Social Media Posts: Penalties for Offences
Debate between Kieran Mullan and Emily Darlington(1 week, 4 days ago)
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Dr Mullan
That is a good example of the sort of question we cannot answer. We have had to rely on a media organisation putting forward FOIs to get some information. If the Government took ownership of the issue and published proper data, which might be able to pick out the nuances, we could have a more realistic debate. The hon. Gentleman is right that that could be the explanation, but we are none the wiser.
We cannot simply blame this spike on rank-and-file officers. They are often only following orders from their superiors, who point to guidance from the NPCC and the College of Policing. Another key issue is that many people I have spoken to who perhaps thought that people such as Lucy Connolly had done the wrong thing and should be punished, but were concerned about the length of the prison sentence. At the same time as the Government will not budge on this issue, they are passing legislation that will let thousands of violent sexual offenders out of prison early. Very many thousands of them will serve only a third of their sentences. The Government say that there is not enough prison space, yet their proportionate response is to say that we have plenty of prison space to arrest other people.
Emily Darlington
Does the shadow Minister recognise that when his Government were letting out rapists and violent criminals, they put in place no protections whatsoever, whereas this Government have brought in protection orders and domestic violence orders to ensure that victims are protected in these cases? Does he also recognise that the prison crisis was caused under his Government?
Dr Mullan
It may come from a man, but it is just an explanation. The early release schemes that we used, and that the Minister was previously using, excluded all sexual offences. We excluded sexual offences, and the early release schemes that continued excluded sexual offences. The Sentencing Bill makes no exclusion for sexual offences—none. We would not let out rapists earlier, and the Labour Government initially would not let out rapists, but they are now going to do so. We would not let out people who raped children, and initially the Labour Government would not let out people who raped children, but they are now passing a Bill that will let out people who raped children.
Some people say that the scheme addresses a short-term crisis, but, again, there are existing schemes that could be used for short-term prison capacity issues, such as the ones that I have talked about, which exclude sexual offences. We agree that those should be excluded. Instead of carrying on using those schemes, this Government are legislating to let rapists, child rapists and paedophiles out of prison earlier on a permanent basis. Ninety per cent of people who go to prison for child grooming will be serving a third of their sentence. If that is something that the hon. Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) thinks is defendable, I encourage her to go away and read the detail.
As I said, the Sentencing Bill will let out thousands of violent and sexual offenders, even if Government Members pretend that that is not what is going to happen. I would also point out that some Labour MPs understand that and would not vote for it. They understand what their Government are persuading them to vote for. They really should not vote for it. I hope the Minister will commit to looking again at the sentencing framework to ensure it better reflects the concerns that colleagues have laid out today. Otherwise, this will be a missed opportunity.
We are clear that we can restore democratic accountability to sentencing only through the abolition of the Sentencing Council and the restoration of its activities to the Lord Chancellor’s office. That is the sort of wholesale reform that is needed. We introduced an amendment to the Sentencing Bill to enable that, but Labour voted it down, proposing instead a halfway house that will not achieve anything like the radical change we need.
The right choices are there and a better way forward is available. It is true that this is a new area for our law and for society; perhaps we were always going to take time to get this right. I welcome the campaigners and individuals affected driving politicians of all parties to do so. We have had some clear proposals for reform, which are a start, but in the meantime it will sadly take more cases, more public concern and more demands for change for the Government to get this right.