. If they had been in government, I think she would have been quite busy with them, too. It is about those on both sides of the House being able to trust Ministers. I have to agree with colleagues that the trust is already broken. We cannot now have a discussion with someone in that position and be sure that they will not cross over to the other side. Is it time to look at introducing regulations to ensure that this kind of thing cannot happen in such sensitive roles?

[Jeremy Quin]

My hon. Friend closes this urgent question by noting that it is not necessarily about Sue Gray and her actions. She is a public servant who has, for many decades, worked hard at the heart of government. It shows a miscalculation and a misstep by the Leader of the Opposition. I can only assume that it was inadvertent—I have to hope that. This matter has caused more problems, because in some people’s minds it has called into question the perceived impartiality of the civil service. That was a misstep and a mistake; the Leader of the Opposition should accept that and set out transparently what happened and when, so that we can have absolute clarity on what took place.

Independent Public Advocate

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I certainly agree with the thrust of that. The IPA will be fully independent once it is established, with all the powers of advocacy and with the expertise to give voice and expression to the victims and the bereaved. On the compulsion of data or access to evidence, we need to ensure that we reconcile that with the powers an inquiry might be exercising and that we do not end up with either a legal muddle or an ineffective process.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I join colleagues in paying tribute to my fellow member of the Justice Committee, the right hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), for her long campaigning on this issue, which the whole House recognises.

I am interested in the issue of legal representation that other Members have raised. How would the IPA interact with that, and what support might be there in accessing legal advice when, as others have said, it may face public bodies with well-funded legal teams that family members will not necessarily have access to?

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. In general, inquests should be inquisitorial, fact-checking processes, and the 2019 review into legal aid for inquests, which he may recall, underlined the importance of us keeping it that way. There are, of course, circumstances, such as article 2 inquests or where there is significant public interest in the outcome, where legal representation may be available under exceptional case funding. I mentioned more about the detail of how that will work in my statement.

Tributes to Her Late Majesty the Queen

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Saturday 10th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

It is a privilege for me to pay tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II today on behalf of the people of Crewe and Nantwich and surrounding villages. I did not have the honour of meeting the Queen, but in a testament to her decades of service and the diligent attention she paid to every corner of her realm, Her Majesty visited the area numerous times. In 1972, she opened Leighton Hospital. In 1987, she opened Crewe Heritage Centre and visited Crewe Works. In 1995, she was greeted by 200 south-west Cheshire scouts at Crewe train station, and in 2010, she visited Reaseheath College in Nantwich.

As others have said, a visit by the Queen—the handshakes, the conversations, even just distant glimpses—stay in people’s memories. Leighton Hospital’s longest-serving member of staff, Phil Malam, now aged 69, talked about the visit as part of the hospital’s recent 50th anniversary celebrations. The visit took place just a few days after the then 19-year-old began working as a hospital porter. He wrote:

“It was a very special day…I remember we lined the corridor and the Queen spoke to quite a few of us as she walked past. She was really interested in what we did and thanked us—a lovely lady.”

That is absolutely typical of how people describe interactions with the Queen: “She was really interested in what we did and thanked us.” Over 70 years, I cannot even begin to imagine the number of conversations, handshakes, school and hospital openings, state occasions, visits by dignitaries and tours abroad—70 years of unwavering service to this country and her people, always interested, always smiling, always polite. In the age of celebrity, where to be famous is to be of interest to others, the most famous woman in the world was more interested in others. What drove her was a sense of duty and, as others have said, her wish to keep that promise that she made at just 21: to devote her life to our service. It was a promise solemnly made, and solemnly kept.

Why does that stir such strong sentiment in us? I think it is because we know our failings as humans are often rooted in self-interest of one kind or another: our desire to be important or admired, to achieve things, to be celebrated, to think mostly of ourselves and our family and friends. When someone extends the bonds of service to an entire nation, as the Queen did, to people she would never meet or know—when we see someone embodying the best of what it means to be human, the opposite of self-interest—that inspires us. It gives us a glimpse of what we are all capable of. That is why I admired the Queen.

But, as she embodied us, the millions who undertake acts of community and voluntary service embody her as well. The scout leader, the children’s Sunday league football coach, the parkrun or marathon steward, the parish councillor, the Samaritans helpline volunteer, and the litter-pick group member all follow her example. Now I look at that final picture of her taken this week, and in retrospect, I think there was a deeper meaning to that final act of service than I realised at the time. Right at the end of her life, when perhaps for the rest of us our own comfort would come first, Her Majesty was once again absolutely determined to put her promise to us first—one last desire to help her people and her Prime Minister, entering another period of difficulty and uncertainty, to take that first step towards it with her yet again at our side. Now, rest in peace, Your Majesty. God save the King.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I very strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman that there are strategic industries that use a lot of energy. We need to do all we can to help them become more energy-efficient, but we also need to make sure that they are able to remain competitive in the global marketplace. That is certainly something that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is looking at in preparing this package.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

May I congratulate the Prime Minister on her appointment and tell her that I know my constituents want her to succeed at a difficult time? Outside the immediate challenges of energy and inflation, levelling up remains a priority for them. One way to demonstrate her commitment to levelling up would be to choose a town such as Crewe to host Great British Railways. Will she ensure that levelling up is at the heart of that decision?

[The Prime Minister]

Crewe is, of course, a great railway town—my hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am not going to prejudge the decision that will be made, but what I will be doing as Prime Minister is absolutely focusing on levelling up and making sure that we are attracting the investment and growth into parts of this country that have been left behind, so that they have their fair share of opportunity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much. I understand the difficulty that some families will find themselves in. We want to look after everybody throughout the pandemic. That is why we have done things like lifting the living wage in the way we have and increasing the funds available for childcare, but also making sure that councils have an extra hardship fund of half a billion pounds to help families of the kind that he describes through this winter.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Q12. Following confirmation of the Crewe to Manchester leg of High Speed 2, the Alstom factory in Crewe winning an HS2 rolling stock contract and Crewe’s long history at the heart of our railway industry, does the Prime Minister agree that Crewe is a strong contender for the headquarters of Great British Railways? Can he tell me when the process to choose a location for the new HQ will start?

[The Prime Minister]

My brief says I should be very careful of what I say. I have no doubt that Crewe is a strong contender, but further details of the competition will be announced in the coming weeks. Expressions of interest from places such as Crewe will be very welcome.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I totally share the hon. Lady’s sense of frustration on behalf of victims up and down the country. There is no single silver bullet, precisely because it is a system-wide failure. As has already been mentioned, more victims are reporting to police stations than before; that is positive. We have Operation Soteria, the whole purpose of which is to shift the way in which investigations address these crimes to make them suspect-centric, rather than focusing on the behaviour of victims.

There are a number of technical things that we can do: section 28 has been mentioned; and improving phone technology and digital disclosure is another aspect. It will be important when we publish the criminal justice scorecards for rape that we can see not just at a national level, but—in due course, following that—at a local level, which areas are getting it right and why those other places are not following best practice, and that we ensure we can correct the gaps.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

12. What progress his Department has made on the roll-out of electronic tagging for offenders.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

18. What progress his Department has made on the roll-out of electronic tagging for offenders.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

I am happy to report excellent progress on our electronic monitoring programme. We recently expanded our world-first acquisitive crime project, GPS tagging all those released from prison who were convicted of those crimes, to cover half of England and Wales. Between April and September, more than 1,500 offenders had to wear a sobriety tag.

[Dr Mullan]

The Minister will know that it is actually a relatively small number of hardcore, prolific offenders who are responsible for so much of the misery that is inflicted on our constituents. I therefore welcome the progress on tagging and encourage him to think about other offences that we could use it on. What discussions has he had with the police about the resources that they need to bring back in people who may be breaching their tags?

[Kit Malthouse]

It is typical of my hon. Friend to think about the burden on policing. He is one of the primary supporters of the police in this House; I am grateful to him for that. We hope that the GPS tagging programmes—specifically, as he says, for prolific acquisitive criminals—will actually reduce the burden on policing. As he knows, something approaching 50% of offenders who have been burglars or robbers go on to reoffend. By putting a tag on their ankle so that we know where they are 24 hours a day, we essentially put a probation officer or police officer alongside them. We hope that that will be a huge deterrent. It also means that if there is a breach or somebody is identified as being at the same place that a crime has occurred at the same time, it is much easier for the police to find them because we can track them down through the tag. As we expand the programme further, from six to 19 police forces across the country, we need to monitor the impact on policing, albeit that, thus far, the police are enthusiastic proponents of the scheme.

Judicial Review and Courts Bill

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. and learned Lady’s point has so much merit. No Governments enjoy judicial review, but the point when in government is to be bigger than that. I say to the Secretary of State that this is his opportunity to be big.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

Is the right hon. Gentleman familiar with and has he reflected on the words of a former Labour Home Secretary, who criticised

“unaccountable and unelected judges usurping the role of parliament, setting the wishes of the people at naught and pursuing a liberal politically correct agenda of their own”?

How have those words informed his remarks today?

[Mr Lammy]

I have not reflected on that statement very much.

I was reminded recently of the importance of judicial review by the infamous “Judge over your shoulder” leaflet, which has been published since 1987 to remind civil servants of the importance of sound decision making. The leaflet advises civil servants of the importance of good governance and of making decisions effectively and fairly to avoid those decisions being found unlawful. It recognises that administrative law and, in this case, judicial review played an important part in securing good administration by providing a powerful method of ensuring that the improper exercise of power can be checked.

Frankly, that is why having effective judicial remedies is so important to maintain good governance. The threat of judicial review is a powerful tool to encourage decision makers to make decisions well and fairly. If the power of quashing orders were to be neutered in the way clause 1 seeks, not only would that leave victims of unlawful decisions without the remedy they deserve, but it would reduce the motivation for public bodies to take care when making decisions. I agree with the Law Society of England and Wales when it says that that would have a truly chilling effect on justice in this country and we must question why the Government are even considering the changes in clause 1. Those changes go far beyond what was recommended by the Government’s own independent review of administrative law. The review made no recommendation that quashing orders should be prospective only. It specifically recommended against that type of presumption.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) (Con)]

I welcome the chance to speak in this debate as a new member of the Select Committee on Justice. We have not considered judicial review in any great detail, but we have considered court capacity, the use of virtual hearings and remote technology, and the work of coroners’ courts.

We are all aware by now of the challenges that the pandemic has caused for court capacity, but I think we can be proud of, and should recognise, the enormous efforts to ensure that our justice system across the country continued in a more robust way than in many similar jurisdictions. I thank and pay tribute to court staff for their work to enable that, and I echo the positive remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) about magistrates who give their time.

Of course that does not mean that we do not face a backlog, but I think we should remind the Opposition, or what is left of them—certainly their spokespeople—that the backlogs that we faced prior to the pandemic were lower than some backlogs that victims faced under the last Labour Government. Outstanding cases at the Crown court were at just over 40,000 before the pandemic; they hit 50,000 under Labour. A quick search of Hansard does not produce the outrage that we have heard today from the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) or that I suspect we will hear from the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) when he winds up. They were not so bothered about it when they were in government, but they seem particularly frustrated now.

However, let us be in no doubt that backlogs are a problem and we need to bring them down. That is important, because delays in justice have an impact on victims and the innocent: importantly, we lose witnesses and victims, which ultimately means that people who should face justice do not. That is why it is right that we look at ways to innovate and do things differently if it can help with the backlog. Of course there is always risk when we do things differently, but we have to weigh it up against the injustice for those who are waiting for their day in court.

The Justice Committee heard a variety of evidence about the benefits and drawbacks of remote hearings, which are similar to the benefits and drawbacks that we have debated in relation to remote healthcare. Rightly, victims’ advocates have highlighted that for some people, remote hearings are a real challenge, so I ask the Minister to outline the steps that the Government will take to protect vulnerable groups from being inadvertently disadvantaged by remote hearings and by other changes in the Bill.

As hon. Members have said, reform cannot take place instead of investment; funding must be provided to help us to address the backlog with extra sitting days and Nightingale courts. We have seen some good progress in that regard.

Yes, the justice system has historically faced cuts, but I want to take the opportunity to remind people that those cuts did not happen in isolation. At the time, £1 in every £4 spent by the Government was borrowed; we were spending in an unsustainable way. It is easy now to criticise cuts that were made, and perhaps the balance of cuts across all the Government’s work has not been correct—that is why many of us welcome the extra spending for justice—but to make out that those were easy choices at the time and blame everything on the cuts, when we know that ultimately the Government were reacting to a situation not of their making, is not fair.

I thank the very many hard-working people who are struggling to deliver the important function of coroners’ courts and who did so over the pandemic, but I have to say that I feel concern. As we move away from full hearings, we will need some very clear routes available for decisions when people choose not to have a full hearing. The Government talk about cases being uncontroversial and simple, but I am afraid that the harsh reality we have heard from coroners’ courts is that although they are overwhelmingly conducted with care and attention to families and with open and transparent process, that is not always the case. Coroners’ courts still reflect the style and approach of individual coroners.

I would not want the measures that the Government are introducing through the Bill to have inadvertent consequences where coroners took decisions in cases that would objectively have benefited from a full hearing, or that families might feel would have benefited from one. It would be good if the Minister outlined what opportunities families might have to challenge decisions that coroners make under the new legislation.

I want to make some brief remarks about judicial review. I think we have to recognise that access to justice, in the broadest possible sense, is a public good, but too often some of those involved in the provision of this public good see it as sacrosanct, and seem to believe that there is some Utopia where demand for justice is perfectly met. They often strive for that without accepting that the provision of justice as a public good must compete for public resources alongside the provision of other public goods, such as education, healthcare and defence. It is perfectly legitimate for a Government to consider whether public money spent on judicial reviews funded by taxpayers is public money that might be better spent on other public goods—or whether it might be better spent in the judiciary on a more effective way of securing access to justice than the present system of judicial review. There might even be a simpler, better use of the courts’ time. I personally can see a vast public good in a certain fox killer having fewer opportunities to waste the courts’ time with repeated failed actions, especially given the stresses on the legal system that we have discussed.

Of course, controversies in this area of law are not new to the Chamber. We heard earlier from the Justice Secretary how the Labour Government pushed these ouster clauses and saw their merits at the time. The Refugee Council has said:

“this Bill threatens to deny asylum seekers a fair hearing of their…claim… We urge the Government to take these criticisms seriously and to act on them.”

The council was not talking about the Bill that is now before us; it was talking about the Bill that the shadow Justice Secretary attempted to steer through Parliament.

I think that we have to take a step back, and recognise that the public expect to see a balanced use of public resources in the courts across all the expenditure of public money. I am frequently appalled by the disproportionate amounts spent on legal aid for individuals to challenge decisions, including decisions made through judicial review. Does that serve the interests purely of justice? Perhaps yes, but does it represent a proportionate or justifiable allocation of public good in our society? Certainly not, and I think the British public understand that.

The hyperbole that has been expressed today about the narrow changes that are being made to judicial review undermines the credibility of the Members making those claims. We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) and others how restricted and limited these measures are. To suggest that people who have had a couple of bites at the cherry are being denied justice because they do not have the opportunity to make one further attempt is an exaggeration that undermines those Members’ arguments.