Voting Eligibility (Prisoners)

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend has put forward a further option for the eventual legislation, and I encourage her to take it to the Committee for its consideration.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

My constituents are horrified by the prospect of prisoners being given an entitlement to vote. Further to the issue of those given short sentences, will the Secretary of State comment on the position of offenders who are given community sentences?

[Chris Grayling]

Those who are given community sentences are currently still able to vote and we have no intention of changing that, although one option that has been adopted in some other European countries, Italy particularly, is having tighter rules for those released after a prison sentence. That is clearly an option that the Committee might wish to consider.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

The Information Commissioner is of course accountable to the public via Parliament. His annual reports are laid before Parliament, and he could be questioned on his reports by, for instance, the Justice Committee. It would be wrong for me to comment on the ICO’s handling of any particular case. That said, I understand that the ICO has reopened its investigation into Google Street View because it has received some new information about Google’s capture of data from wi-fi networks in the USA. The investigation is ongoing.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

15. What recent assessment he has made of the operation of community payback; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

The Green Paper “Breaking the Cycle” contained proposals relating to community payback that have been confirmed by the Government. Plans are in place to implement these changes, and the results of the first competition to administer community payback in London will be announced shortly. My assessment is that this competition and the preparation for competitions in all other trusts have substantially improved all elements of operational delivery.

[Mark Pawsey]

In Warwickshire, more than 63,000 hours of community payback are completed each year by offenders on a community sentence. They carry out projects such as litter removal, clearing undergrowth and removing graffiti—labour worth about £360,000. Does the Minister agree that in certain cases this is a worthwhile way for offenders to make a contribution to the society that they have harmed?

[Mr Blunt]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I understand that 179 organisations in Warwickshire benefited from community payback last year. Not only is there an opportunity to link with members of the public through the ability to nominate community payback schemes, but these nominations are now running at more than 1,000 a month.

Dangerous Driving Offences (Sentences)

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Karl Turner]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. It is true that people who tend to commit this type of offence are often not insured, and that says something about the standard of their driving. I am keen to explain that my proposal is not to lock up everyone for poor driving—careless driving is very different from dangerous driving. In my experience, dangerous drivers have very little regard for themselves and other road users, and often do not bother to take out insurance.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I want to refer him to the case of a constituent of mine who came into my constituency office last Friday to show me some absolutely horrendous photographs of a car that had gone straight out at a junction and into somebody’s wall, before demolishing my constituent’s car and sending bricks flying into their living room. Fortunately, it happened at an hour when the people in the house had retired to bed, so nobody was harmed. The driver was found to be driving under the influence of excess alcohol. The community order that was given to him was for 18 months for driving under the influence of excess alcohol, and he was disqualified from driving. However, for dangerous driving he received a community order for 18 months with costs of £80, and again he was disqualified from driving. My constituent’s mother wrote to me. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman agrees with her, when she asks:

“What kind of message are we giving to deliberately drunken drivers if we let them get away with such piffling sentences?”

[Karl Turner]

I agree entirely with those remarks, which are absolutely right.

For me, this issue is about redressing the balance for victims of these horrendous offences. The standard of driving required for dangerous driving is that the driver needs to drive far below the standard of an ordinary competent driver. I am not talking about pulling out of a driveway, failing to look right and having an accident. I am talking about getting into a car and driving like an absolute lunatic—very often, that is the case—including driving around roundabouts the wrong way or even over roundabouts. We have seen the CCTV footage of such driving on numerous occasions. The standard of driving is absolutely horrendous in every possible way.

I suggest that the maximum sentence for dangerous driving should be seven years, rather than what was suggested in the previous Government by a colleague of mine—I think that there was talk of increasing the maximum sentence from two years to five years. The offence of causing death by careless driving has a maximum sentence of five years. I am sure that the families of the victims of that offence would feel dreadful about that sentence. I am sure that the families of victims are absolutely outraged at what has been described to me as such a “paltry” sentence. But the culpability for that offence, in my view, is much less than for dangerous driving per se. I want to emphasise that point.

Members of all parties in the House will have constituents who have raised this issue with them; I suspect that the issue has been raised with them on more than one occasion. I have a constituent, Katie Harper. She was the victim of dangerous driving. Unfortunately, for whatever reason—I make no criticism of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service—the offender was not brought to justice. He was charged with dangerous driving but the case was dropped. When I spoke to Katie’s father, he said that that was an absolute travesty and that that driver should have gone to prison for a long, long time. So I put the question to him, “How long do people think he would have got if he had been convicted?” He said, “Nine years?” I said, “No.” He said, “Ten years?” I said, “No.” He said, “Twelve years?” I said, “Absolutely not.” His daughter had been studying English at the university of Hull, but she is no longer studying English and she has been told that she may never walk properly again. Her father was absolutely horrified to learn that, in my opinion, the sentence for the driver—if he had gone to prison at all—would have been something like nine months, if he had no previous convictions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pawsey Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

The right hon. Gentleman probably knows that we will announce a set of proposals on sentencing later this year, and restorative justice will form an important component of that. It is a coalition agreement to seek to promote restorative justice programmes, and the evaluation of them that has been carried out is encouraging, showing high levels of victim satisfaction and reduced rates of reoffending.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend referred to the community payback scheme. I recently spent a day with the community payback team in my constituency, helping to cut back branches in a local area of woodland. I saw the benefits of such work to both offenders and the community. Does he agree that such schemes play an important part in the justice system?

[Nick Herbert]

I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. I assume that he was taking part in the scheme as an observer, not as somebody who was required to pay back to the community. It was not a Whips-run scheme.

It is important that community sentences are effective, and that there is confidence on the part of members of the public and sentencers that the schemes are rigorous. At their best they can be, but there is a great deal more work to be done to ensure that they are supervised and enforced properly.