Safety of Prison Staff

Debate between Michael Gove and Bill Esterson

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I hope the hon. Lady will excuse me as I turn to my notes in order to give her the exact figure. The last year for which we have figures was 2014-15 and the National Tactical Response Group was called out 400 times during that year, so that was just over once every day.[Official Report, 14 July 2016, Vol. 613, c. 4MC.]

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

In my constituency there is no extra money for HMP Kennet because it is closing. It has been open for only 10 years. In answers to letters that I have written to the right hon. Gentleman’s ministerial colleagues, I have been told that the staff will be expected to relocate to the new super-prison in Wrexham. The problem is that that is more than 70 miles away and there is no prospect of many of those staff being able to relocate. Is that not an example of one of the problems in the planning that the right hon. Gentleman is carrying out? He is closing a prison and the staff will not be able to get to the new one that he is opening. How will that help with problems of both overcrowding and prison staff safety?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Bill Esterson

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely not. It is our responsibility to ensure that children in secure training centres are kept in decent and supportive circumstances that enable them to reintegrate into society. As a result of Youth Justice Board monitoring, the work of the improvement board I set up and the wider work by Charlie Taylor, we are monitoring very carefully the health and welfare of children in all our secure training centres. My Department will have the ability to scrutinise any other organisation that takes over the running of these STCs to ensure that children are kept safe.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

3. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of the UK leaving the EU on legal services.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Michael Gove and Bill Esterson

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State’s apparent commitment to access to justice for everybody in this country mean that he will reverse the cuts made by the previous Government to that very same access to justice?

[Michael Gove]

We are committed to reviewing the reforms to legal aid, but I have to stress that it was the Labour party’s former justice spokesman, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), who made it clear during the last Parliament that levels of spending on legal aid were unsustainable under the last Government and we needed to reform. After all, as the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) told us, there was no money left.