Oral Answers to Questions

Lee Dillon Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

As the hon. Member rightly says, prison officers do an outstanding job. The work of the Prison Service is to make sure they are properly supported and protected in that role, and that is what is going on.

[Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)]

18. What steps she is taking to tackle backlogs in the courts.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Sarah Sackman)]

The last Government left a mess in every single corner of our justice system—our criminal courts and our civil courts. In the process, they let down not just victims of crime but businesses, employees, employers and children in care; every part of our system was left in a complete mess. That is what we are sorting out, with record Crown court sitting days—a commitment of 110,000 sitting days—and running almost to a maximum across all jurisdictions to bring down the backlog. We are sorting out the mess that we were left with.

[Mr Dillon]

I agree with the Minister’s assessment of the previous Conservative Government. However, with more than 382,000 cases still in the backlog for magistrates, have the Government done an assessment of whether that will increase, given the doubled sentencing powers that have been passed down to those courts?

[Sarah Sackman]

The magistrates court is being run in a sustainable way. We extended the sentencing powers in order to free up capacity in the Crown court, and that has been sustainable, and we are increasing capacity in our magistracy by recruiting an additional 2,000 magistrates from diverse backgrounds every year. But that is why we are looking at system reform, whether in the magistrates court or the Crown courts. We are going to need once-in-a-generation reform, and when Sir Brian Leveson reports back, that is what we will get.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Lee Dillon Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 29th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran]

The right hon. Gentleman might want to raise that issue in Committee, at a later stage. However, it is important for hon. Members to appreciate that they can vote yes today, and vote no later.

I want to come on to palliative care, which is really important. The message from the sector, patients and their families is crystal clear: palliative care is not good enough and we must do better.

[Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we are not talking about a choice between palliative care and assisted dying? The two can go hand in hand, but with the knowledge that if palliative care does not provide the individual with the comfort they require, the Bill would give them the option to decide how they want to end their life, rather than drifting away without being able to have a final cuddle or say a final goodbye.

[Layla Moran]

There needs to be a debate around palliative care. My concern is that we have not had any firm commitments from Government, other than woolly words, about how they are actually going to tackle the issue, and that a royal commission will push it into the long grass.

I say to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, who is in his place, that the gauntlet has been thrown down. If he wants someone like me to not vote for the Bill moving forward, he needs to do two things: he needs to put firm commitments on palliative care on the table and resolve them within the next one or two years, and then, afterwards, commit to bringing back a Bill like this one in Government time. Without those firm commitments, I will continue to make the case for wanting to see progress.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lee Dillon Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)]

It is clear that our prisons are at breaking point. The Conservatives’ failure to tackle the courts backlog has directly contributed to prison overcrowding. Thanks to their neglect and mismanagement, the Government have been left with no choice but to take these measures. However, the Lord Chancellor said in her statement in July that these measures would be reviewed

“within 18 months of implementation—at the very latest, in March 2026.”—[Official Report, 25 July 2024; Vol. 752, c. 833.]

That is a long time away, particularly given the various stories we are hearing about certain individuals being released. Will the Secretary of State once again confirm that no dangerous criminals will be released early?

[Shabana Mahmood]

We have taken every measure available to us to exclude offences from this measure. Serious violence, sexual violence and offences connected to domestic abuse have all been excluded, as have terror offences and so on—the hon. Gentleman will know the list of exclusions. We will work with our probation service, which has done a heroic amount of work over the summer to deliver this policy, in the coming months. We will also work very closely with criminal justice system partners to make sure that the roll-out of the scheme is as safe as possible. We have taken every measure, we will continue to keep matters under review and I will keep the House updated in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)]

Every 30 seconds, a domestic abuse-related call is made to the police. It is positive to see that the number of domestic abuse cases referred from the police to the CPS has increased, but those numbers are still well below the level seen over the past five years. Will the Secretary of State address the delays in domestic abuse referrals from the police to the CPS and acknowledge the unique risks that they pose?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)]

As I have stated, this Government were elected with a landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. To do so, we must improve the justice system’s response to these crimes, including domestic abuse. We must relentlessly target the most prolific and harmful perpetrators, better support victims and survivors, and ensure timely and effective justice. We will put domestic abuse experts in 999 control rooms and strengthen the use of protection orders, and we will strengthen the tools available to manage domestic abuse offenders.