Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

My right hon. Friend asks a very important question. I have to accept the limitations on the period of sentencing. Supervision is an important part of the licence period, but what happens beyond that is difficult in terms of court order. However, work can and should be done by the probation service to ensure we are protected as fully as possible.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Almost two years ago to the day, the Government made a pledge to increase the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving from 14 years to life. In the light of the Secretary of State’s recent announcement, will he be revising that pledge? To date, no action has been taken.

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who I know has written to me. I repeat my pledge to get on with legislating on that issue as soon as possible. We have, we hope, a new Session coming. I am not going to pre-judge what might be said then, but I think there will be an opportunity for us to right this wrong.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to make a contribution to this important debate. It has been my privilege to be here for the whole debate and to hear many brilliant speeches, particularly the amazing speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), whose courage in speaking about the domestic abuse and coercive control that she suffered will give others the hope and courage they need to speak up and get away.

I pay tribute to the Mother of the House for raising the issue of the “S&M” defence in relation to the terrible death of Natalie Connolly, which was the subject of a powerful speech by the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier); and to my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah), who spoke courageously of her own family experience and the needs of BAME women under the Bill.

I particularly want to raise the effect of domestic abuse on children and their inclusion in the Domestic Abuse Bill. Under the Bill, the definition of domestic abuse would not extend to relationships between persons under 16 years old, but this subject have been hotly debated. The Children’s Society is arguing for a wider definition and suggests that an age limit of 13 years would be more appropriate, to include teenagers who are in relationships and experiencing violence or abuse and to allow for an early response to prevent abuse from escalating. This view is supported by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, but opposed by Action for Children to ensure that abuse of under-16s is always regarded as child abuse. However, the NSPCC makes the point that child abuse can include the emotional impact of being exposed to harm as a result of witnessing the abuse of one parent by another. It says that by failing to recognise children as victims in law, the Government are missing a crucial chance to give young people an extra layer of protection.

At the Labour party conference last week, I met a representative from Barnardo’s. She was delighted that the Bill was going to be discussed, and she welcomed the Government’s commitment to it. However, she talked to me about the impact of domestic abuse on the lives of vulnerable children. Living in an abusive household is hugely traumatic for children and can cause long-lasting emotional scars. Without the right support, children in this situation are at risk of becoming trapped in a lifelong cycle of violence. These children need access to vital services such as counselling and mental health services so that they can recover from the harm they have suffered and work towards a positive future.

Research demonstrates that specialist children’s services reduce the impact of domestic abuse and improve children’s safety and health outcomes, which is why it is so concerning that dedicated support for children and young people is falling. The Joint Committee supported retaining the age limit of 16 because of concerns that a consequence of lowering it would be the criminalisation of perpetrators under 16 years old. However, the Joint Committee recommended that the Government conduct a specific review of how to address domestic abuse in relationships between under-16-year-olds, including age-appropriate consequences for perpetrators, and I hope to see the results of that review and that guidance colouring the way in which we debate this Bill.

Women’s Aid has recently launched a website called LoveRespect to support teenage girls at risk of relationship abuse and to challenge myths around the nature of coercive control. Teenage girls may not realise that they are experiencing relationship abuse, and they are less likely than older women to call a helpline. Researchers found that two thirds of teenage girls who had been in abusive relationships did not recognise the behaviour as such. This highlights the importance of educating young people on what healthy relationships should look like. Having a bad boyfriend should not be seen as an acceptable rite of teenage passage. We need to get the impacts of coercive and controlling behaviour into the Bill, given that it will inform efforts to address domestic abuse and guide the response of agencies and statutory services. It is vital that the needs and experiences of children are reflected on the face of the Bill.

Dangerous Driving

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairwomanship, Mrs Moon.

First, I want to express my heartfelt sympathy to the family of Violet-Grace—and, indeed, to all the families with us today. No parent should have to endure what they have endured. It is to their credit that they created this very successful petition to try to get some justice for families who have lost loved ones to death by dangerous driving and for those who have endured serious and life-changing injuries.

Sadly, Violet-Grace’s story and the bereaved family’s pain and sense of injustice are all too familiar to me. In 2014, my constituent Joseph Brown-Lartey was killed by a dangerous driver. Joseph was just 25 years old, with a promising career opening up ahead of him, yet his plans and his life were destroyed by an uninsured, unlicensed 18-year-old named Addil Haroon, who chose to drive a hired high-powered car at 80 mph in a 30 mph zone, ran a red light and smashed into Joseph’s car. The impact was so great that Joseph’s car was split in two and, tragically, Joseph was killed outright. Police officers who attended the scene said it was the worst crash they had ever seen on an urban street.

Addil Haroon was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving but was given a jail sentence of just six years, of which he will serve just three in custody: he will be released on licence after serving half his sentence. Joseph’s parents, Dawn and Ian Brown-Lartey, contacted me for help after that derisory sentence was given. I wrote to the Attorney General asking for the sentence to be reconsidered in view of the gravity and tragic consequences of the crime. The reply I received was that the judge had acted within sentencing guidelines, and that the sentence had not been “unduly lenient” and would not be reconsidered. As we heard, the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving is 14 years, yet few convictions result in a sentence that long. In 2017, the average sentence was just four years and nine months.

Joseph’s parents, with the help of the road safety charity Brake and campaigning journalist Michelle Livesey, launched a petition and a campaign called “Justice for Joseph”, calling for tougher sentences for those who cause death and serious injury by dangerous driving. The petition gathered 20,000 signatures and was handed into Downing Street with support from me and the then police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester, who is now my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd).

Brake then launched another campaign, “Roads to Justice”. For the launch of that campaign, Joseph’s parents allowed the wreckage of his car to be displayed outside Parliament. Hon. Members may recall seeing the shocking sight of a wrecked Audi split clean in two on their journey into work that day. That wreckage is now used by Greater Manchester police as part of its road safety campaigning and teaching, having been kindly donated by Joseph’s family in the hope that it would serve as a lesson to other drivers.

In response to that pressure—sadly, many other MPs have had similar tragedies in their constituencies—the Government held a consultation on sentencing for causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving. They received around 9,000 responses. It took many months to process them all, but everyone involved in the campaign was delighted when the Ministry of Justice announced in October 2017 that, as a result of the consultation, the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving would be extended from 14 years to life.

Joseph’s parents felt that all their campaigning had paid off and, although nothing could bring Joseph back or bring justice in his case, at least another family bereaved in such terrible circumstances would not suffer the heartache of seeing their loved one’s killer receive a derisory sentence. Yet what has happened since then? Although I and other MPs have asked numerous questions in the House, the Government’s constant refrain has been that they will bring legislation to the House “when parliamentary time allows”. This Government have presided over hours of parliamentary inaction, with sessions closing early and the business of the day being wound up mid-afternoon on numerous occasions. There has been ample parliamentary time to bring legislation forward, yet nothing has happened. The change was promised in October 2017. Twenty-one months on, nothing has changed.

The tragedy is that we are still seeing deaths, such as that of poor Violet-Grace, as some drivers simply do not get the message that, in the wrong hands, a car is a lethal weapon. I strongly believe that longer sentences would reinforce that message. At the moment, some drivers have an extremely careless approach and drive in an extremely reckless manner because they know that if they cause an accident that kills or maims they will serve only a relatively short sentence. That has to change. Families such as the Brown-Larteys in my constituency and the Youens in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) need to see justice being done.

If I have one question for the Minister, it is this: when is the maximum sentence of life for causing death by dangerous driving, which the Government announced 21 months ago, going to be brought to Parliament? The response, “When parliamentary time allows,” is simply not good enough. These families need to see justice—for Joseph, for Violet-Grace and for all the other victims killed or maimed on our roads by the scourge of dangerous driving. It is time that the punishment fitted the crime.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Robert Buckland)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon, but a greater pleasure to thank the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for opening the debate with a sensitive and sensible speech. She used her experience in the law to helpfully give us a pen-portrait of the evolution of driving legislation in England and Wales. She was right to draw the House’s attention to the way the law has evolved in this area.

When we take the steering wheel of a car or a vehicle, it means that we assume a responsibility to any passengers in the vehicle, to other vehicle users, to pedestrians and to wider society. Driving law rightly criminalises what we would regard as unacceptable behaviour. It also rightly draws distinctions between types of behaviour. I readily accept that the law gets into difficulty where we have a combination of extreme culpability and blameworthiness in the manner of driving, and the extreme level of harm that can be caused by that degree of bad driving. We now call it dangerous driving; the hon. Member for Warrington North referred to it as reckless driving, as it was known prior to the 1991 reform. I have grappled with that difficulty—not just as a Member of Parliament, serving my constituents, but as a professional and a member of the criminal Bar, having been called upon to prosecute these cases, as well as in my latter incarnation as Her Majesty’s Solicitor General.

Before coming on to those examples, I add my own tribute to the families of the victims of these horrendous crimes who have come here today, have supported petitions calling for reform and have, with extraordinary dignity, exemplified all that is good in our society and positive in our world, despite the horrendous experiences they have gone through.

The offence of causing death by dangerous driving is a particularly unusual, sensitive and difficult scenario because all of us, in this room or outside, could suddenly find ourselves in the same situation as the families here today and the thousands of others who are not here but share the same experiences. Suddenly, without any warning, they are drawn into an entirely different world: a world of police and criminal justice, of procedure, of court proceedings that they never expected they would become involved with in a month of Sundays. That can only add to the sense of loss, grief and suffering that the families endure, and continue to endure—often for many years after the incident itself. It is a set of circumstances that all of us struggle to put into words and to come to terms with fully. I still struggle now, even though it is probably a quarter of a century since my first direct contact with a family who have suffered in this way.

Frankly, there is nothing that a court or this House can do to right the wrong that has been done to such families. Having said that, merely acknowledging that is never going to be enough. That is why we, as parliamentarians and legislators, must do all we can not just to mitigate the circumstances or to try to create a degree of justice, but to send a wider message to society that the system supports those who suffer, works in their interest and at least tries to deliver the highest degree of justice.

I was struck by the conversations I had this afternoon. I am grateful to the hon. Members for Warrington North and for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) for allowing me to come and meet the families. It was extremely useful and informative, and I felt the better for having heard what they had to say. I pay warm, meaningful and deep tribute to them.

To directly answer the question put by the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), I should say that the Government have not changed their view about the need to reform the law of causing death by dangerous driving. It is our settled intention to increase the maximum penalty from 14 years to life imprisonment; the issue is when. I want to do this as soon as possible; I would like to see legislation done in a swift and effective way.

My offer to right hon. and hon. Members here and across the House is to work together, to ensure that any Bill that is introduced can be dealt with as speedily and expeditiously as possible, without—with the greatest respect to hon. Members, who have the right to amend any Bill they see before them—a plethora of amendments and other issues that could impede or slow down the process of legislation. That is my request and my offer; I would very much like to work with Members of the Opposition on that, in order to achieve our common goal.

[Liz McInnes]

The Minister has struck an unnecessarily adversarial tone. It is very clear that there would be cross-party support for this. It was welcomed in October 2017; he does not need to concern himself that anyone in the Labour party—I am sure I speak for the SNP as well, in this case—would try to do anything to impede the progress of such a Bill. We just want it to come in as soon as possible.

Assisted Dying

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Jeff Smith), although I disagree with most of what he said. That does not mean that my mind is not open.

I wanted to take part in the debate in response to requests from constituents urging me to attend and represent their views. Unsurprisingly, their views are more or less equally split—from the retired GP who urged me not to support any changes, to those who were moved by the very sad case of Geoffrey Whaley to ask whether it would be possible for a change in the law to be made. We all know that this is an emotive issue that divides opinion, with strongly held views on both sides.

I was present in the Chamber the last time we debated this issue, when Rob Marris brought a Bill on assisted dying to the House. On that occasion, 85 Members were hoping to speak, and I was unable to make a contribution due to the huge amount of interest. We must remember that the Bill fell, with 330 Members voting against it and 118 for it. I am proud to say that I voted against the Bill.

I am grateful to be able to make a contribution today, but the views that I held in 2015 have not changed—that does not mean my mind is closed—and I will try to briefly outline why I still feel the same way. My concern then, and my concern now, is that in the current climate, at a time of overstretched NHS budgets and massively underfunded social care, if assisted dying were legalised, it would begin to be seen as an alternative to treatment and care. I believed then, and I believe now, that there is a real risk of a subtle but dangerous culture change in which vulnerable, terminally ill patients come to see assisted dying as a treatment option and the best way to stop themselves becoming a burden to their families, the NHS and wider society.

I worry also about our attitude towards people with disabilities. In 2015, a disability campaigner expressed their concern to me about changes in legislation having the potential to lead to value judgments being made about whether other people’s lives are worth living or not and to send out a message that suicide is acceptable in some cases. As the campaigner said to me,

“Someone taking their own life is seen as a tragedy, except if that person is disabled. Then it is seen as understandable.”

I do not believe that there have been any societal changes between then and now that have led to any alteration in attitudes towards those with disabilities, and those concerns remain valid.

The retired GP, whom I referred to earlier, told me that in her career she had been asked on a few occasions by terminally ill patients if she could end their lives for them. She said to me that when she had explored their issues, she found common themes, including the fear of being left alone without support, worrying about suffering from poorly controlled pain for the rest of their lives and the need not to be a burden on medical staff and carers. There were also psychological issues, including profound sadness and despair at their predicament, sometimes accompanied by depressive illness. However, she then told me that, once she had addressed these concerns properly, the request to end life was not made again, and in most cases it had been possible to achieve a dignified and peaceful death.

If we are to achieve this outcome, it will require good quality palliative care, which does not come cheaply. I speak as a vice-chair of the all-party group on hospices and end of life care. We need to look at the funding of hospices and palliative care, a huge proportion of which comes from charity fundraising, and we need to put the provision of good-quality end of life care on a much more sustainable basis. Some of my constituents who support changes in the law have said to me that they want to see changes because:

“Nobody should be forced to live in unbearable pain.”

I completely agree with that, and that is exactly why we need to make sure that patients receive better palliative care, and to ensure that better information and support are given to terminally ill patients and their families.

I welcome this debate, which forces us to ask the right questions about how we care for the sick and the dying, but I believe strongly that the answer lies in improving palliative care and making it accessible to all those who need it. We need to get that right, rather than changing the law on assisted dying.

Marriage and Civil Partnership: Minimum Age

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Latham]

With my Bill, if I can bring it back after the next Queen’s Speech, I would be looking to change only the age of marriage. I do not think the House would accept changing the legal age at which sex can take place and I think it would be very difficult to stop that—to change that law. Although it might be desirable, I think it would be impossible—just think of all the young people in this country, with hormones racing round their bodies—to stop sex happening. It has happened throughout the ages, and I think that a measure to try to stop it in this day and age would not get through the House. What I want to do is to change the age of marriage, and perhaps that will have some influence in terms of people deciding to keep themselves pure until they get married. That is a hope I have, but I do not know whether it is a reality.

Why are we not leading the way by increasing the legal age of marriage in this country from 16 to 18, which is the recognised age of adulthood? In Bangladesh, which has the second highest absolute number of child marriages in the world—just under 4 million—some lobbyists are said to be using the current UK law as an example of why the legal age of marriage there should be lowered. They are saying, “You allow children to get married. Why shouldn’t we? Why should we listen to you?”

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I have had exactly that experience in Bangladesh. I met the Prime Minister and spoke to her about a law that the country was trying to pass to make marriage legal under 18 in certain circumstances, and she threw back to me, “In your country, you are allowed to marry at 16.” The message was really “Do not come here lecturing us,” so I want to echo the point that the hon. Lady made very well just now.

[Mrs Latham]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. We cannot tell people what to do if we are not doing it ourselves. We have to lead by example, and the change that I propose is one way in which we can do that. We need the three relevant Departments in the UK: DFID; the Ministry of Justice; and the Department for Work and Pensions—no. Which Department is the Minister from?

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

The Chair of the Justice Committee makes a good point. There is cross-party support on the matter, and I hope that we can make progress in the not-too-distant future.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

In 2010, the then Secretary of State for Justice said that he wanted to examine what could be done to use technology more effectively so that fewer people have physically to attend court for routine purposes. Nine years on, however, this Government have admitted to not collecting information on how many times video links break down; nor have they published the business case for their modernisation programme. Will Ministers commit to undertaking that research before proceeding with any more closures or cuts to our courts?

[Lucy Frazer]

There are a number of developments relating to the use of technology to ensure that people do not have to attend court or fill in lengthy, unwieldy documentation. People can now apply for divorce and for probate online, and users can be updated about social security claims through their mobile phone. We piloted online tax tribunal hearings, which were extremely effective, and we are now piloting further video hearings in the civil courts.

Legislation against Female Genital Mutilation

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comments and to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) for his sponsoring of the Bill, which the Government supported and continue to support. I am sure that those in charge of parliamentary procedure are listening and have heard those comments.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

From talking to colleagues across the House, I know that we are all upset by the actions of the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), so I am pleased that the Minister intends to bring legislation before the House. I understand that business will be quite light next week, so I wonder whether she might take the opportunity to bring a Bill to the House then.

[Lucy Frazer]

My portfolio is quite large, but I am not in charge of parliamentary business. However, I am sure that those who are in charge of it are listening to this debate. The Government are keen to bring legislation forward in Government time and will do that shortly.

Road Safety and the Legal Framework

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I want to talk about deaths and serious injuries caused by dangerous drivers and the legislation around sentencing.

Many Members will be aware that in response to pressure and campaigning from bereaved families, MPs and the road safety charity Brake with its “Roads to Justice” campaign, the Government finally agreed in December 2016 to hold a consultation on sentencing for those who cause death and serious injury by dangerous driving. The consultation ran until February 2017 and received more than 9,000 responses.

In October last year, the Government announced that, as a result of the consultation, they would introduce tougher sentences for those causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving, including the possibility of life sentences to replace the current maximum sentence of 14 years. When that was announced more than a year ago, there was much relief among campaigners and bereaved families that at last the Government were taking action to ensure that other families would not have to suffer the same injustices. Not only were those families sentenced to a lifetime of grief at the loss of a loved one, but they suffered the injustice of seeing their loved one’s killer receive a prison sentence of just a few years.

Ian and Dawn Brown-Lartey, in my constituency, had a 25-year-old son, Joseph, who was killed by a 19-year-old driving an uninsured and unlicensed hired Audi at 80 mph in a 30 mph zone. He ran through a red light and smashed into Joseph’s car, killing him outright. Joseph’s killer was imprisoned for six years in May 2015 and has since been released on licence after serving half his sentence. Joseph’s father, Ian, has accused the Government of paying lip service to their promises a year ago to impose stiffer punishments on the most dangerous offenders who cause fatal crashes, because nothing has happened since then. No draft legislation has appeared and, despite numerous questions, letters and debates, no changes have been made to the sentencing guidelines. The longer the Government drag their feet over implementing the changes, the more families will continue to suffer.

In just the past two weeks in my constituency we have had one fatality and two cases of serious injury to pedestrians on our roads. In two out of the three cases the drivers were arrested for dangerous driving. When I read those stories in the local paper, my heart sank at the thought of the anguish that the victims’ families must be going through, not only in dealing with death or serious injury, but knowing that, with the law as it stands, if the drivers are convicted of dangerous driving they will serve only a short sentence.

With the anniversary of the Government’s announcement that tougher sentences would be introduced, and with no action having yet been taken, I again wrote to the Ministry of Justice asking when the legislation would be passed. Disappointingly, the message I received yesterday was that there was no available legislative slot to introduce a Bill, or a suitable Bill that could be used to introduce the changes. So families continue to suffer, and the Government, having promised bereaved families more than a year ago that they would take action, have delivered nothing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I think single-sentence questions are now required.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

In the light of the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), when is the Secretary of State going to reply to my letter asking when longer sentences for causing death by dangerous driving will be introduced into legislation, as was promised in October last year?

[Rory Stewart]

I refer to my previous answer. This is a priority for the Government, but we need to find the right legislative instrument for doing it. Be in no doubt—it will happen.

Upskirting

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

If this whole sorry episode has highlighted one thing, it is that we need to urgently rethink the way we deal with private Members’ Bills, so will the Minister support an urgent debate on the procedures used over private Members’ Bills?

[Lucy Frazer]

As I mentioned, private Members’ Bills play an important role in this House. That is not a matter for the Ministry of Justice, but the hon. Lady’s points have been heard.