Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

Clearly, this is not good. Prisoners need decent, purposeful activity. If they are locked up in their cell for too long, they are obviously not having educational opportunities. We should aim, as the chief inspector of prisons made clear, to make sure that people are spending eight or 10 hours a day outside their cells. That is partly about numbers of staff, which is why we have brought 250 more staff into the Prison Service. It is also about better scheduling of educational and vocational provision. However, the situation the hon. Lady describes is not acceptable.

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

Following campaigns by victims’ families, the Government announced in October last year that they would bring in tougher sentences for those causing death or serious injury by dangerous driving, but still nothing has happened. Why the delay?

[Mr Gauke]

We will be reporting to the House in due course.

Parole Board and Victim Support

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks. As for the timescale, I said earlier that I expect the review to conclude by Easter.

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

In the interests of transparency, will the review reveal which sex offender treatment programme Worboys underwent that satisfied the Parole Board? As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) pointed out, the main programme used in England and Wales was found to increase the reoffending rate and was scrapped last year.

[Mr Gauke]

I hear what the hon. Lady says. When I set out the case for reviewing transparency, I referred to the reasons that the Parole Board gives for a particular decision being put in the public domain. I think that we need to consider precisely what information can be put into the public domain, and that is the purpose of the review.

Sentencing

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for his support, and I will say two things in response. First, I certainly share his commitment to doing all we can to make certain that our prisons are effective agents of rehabilitation, because effective rehabilitation that reduces the cycle of reoffending is in the interests of the safety and security of everybody in this country. Secondly, my right hon. and learned Friend is right about the importance of respecting international obligations. We rightly talk about British values and seek in our various expressions of policy to embody and represent those values, and among those values are respect for the rule of law and a rules-based international order. It is certainly harder to urge respect for those principles on others if we are not clear about doing so ourselves. For those reasons, the package I have announced today represents a clear, and also, I hope, an effective way forward.

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

This Government have introduced a system of universal credit on the basis that it mirrors the world of work, so why will they not use the same logic and consider that prisoners should be prepared for life outside prison by maintaining their civic right to a vote?

[Mr Lidington]

I am not sure whether the hon. Lady was urging that all prisoners should be enfranchised, regardless of the seriousness of the crime or the length of sentence, but I think that was the implication of what she said. What I have announced today relates enfranchisement to effective rehabilitation, but I do not agree that we should depart from the principle that it is reasonable to clearly tell someone who has been sentenced to prison—which means the court must have considered every alternative penalty and decided that the crime had been so serious that no other punishment would suffice—that they have forfeited the right to vote as a consequence.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Liz McInnes Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is able to read my mind, because that was my next sentence.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that the figure for assaults on NHS staff is probably much higher? I know from my experience of working in the NHS that a lot of staff did not report assaults, because they were not confident anything would be done.

[Chris Bryant]

That is part of the problem that we—and, for that matter, the whole criminal justice system—need to address: all too often, people simply do not feel at the end of the process that they have got justice. When people see those working alongside them not getting justice, with paltry sentences handed down, they of course decide, “I don’t want to have to go through all the grief and the hassle of pressing charges.”

Attacks on NHS Staff

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2017 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden) for his introduction to the debate, which is on an important issue about which I feel very strongly as an ex-employee of the NHS and a former workplace trade union rep in the NHS.

Hospitals, clinics and health centres, by their nature as public buildings, have to be open to everyone. That brings particular security risks to the staff who work in them. Risks are also encountered by community staff who visit people in their homes. Those risks were clearly explained to the Petitions Committee in its meeting with the safety reps from the Royal College of Nursing. Better liaison and sharing of information between the police and the NHS regarding people who present a risk are clearly needed.

Although I appreciate the spirit of the petition and am sure that no one would argue that our NHS staff do not deserve to be protected while going about their work, there is a degree of confusion over what the petition aims to achieve. First, some clarity is required. The petition should cover all NHS staff, not only medical staff. After working in the NHS for many years, I realise that “doctors and nurses” is used as shorthand for all NHS staff, but given that there are about 400 different job roles in the NHS, it must be made clear that our concerns are for all NHS staff. Among many others, the porters, the cleaners, the healthcare assistants, the allied health professionals and the many volunteers are the unsung heroes of our NHS.

Secondly, the Government’s response to the petition stated:

“The fact that the victim is providing a service to the public is listed as an aggravating factor in sentencing guidelines”.

Therefore, is there a need to toughen up the law? Most people would say that there is in order to send out a clear message that to attack any member of NHS staff is totally unacceptable.

[Richard Drax]

I am listening to the hon. Lady closely, and she is making an excellent speech. Should the Government consider an automatic prison term, with the period of detention obviously depending on the circumstances of the assault?

[Liz McInnes]

I will go on to talk about the special circumstances in which NHS staff work, which include working with patients with mental health issues, so I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman on a blanket prison sentence. One size does not fit all, I am afraid, and I will expand on that later. However, I thank him for his intervention.

Scotland has a law to protect NHS medical staff. According to the House of Commons Library, that law seems to have reduced the incidence of assaults on staff, although the number is still unacceptably high.

Thirdly, many assaults on staff are committed by patients who have mental health issues such as dementia. The accounts given by the RCN safety reps highlight the problems in dealing with those patients, such as whether they are capable of realising the harm that they have caused. That goes some way towards explaining my response to the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax). There also seems to be a feeling, certainly among the RCN reps, that the police are rather too ready to dismiss cases in which the assailant has mental health problems. That subject deserves further exploration and I hope the Minister will comment on it.

My constituency is served by the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, in which the number of cases of physical violence against staff by patients has, unfortunately, gone up from 169 in 2014-15 to 240 cases in 2015-16. The trust had been doing good work on training staff in conflict resolution and had managed to bring the figure down from 251 assaults in 2012-13. Sadly, reported assaults appear to be on the rise again. A spokeswoman for the trust informed me that the most recent rise was due to increased awareness and reporting, but I remain slightly unconvinced of that. I am informed that many staff are still reluctant to report assaults because they do not feel that any action will be taken as a result. The RCN safety reps highlight that the onus on staff to report attacks can act as an obstacle to reporting, so employers should provide more help and support to staff in such situations.

Assaults do not happen only when staff are on duty. There have been many incidents of assaults and muggings of staff at Pennine when they are in hospital car parks. In my days at Pennine, I can clearly remember that a member of staff suffered a serious assault—she was stabbed —when returning to her car after a shift on the Rochdale site. Fortunately, she survived that serious assault. We must make it clear that assaults on NHS staff are unacceptable at all times, not just when they are on duty.

This weekend it was announced that the Government are calling for a complete smoking ban on all English hospital sites. That is very laudable, but who will police it? In my experience of the NHS, a member of staff telling a patient or visitor that they cannot smoke in a particular area is likely to lead to a flurry of verbal abuse. I therefore hope that if the Government are serious about the move, they back it up with funding for trained security staff and do not simply expect already hard-pressed and stressed NHS staff to take on yet more responsibility for enforcement.

Where do we go from here? Without doubt, this is a serious issue and action on it has the support of a great deal of the public, including 161 of my constituents. Undeniably, our NHS staff are under a great deal of pressure at the moment, with long waiting lists, patients waiting on trolleys in corridors and staff having to deal with angry relatives as a result. The Government’s handling of the NHS appears to be creating a perfect storm of unrest and discontent among patients and relatives, which is likely to exacerbate tension and ill feeling. The Government must take some responsibility for that.

In summing up, I return to the Government response to the petition. It states:

“A protocol to tackle violence and anti-social behaviour in the NHS by shared actions between the Police, Crown Prosecution Service and NHS Protect was signed in 2011”,

which, importantly, sets out steps

“to improve victim and witness support. This protocol is currently being updated”.

This debate is therefore very timely. It is my hope that what is said in this Chamber today will be taken note of and fed into that update to ensure that our wonderful and dedicated NHS staff are afforded the highest standards of safety while they go about their daily, and nightly, duties to us, the British public.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

HMP Lewes went into special measures on 12 December, and a bespoke package of support is being developed for the newly appointed governor, who took up his post on 9 January. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the support in detail.

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

The consultation on driving offences and penalties related to causing death or serious injury closes on 1 February. When does the Minister expect the report on the outcome of the consultation to be available?

[Mr Gyimah]

I understand that we have received thousands of responses to that consultation, and obviously we will be analysing the results. Once we are in a position to do so, we will bring further proposals to this House.

Domestic Violence Victims: Cross-Examination

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald]

I am sure that the hon. Lady is making an important point. If she wants to write to me or speak to me about it, I would be more than happy to look at it, but this is not what we are doing in this exercise of looking at the cross-examination of victims by perpetrators or alleged perpetrators. We are tackling a discrete, narrow area, and we want to do this urgently. Her point is important, but it concerns a different matter.

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

Survivors of domestic abuse tell us that they feel re-victimised and re-traumatised by their experiences in the family courts. Will the Minister please give us more clarity on how the voices and views of survivors of domestic abuse will be considered in this emergency review?

[Sir Oliver Heald]

My view is that this is a narrow issue involving banning perpetrators or alleged perpetrators from cross-examining victims, as we do in criminal cases. That is a narrow issue on which I think we all agree. The sort of arrangements that will need to be put in place have already been tried in the criminal courts. If the hon. Lady has any particular ideas or concerns, I would obviously be happy to discuss them with her, but I do not think that this is a complicated matter. It is a simple one that needs urgent action.

HMP Birmingham

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his assiduousness in asking parliamentary questions, which have elicited an answer. If he reads the “Prison safety and reform” White Paper, he will see there is a whole section on how we deal with the issue of drugs: testing offenders on entry and exit, and making sure that governors are held accountable for getting people off drugs. That is the way we are going to crack this problem.

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

As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), the shadow Secretary of State, has pointed out, this is the worst prison disturbance since the Strangeways riot of 1990. The Woolf report on that riot recommended that

“no establishment should hold more prisoners than is provided for in its certified normal level of accommodation”,

but it is reported that HMP Birmingham was overcrowded by almost a third last year. Have this Government learnt no lessons at all from the riots of 26 years ago?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have discussed the issue the hon. Lady mentions with Lord Woolf. She is right that the disturbance at HMP Birmingham was very serious; that is why we are investing £1.3 billion in our prison build programme to create extra capacity and eliminate overcrowding in the prison estate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald]

My hon. Friend’s point is that those countries have the common-law tradition that was founded in this country by our judges and our Parliament. The fact that it is expressed differently in Canada and countries of that sort does not mean that it does not have the same root. We in this country should be proud of that.

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

12. What steps she is taking to protect judicial independence.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Elizabeth Truss)]

The independence of the judiciary is the cornerstone of the rule of law, vital to our constitution and freedoms. As Lord Chancellor I frequently make this clear, both in private and in public.

[Liz McInnes]

After the press attacks on the judiciary, it took the Justice Secretary nearly 48 hours to release a statement. The former Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge said of that statement that he thought it was

“a little too late—and quite a lot too little”.

Does she agree with Lord Judge, and if so will she take the opportunity to apologise?

[Elizabeth Truss]

It is not the job of the Government or the Lord Chancellor to police headlines. The process is working absolutely as it should. People have a right to bring a case to court. The Government have the right to defend our position in the court. The judiciary is independent and impartial, and the press can scrutinise the process within the law.

Road Safety: Sentencing Review

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Susan Elan Jones]

I agree totally. That shows that this is a cross-party issue that affects communities across the country.

That driver served only 10 months in jail. Clearly, that cannot be right. Almost two years ago, I asked the Government to reconsider the arrangements for sentencing. Currently, those who cause death by driving in the way I have described face a number of charges and a wide scale of sentences, ranging from mere months to 14 years, but the reality is that sentencing guidelines mean that there must be a large and, frankly, improbable series of aggravating factors for a judge to issue anywhere near the maximum sentence. Tougher penalties are not being used, because judges are being held back by guidelines that prevent them from handing out longer sentences. I know from the many families I have spoken to that there are instances when tougher penalties were very much needed.

In 2004, the Labour party was right to fight for higher maximum penalties. The Government, encouraged by the tireless campaigning of many Members from all parties, were equally right to incorporate new rules on drug taking while driving into the Crime and Courts Act 2013 and to amend the Road Traffic Act 1988. We know that there is a tremendous amount of cross-party support on the issue in this House. Both of those Governments can be rightly proud of having introduced changes that go in the right direction, but there is much further to go.

I have spoken about Robert Gaunt from Overton in this House previously, and I wish I could say that that case is tragic but unique, but it is not. Innocent people have been killed by drivers who have been given low sentences across our country, and it has continued since I raised this issue in 2014.

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

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this important subject to this Chamber. I just wish we had longer than half an hour to talk about it. My constituent, Joseph Brown-Lartey, was, sadly, killed by a dangerous driver. I have talked about him before and I am working on the Justice for Joseph campaign. I want to make the point that, as my hon. Friend said, she and indeed all of us present have been working on the issue for many years, but we do not seem to be getting anywhere with the Government. I hope that this debate will push it forward.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. Again, that highlights the point about diversity —she represents an urban constituency, mine is predominantly rural. These issues occur absolutely everywhere.

The average sentence served by a driver who kills or seriously injures another human being while driving is, believe it or not, only 11 months. Families are losing loved ones because of reckless, dangerous and negligent driving, and the law is not doing enough to hold those responsible to account. Innocent families are being let down by the system and the punishments given simply do not fit the crimes committed.

Let me explain the situation. If a driver is caught driving with

“a deliberate decision to ignore (or a flagrant disregard for) the rules of the road”,

the starting point for judges when sentencing is eight years. That can be longer for a number of reasons, such as when a person is killed or when the driver is driving a stolen vehicle. Let us reflect for a moment on how subjective that is—“a deliberate decision” about, or “ a flagrant disregard for” the rules of the road. If a driver is seen to be creating significant danger—the lowest level of seriousness—the starting point for a sentencing judge is three years and the maximum term is five years. If a driver is injured, the sentence is shortened. If the victim was a friend, again the sentence is shortened; and on and on we go.

As I said in 2014, it is absolutely right that our criminal justice system differentiates those who make a mistake, commit a crime and acknowledge it, and those who flee, hide and pervert the course of justice, as in the case involving Robert Gaunt in Overton. I wholeheartedly support the provision of a range of different sentences for driving offences—indeed, our country’s justice system is built on that—and I am calling for a logical development of the existing system and more consideration of the sentences given.

As a result of the rules and guidelines set out by the law, drivers who end the lives of innocent people on our roads have their sentences reduced again and again until, bit by bit, they decline to mere months. Drivers who plead guilty before their trials have their sentences automatically reduced by a third, and most will be released on licence after serving only half their given sentences. For the families of those who are killed, that is clearly not justice—nor is that justice for the rest of society.

After the injustice of cases such as that of Robert Gaunt and many others like it nationwide, people from my constituency launched a petition calling for sentences for this sort of crime to be increased. More than 1,300 names were added online and a further 2,000 collected on paper. The campaign continued, even though a change of Government meant an early closure of the online petition. Many of those who signed had probably never signed a petition before, and perhaps have not since, but they did so on that occasion out of a passion for justice for Robert and for other victims of road accidents throughout our country.

Almost two years ago, as I said, I asked the Government to look at the maximum penalties for driving offences that lead to death and serious injury. I asked for the same thing that the family of Robert James Gaunt was calling for back in 2009—but we are still waiting today.

In response to a recent parliamentary written question on this issue, the Government stated:

“It is our intention to commence a consultation before the end of the year which will look at driving offences and penalties.”

I welcome that, and I am pleased that the Government are still willing and open to do something. However, almost two years ago, that same commitment was made to me when I brought the issue to the House of Commons. I and other Members of Parliament who were passionate in support of a sentencing review were told that one would take place and that justice would be offered to those who had lost loved ones so tragically.

If we change the law and the sentencing guidelines are reformed properly, that will bring some measure of justice. I hope that that would give people who are uninsured or unlicensed grounds to pause before they get behind the wheel of a vehicle. So let me be absolutely clear why I am here today: we urged the Government to act; the Government promised to hold a review; and the review has not taken place. It is taking far too long.

Since 2009, my constituents have been calling for changes, and many others across the country and across party have been making the same plea. At a recent meeting of the all-party parliamentary group for transport safety, I had the opportunity to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), who has responsibility for road safety, why that has taken such a long time. He admitted that there had been considerable delay. In response to a recent question in the House of Lords by Lord Berkeley on this issue, the Government responded that the criticism that they had taken too long was “fair”.

The Government keep telling the House their intentions. I am pleased that they intend to conduct a review. I am pleased that their intention is to take this matter as seriously as everyone in this Chamber does, but it has been almost two years since I was promised in the House of Commons in 2014 that a review would take place. On that occasion, the Government told me that a sentencing review would start, but for all the promises we have been given, I have yet to see anything actually happening. Intentions are grand and fine things, and they are to be welcomed, but they are not much use if we do not get a real review and if sentencing guidelines are not reformed. It is now time to see real results.

I have been urging the Government to look at the issues since 2011. I will continue to raise them again and again until action is taken, and many, many colleagues in this House feel similarly. It is time for the Government to give us the review that Members of Parliament are calling for. It is time for the Government to deliver on the promises they made to me almost two years ago. Most important, it is time for us to give families the opportunity to receive the justice that they have waited so long for. It is time for a review, and I and many others will keep asking for it until it arrives. This is not about politics; it is about justice. It is time for us to move on with the issue. I have left the Minister a considerable amount of time in which to respond and, I hope, to make some commitment on a timeline for when justice can be expected.