Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Meg Hillier and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I pay tribute to her for all the work we did together on these issues, and what a stalwart, doughty supporter she has been. The Victims Bill will place the victims code into law. It will increase oversight of how the criminal justice agencies work, both at the police and crime commissioner level and in the national inspections. I mentioned the increase in funding for victims. The increase in the victim surcharge will mean that we have more restorative justice, with offenders paying for the wrongs they have done and victims getting extra compensation.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I find myself in agreement with the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), whose Government, of course, have been in power for 12 years. The court delays are a real problem for victims. One of my constituents was violently attacked and given a court date three years later. Her seven-year-old witnessed the attack, and the perpetrator keeps pestering her, breaking non-molestation orders, leaving the police pretty powerless, because he knows there is no traction. The Public Accounts Committee has looked into this. The backlog is not going down and will not be lower than pre-pandemic—it is not about covid. What is the Secretary of State doing to get a grip on his Department and make sure the courts deliver justice for victims?

[Dominic Raab]

I say to the hon. Lady that the Crown court backlog reduced from more than 60,000 cases in June 2021 to under 58,000 cases at the end of March 2022—[Interruption.] Hold on. The increase and the reversal of that trajectory were the result of the Criminal Bar Association’s strike action, which was unwarranted—[Interruption.] I am looking at Opposition Front Benchers. When we announced our proposals on the legal aid review, they agreed with every single one. Yet again, when it comes to the justice system, as with many other things, they are on the side not of the public, but of those who take disruptive industrial action.

Afghanistan: FCDO Update

Debate between Meg Hillier and Dominic Raab

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

No one could fail to be moved by the heart-rending scenes at Kabul airport—the one my hon. Friend described and others. We will of course look at what we can do in relation to orphans and unaccompanied minors. The real challenge will be getting verifiable details about their parents—whether they are still alive or whether there are members of the wider family. In the first instance—this has been our experience more generally across the middle east and in war-torn countries—we want to try to see whether it is possible to reunite children with either their parents, if it is safe to do so, or wider members of their family.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

As is the case for many MPs, many of my constituents who are British have family dependants in Afghanistan, and a number are saying that they want to go to a third country, such as Pakistan, to get them out. I am advising them to wait until they get advice from the Government, but is the Foreign Secretary having serious discussions with the Home Secretary about expediting cases that are already in the system, with the biometrics and paperwork already in place, to see whether we can get those people through quickly to avoid clogging up the infrastructure in those third countries?