Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

Laura Trott Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 9th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

This is a very good and important Bill. I would like to single out one aspect in particular.

I have long-standing concerns, which I have spoken about before in the House, about the use of standard determinate sentences for serious crimes. The idea that terrorists would be let out of prison automatically, with no Parole Board involvement, is unacceptable. I am pleased that that has been rectified by this Bill and that terrorist offenders will no longer be eligible for SDS. I urge the Government to take a similar approach to other serious crimes, such as rape, and I hope it will be included in the forthcoming sentencing review.

I want to raise two other points. First, there is a risk to keeping terrorists in prison for longer—namely, that they radicalise other prisoners. This is clearly a lesser risk than having them out on the street, but none the less it is one that we must be cognisant of and manage. The Bill’s impact assessment recognises the risk of offenders radicalising others during their stays in custody but suggests that the containment practices currently in place will minimise that risk. Those containment practices stem in part from an excellent review carried out by Ian Acheson in 2016, which recommended containment of known extremists in dedicated specialist units. Those specialist units have now been created, and I would be grateful if the Minister confirmed that they have the capacity for the increased number of terrorist offenders who may be incarcerated for longer as a result of this Bill. It is critical that we do not allow the increased time that terrorists spend in prison to be used by them as a means of turning it into a training ground for new recruits. It would be helpful to fully understand the measures that Ministers will put in place to ensure that that does not happen.

My second point, which has been raised frequently today, is about rehabilitation in general. The right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) spoke movingly at the beginning of the debate about the dedication of Saskia and Jack to rehabilitation. To support this Bill is not to throw away the belief in rehabilitation but to emphasise the need for it while the terrorists are in prison. I was pleased to hear my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice refer in his opening remarks to the increased sentence maximising the time that authorities have to work with offenders. It will be critical—and this is very important to all supporters of this Bill—to use that time productively, to make sure that the people in prison are being worked on, talked to and spoken through this process so that we rehabilitate those who can be rehabilitated, and do not let back on to the streets those who cannot. I think that is at the heart of what this Bill is trying to achieve, and it is what every Conservative Member who supports it wants.

Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill

Laura Trott Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

First, I add my name to the chorus of tributes to Marie McCourt and her family and to Opposition Members who have campaigned for the measure heartily and brilliantly for a number of years.

I welcome the Government’s Bill as part of an overall move to restore faith in the system, and to keep people who are a risk to the public behind bars. We should be in absolutely no doubt that people who refuse to acknowledge where bodies are, or where their victims are, are trying to replay the crime to the families over and over again. It is clear from the speeches that we have heard that that is something that the Parole Board should take into account.

That is possible only because we are talking about extended determinate sentences. The Parole Board is involved with people on those sentences, not with those on standard determinate sentences. There is a universal belief about the importance of remorse in those cases. When standard determinate sentences are used—for example, in rape cases—remorse cannot be taken into account. That ties into conversations that we have had about delegated legislation and other Bills, so I add my name to that of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) in urging that the measure should be extended to other cases.

Time is short, so I shall make three brief points. First, I should like reassurance that offences under clause 2 with regard to indecent images should not ever fall under standard determinate sentences. We have discussed serious offences that are subject to such sentences, and I should be grateful for reassurance from the Minister that that will not be the case. Secondly, on the duty for the Parole Board to take this into account, as numerous pieces of testimony have shown today, the Parole Board is not always as efficient in doing that as it should be. It would be useful if the Department monitored the impact of the Bill on sentencing and the extension of sentences as a result of its introduction. Things that people have been asked to look at do not always translate, so I add my name to those of many other Members in urging that we make sure that that happens.

Finally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who is no longer in his place, said, courts do not take this into account in sentencing as much as they could. It is not necessarily the case that the Bill should address that, but the more that we can do to encourage that and put pressure on courts to do so, the better. No one can argue that people who commit these terrible crimes should not be in prison for a very long time, and the sentences that we have discussed are, in my view, and that of many members of the public, nowhere near long enough. The idea that people who have committed these heinous crimes are walking the streets with no notice for the victims’ families grieves me furiously, as I am sure it does many hon. Members, so reassurance on that would be helpful.