Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Timothy Excerpts

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

Last year, 6,397 knife criminals were sent to prison, and the average sentence was just over eight months. As the Government scrapped almost all sentences of less than a year, will the Justice Secretary say very clearly whether he expects as many knife criminals to go to jail next year as did last year?

[Mr Lammy]

The outrage under the last Government was watching knife crime go up year on year, while the hon. Gentleman was sitting in the Home Office—

[Nick Timothy]

That’s not even true!

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Mr Timothy, you get two questions. Can you at least wait half a minute before you jump in?

[Mr Lammy]

It is a serious subject, and I am pleased that after 22 months in office, we have seen falls in knife crime in the last year. We will continue with our knife crime strategy.

[Nick Timothy]

What the Justice Secretary just said about the record of the last Government was factually untrue, and he should withdraw it. He does not want to admit it, but it is his policy to send fewer knife criminals to jail. That is why he just said what he did. His White Paper was announced yesterday, and buried in it, on page 46—he can read it again—is his plan to not just go soft on young criminals, but make others,

“including vulnerable adults and young adults…subject to a different process”.

That is wrong. Can the Justice Secretary rule out weaker sentences, and a target of reducing imprisonment rates for any adult criminals?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman left us with a prison capacity crisis. The last Government had success in reducing the number of young people in prison—he knows it, and the record is there—and I worked with Michael Gove and David Cameron as they set out on that mission. The strategy we published yesterday puts public protection first. There will always be young people who have to be in custody, but we are determined to reduce the number of young people on remand in particular by working with the most vulnerable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Justice Secretary.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

This weekend, two marches came to London: one was condemned by the Justice Secretary; about the other—yet another anti-Israel march—there was not a word. Once again we heard crowds of people demanding intifada revolution and other coded calls for attacks on British Jews. If the Crown Prosecution Service refuses to prosecute the thugs who chant “Globalise the intifada” and other calls for violence, why will the Justice Secretary not change the law so that these people get what they deserve?

[Mr Lammy]

I want to reassure the hon. Gentleman that everyone inciting violence against Jewish communities in our country must face the full force of the law. I know he will recognise that I represent the Stamford Hill area of London, with its significant Orthodox Jewish community, and I am grateful that he has raised this. Can I just remind him that the CPS updated its guidance on hate crimes on 5 May, to ensure that people face the law as they should?