Oral Answers to Questions

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I also had the pleasure of visiting Manchester Crown court and saw the brand-new super court, put in place at a cost of £2.5 million to the Treasury to deal with multi-handed cases. I am pleased to say that today we have opened another in Loughborough. On the matter of magistrates, he will know that in the Judicial Review and Courts Bill that is before the House—in fact, we have just been in Bill Committee—we will increase the number of cases that are remitted from the Crown court to magistrates, saving 400 days in the Crown court to hear serious backlog cases such as rape and other indictable charges.

[Mr Speaker]

It would help if you reopened Chorley.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

I will let you get the benefit of the applause, Mr Speaker.

On a recent trip out with officers from the Waterfoot police station in Rawtenstall, one of the challenges they talked about in getting cases to court is that the Crown Prosecution Service insists that full disclosure is done before charge. Will my hon. Friend go away and look at that? It is currently warranted officers doing that disclosure, when it could easily be a civilianised job. Will he agree to speak to the Crown Prosecution Service and his colleagues in the Home Office to ensure that Lancashire constabulary—as you know, Mr Speaker, the finest police officers in our United Kingdom—can be out getting criminals and not doing paperwork?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Victoria Atkins)]

I thank the hon. Lady for drawing the House’s attention to that tragic case. She will know that we asked the ombudsman to examine it in detail, and we are very grateful to the ombudsman for having gone through it so that the Department, HMPPS and other providers can learn the lessons from that terrible incident. We have set out extensive plans to help women who are pregnant, mums and babies in prison, and that framework has been published and is being very much implemented. On her wider point about supporting women in custody, we have the female offenders strategy. The Government maintain our aim that we should support women outside of custody and give magistrates the confidence to impose community sentences, but we must ensure that when women are in the female prison estate, they are supported, but importantly, rehabilitated. If they leave prison, we want them to be able to re-enter society and we want to protect the public.

[Mr Speaker]

May I just say to both sides that this is a very important question, and it should really be dealt with in the main questions? Topicals are meant to be short and punchy. I understand why the answer has to be detailed, because the issue is far, far too important, but please can we put such important questions earlier in the agenda? That way, it will be easier to get through them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Sarah Child, aged 26, was run down and killed by a driver doing 64 mph on the Walsall Road. Poppy-Arabella Clarke, aged three, was run down and killed on the Walsall Road by a driver who could no longer see and had been warned never to drive again. With RoadPeace, we have campaigned for tougher penalties for those who kill with a car, and some welcome progress has been made. However, does the Minister not understand that changing and strengthening the law is one thing and that helping to enforce the law is something different? With 1,000 police officers cut in the west midlands and huge cuts to Birmingham city council’s budget, they are unable—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Minister.

[Kit Malthouse]

I understand the hon. Member’s distress at that case. As he knows, we are busy about the job of increasing police capacity. We are over halfway to the 20,000 extra police officers—we have 11,053—and a significant number of those are heading towards the west midlands.