Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Philip Davies

Thursday 15th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe), does the Secretary of State believe that people should be forced by the criminal law to buy a Sky TV package even if they do not want one? If not, why should they be forced to buy a BBC licence fee if they do not want one? Does she not agree that both positions are equally absurd?

[Lucy Frazer]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He will know that the Department is considering all possible future funding options to ensure the BBC’s long-term sustainability, because the digital world is indeed changing.

Gambling Act Review White Paper

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Philip Davies

Thursday 27th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I thank the hon. Lady and commend her hugely for all her work. As she has highlighted, we have listened and taken action. I really do commend and thank her for her work.

I have been in post for two and a half months. I have brought this proposed legislation forward and she can be reassured that I, together with the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), will continue to ensure that action happens swiftly. As she will know, following a White Paper, various technical consultations need to take place. We will bring forward these measures largely through statutory instruments, and she has my utmost commitment that I will ensure that process is done as speedily as possible.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. How many regular punters did the Secretary of State speak to before bringing forward these proposals, particularly in relation to the affordability checks, including the bizarre and arbitrary figures of £1,000 in a day or £2,000 over 90 days, which amounts to £22 a day by my reckoning?

The Conservative party used to believe in individual freedom and individual responsibility, but that seems to have gone out of the window with these affordability check proposals. Will the Secretary of State tell me who decides whether or not an individual can afford the amount that they are gambling when an affordability check is made? Will it be the Government, the Gambling Commission, the bookmakers or the banks? Do the punters themselves get any say at all about how they spend their own hard-earned money?

[Lucy Frazer]

I thank my hon. Friend for his engagement on this issue. I know that he, like many others, wants to ensure that people—punters—who enjoy a flutter are not prevented from doing so. He asks what engagement we have had. Some 44% of adults gamble, and we have spoken to quite a lot of them. We have had 400 meetings on the issue to ensure we take all perspectives into account.

The White Paper is about balance and ensuring that people can go about their business, doing what they enjoy, without restriction, but at the same time protecting those people who need protection. Most people will not even know that the checks he talks about are happening. They will be frictionless and happen behind the scenes: 80% of people will have to do nothing at all and 20% will have a simple check on whether they have been made bankrupt or have a county court judgment against them. They will not know that that check is taking place. Those sorts of checks take place in a variety of different instances, but they are there to ensure that in the very small percentage of cases where an operator needs to double-check whether somebody might be going down the wrong road, they can do so. I should emphasise that those checks are already taking place; gambling companies already have a responsibility to ensure the protection of those who gamble with them. We are trying to protect to people such as the nurse who spent £245,000 over a few months, when the gambling company knew that she had a salary of £30,000. Those are the sorts of instances that we want to stop with our proposals in the White Paper.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Philip Davies

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about crime in our prisons, which takes several forms. A few months ago, we announced expenditure of £100 million on security within our prisons, which will enable us to stop the use of illicit phones, prevent drugs from getting into our prisons, and increase our intelligence and surveillance to stop criminal activity.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Is it not about time the Government changed the law so that anybody who is guilty of assaulting a prison officer loses their automatic right to early release, thereby acting as a huge deterrent for this appalling activity and giving prison officers the support they deserve?

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend has made a number of points on the criminal justice system over a number of years that are all worth thinking about. He is absolutely right about protecting our prison officers. We have, as he will be aware, increased the sentence for assaulting prison staff.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Philip Davies

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point that shows how the CPS and the police are working better together. The CPS is sending cases back to the police because it is reviewing those cases to ensure they are ready and will not fall when they go to court. Having spoken to the assistant commissioner, I know that 93,000 police officers have undertaken disclosure training to ensure they are better trained so that these cases are ready for trial and will secure successful prosecutions.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

2. If he will extend the list of offences included in the unduly lenient sentence scheme.

[The Solicitor General (Lucy Frazer)]

I know my hon. Friend takes very seriously the importance of getting appropriate sentences for those who are convicted, and he worked closely with my predecessor on extending sentences for those who had received lenient sentences. The ULS scheme remains an important part of the justice system to ensure justice for victims’ families.

I can tell my hon. Friend that, in 2018, the Law Officers referred a fifth of all eligible cases to the Court of Appeal and, of those, 73% were found to be unduly lenient. In answer to his question, we are looking carefully at the ambit of the scheme.

[Philip Davies]

It has been a long-standing promise of this Government to extend the unduly lenient sentence scheme to other offences. Apart from a bit of tinkering, they have basically done very little. May I urge the Solicitor General to get on with it and extend the unduly lenient sentence scheme so that we can have appropriate sentences? That would be good for victims and for restoring people’s faith in the criminal justice system.

[The Solicitor General]

I assure my hon. Friend that I am looking at this with the Ministry of Justice, but the increase in the number of offences is more than just tinkering. For example, since its inception, the ULS scheme has been extended to some sexual offences, child cruelty, modern slavery and, in 2017-18, a number of terror-related offences. This is something we are looking at.

Upskirting

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Philip Davies

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

There was an issue in relation to Friday, but I would like to remind hon. Members across the House of the important role private Members’ Bills play in our parliamentary system. A number of private Members’ Bills have passed or are passing through the House at the moment that will improve the lives of the public considerably: the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill from the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the Mental Health Units (Use of Force) Bill from the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed). Such Bills play an important role and we should recognise that.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I very much support the Voyeurism (Offences) Bill—commonly known as the upskirting Bill—introduced by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), not least because I have been helping a very brave woman called Emily Hunt to get justice. Emily was the victim of a very serious voyeurism abuse, and I have already been in discussions with the Solicitor General about how we can ensure that the upskirting Bill helps Emily, too. If the Government are bringing forward a Bill, will the Minister look at Emily’s case to make sure that the legislation also covers the serious voyeurism abuse that she suffered?

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, and I am aware of the issue in relation to Emily Hunt’s case. I have discussed that matter with the Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries, who responded recently to an Adjournment debate on this secured by an Opposition Member. The issue is an important one. What this Bill does is tackle a specific issue, which we should get on to the statute book as soon as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer]

What I am pleased about is that the Government have ensured that this legislation can be brought forward in Government time so that it can be passed and upskirting becomes a criminal offence.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As you have heard, I very much support the upskirting Bill, not least because of the work I have been doing with Emily Hunt.

Mr Speaker, you have always tried to ensure people outside this place better understand our procedures inside here and I ask you to do so again today. It has been stated in a number of places that my speech on the first Bill on Friday in some way blocked the progress of the upskirting Bill, which was the eighth Bill for consideration on Friday. Given that the Government on Friday had made it clear that they were going to talk out the second Bill for consideration, that of the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter)—a Bill which, incidentally, I also support—and given that, to the best of my knowledge, in the history of the House of Commons the eighth Bill for consideration has never been reached for debate on a Friday, can you confirm to people, with the authority and independence of your position, that it is a matter of fact, not opinion, that my actions on Friday had no impact on the upskirting Bill in any way, shape or form, that even if I had not spoken at all on Friday that particular Bill would not have been reached for debate before 2.30 pm anyway, and that it was always going to be reliant on being nodded through at the end of the day, something that I certainly did not oppose? I hope you can set the record straight, Mr Speaker, and help those people outside the House to better understand the facts of what happens inside the House.

Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Ratification of Convention) Bill

Debate between Lucy Frazer and Philip Davies

Report stage: House of Commons
Friday 24th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I do not intend to deviate too much from the matter in hand, but he raises an interesting point about what might be the driving force behind that. I think the point he is getting at is that he thinks the levels and nature of immigration into Sweden might have been a contributory factor—a point made by President Trump last week. There may well be truth in that. I do not know; I did not ask the ambassador for any assessment on that. All we do know is that ratifying the Istanbul convention has not led to a decrease in violence against women in Sweden, and so all the people claiming that that is what is going to happen might want to think again.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Is it possible that in a country that cares about a particular form of violence people might be more willing to report that violence, and so figures might go up rather than down?

[Philip Davies]

It is a no-fail measure, isn’t it? If the level of violence goes down, it is because of the Istanbul convention; if it goes up, it is because the Istanbul convention has helped levels of reporting. It cannot fail: whatever the figures it is a winner. I commend my hon. and learned Friend greatly for that line. She will almost certainly be made a Government Minister very soon. With such aplomb at the Dispatch Box with which to explain away any difficult figures in her Department, I suspect she will make a very fine Minister in short order.



My hon. and learned Friend may well be right. Unfortunately, the situation in Portugal is not quite the same as that in Sweden, so her thesis slightly falls down. Portugal ratified the convention a bit earlier than Sweden, since when the numbers have been like a rollercoaster: they have gone down, then up, then down again. I am not entirely sure how that can be explained away on the basis of increased awareness.

It is fair to say that, to any independent observer, the figures indicate that ratification does not make a blind bit of difference to levels of violence against women. I am very happy for other hon. Members to put their own gloss or spin on why the figures have gone up and down; I am just looking at them as someone who is interested in the statistics.