Neale Hanvey
Main Page: Neale Hanvey (Alba Party - Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath)Department Debates - View all Neale Hanvey's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(1 year, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe Government have received a pre-reporting list of issues from the UN Committee against Torture, as is routine. We are finalising our response.
Article 3 of the 1984 UN convention against torture and other cruel, unhuman or degrading treatment or punishment sets out the grounds on which a state should judge all risks of mistreatment in considering extradition. Will the Minister clarify whether the UK Government give due consideration to those provisions? Specifically, what consideration is the UK giving to providing a right of safe passage for those fleeing Sudan and South Sudan with family members in the UK? Will the Minister set out what safe, open and legal routes are available to those people?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, though I know that you would not want me to stray too far into matters that are for other Government Departments, Mr Speaker. The UK has carried out by far the longest and largest evacuation of any western country from Sudan, bringing 2,450 people to safety. Preventing a humanitarian emergency in Sudan is our top focus. Alongside the evacuation effort, we are working with international partners and the United Nations to bring an end to the fighting.
My right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), the Prisons Minister, has talked about this a little. It is very important for people within jails to be given the chance to connect with the opportunities outside. I recently visited HMP Berwyn, which has an employment hub that allows individuals to receive not just career support but, potentially, the interview that they need with an employer on the outside via digital connectivity. I know that my right hon. Friend does excellent work in her local prison, HMP Chelmsford, which is improving greatly following a difficult period, and is now coming out on the other side. We remain committed to ensuring that defendants can get into employment to turn their lives around, but also to repay their debt to society in becoming contributing members of it.
I think that any such review and analysis would be led by the Government Equalities Office, but I can of course speak with reference to the prison system. On the particular issue of transgender prisoners on the women’s prison estate in England and Wales, our approach is that transgender women can be held on the main women’s estate only if risk-assessed to be safe. That is part of the reason why more than 90% of transgender women in custody in England and Wales have been held on the men's estate, compared with only 50% in Scotland. The further changes in our policy strengthen the position, meaning that no transgender woman convicted of a sexual or violent offence and retaining male genitalia can be assigned to the general women’s estate other than in truly exceptional circumstances, with ministerial sign-off.