Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Hill and Robert Buckland

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. We have taken steps to minimise the risk from transfers. We allow only essential transfers—for example, where courts need to be served and justice must carry on. We have clear policies in place to define the need for essential transfers, and we have our compartmentalisation strategy, which means that new admissions to prisons are kept separate from the general population. We are testing new prisoners and, indeed, testing those being transferred between prisons to minimise the risk of spreading the virus.

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab) [V]]

All too often, people who commit retail crime escape a custodial sentence. The Scottish Parliament recently passed legislation that will provide frontline retail workers with important protection from abuse and violence when they serve their communities. Will this Government finally ensure that key retail workers in England and Wales are covered by similar specific legislation?

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that important issue. He is right to talk about retail workers being on the frontline. He can be reassured that in relation to offences such as assault and other serious crimes well known to the law, the Sentencing Council has set out guidelines in which it specifically refers to people such as retail workers in an important public service position, which means that the courts should be increasing sentences and finding aggravating factors where shop workers have been the victims of crime. I think all of us in this House share the need to support our shop workers, particularly at this time of covid when they have done an outstanding service to us all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mike Hill and Robert Buckland

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and he can be reassured that, throughout the pandemic, domestic abuse cases appearing in a magistrates court and indeed in the Crown court have been given the priority that we all expect them to be allocated. We have seen, of course, a big demand spike in the covid crisis for domestic abuse support services, which is why the package that I referred to in the previous answer—the £25 million package, of which £22 million has already been allocated to support groups dealing with domestic abuse and sexual violence—is already making a real difference to victims and those affected by domestic abuse.

[Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Records show that, because of police underfunding, Cleveland police are 500 officers down. Hartlepool magistrates court has closed and our local cells have been mothballed. Would the Secretary of State agree to meet me to discuss the reopening of our police cells in Hartlepool as a matter of importance in order to build back confidence?

[Robert Buckland]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman would support very much the Government’s moves to scale up the number of police officers. In Cleveland, the numbers are already rising in an encouraging way. I note the point that he makes about particular custodial facilities. Of course I will discuss the matter with him. He will know that it is vital that we maintain local justice, but at the same time make sure that we use remote technology as well in order to get cases on as quickly as possible and to deliver justice to victims.