Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me reassure the hon. Lady that I listen very carefully to my experts in the Met Office and in the Environment Agency. Every Cobra meeting starts with a briefing from the Met Office. I think it is clear that we are seeing more extreme weather events, and I suspect that we will go on seeing more extreme weather events. We need to do everything we can to improve the resilience of our country. Let me repeat again that, as I said yesterday, when it comes to this relief effort, money is no object. We will spend what is necessary to help families, to help people and to help communities get through this very difficult time. I have to say that things are likely to get worse before they get better, because of the very high levels of rainfall we have seen—and we are seeing very serious high winds as we speak here in the House today—but whatever can be done to help will be done.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

Q2. Last year, my constituent Georgia Williams was brutally murdered. At the subsequent trial, it was revealed that her attacker had previously attacked another young girl five years earlier. Yet, unbelievably, that attacker got off the earlier offence with just a police caution—a written warning. Will the Prime Minister join me in calling on West Mercia police to publish all relevant material relating to that earlier case in order that any lessons that can be learned will be learned?

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, my hon. Friend is absolutely right to take up his constituent’s case in this way. He has written to me about this specific case. My sympathy goes out to the family and friends of Georgia Williams. As he has asked, I understand that the Independent Police Complaints Commission is currently considering its response to a referral from West Mercia police into the handling of this case and what needs to be published. On the issue of cautions, we announced last year that we are banning the use of simple cautions for all of the most serious offences, including manslaughter, rape and robbery, as well as a range of other offences that devastate lives and tear apart communities. Clearly, this is a tragic case and we must get to the bottom of what went wrong.