Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Timothy and David Lammy

Tuesday 19th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[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.

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[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?

Youth Justice

Debate between Nick Timothy and David Lammy

Monday 18th May 2026 Commons Chamber

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

It is obvious that we are now in the legacy-hunting stage of this Government. Less a range of exhausted volcanoes, more a row of trampled molehills, Ministers are desperate to be remembered for something. This morning a word cloud was published by the pollsters at More in Common. The public were asked for the Prime Minister’s greatest achievement, and emblazoned across the page, in huge capital letters, was the sad word “Nothing.”

Today’s announcement, however, is a fitting tribute to the Justice Secretary and his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Birmingham Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood). So desperate are they to find the causes of crime that they sometimes forget that their job is to prevent and punish crime itself. The truth is that Labour just does not have it in its DNA to be tough on crime. The Government have let 60,000 criminals out of jail early, they are abolishing short-term sentences—so that almost all shoplifters and the majority of knife criminals will no longer be sent to prison—and they are pretending that they are doing these things because they have to, but they are doing them because they want to.

The Prisons Minister says that only a third of prisoners should be locked up. The Minister for Sentencing, the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards), says that a pretty big chunk of the overall population should not be in prison, and today’s announcement is more of the same. So I have some specific questions for the Justice Secretary. He wants to increase the age of criminal responsibility to reflect a

“modern understanding of childhood, vulnerability and development”.

From smoking bans to voting rights, this Government have a confused view of childhood, so what should be the age of criminal responsibility?

With a wave of sexual and violent crime committed by illegal immigrants, many of whom pretend to be children, can the Justice Secretary guarantee that those people will not escape justice a second time by giving a fake age to the police? The Government say they will review the function and purpose of criminal courts for child defendants, but the purpose of a criminal court is obvious: to try criminals. Can the Justice Secretary rule out abolishing criminal trials for under-18s?

The Government also say that they want to end lifelong disclosure requirements for the under-18s. Can the Justice Secretary guarantee that those requirements will still apply to people guilty of violent crimes and to prolific offenders?

The Government say they will slash custodial remand for young offenders by a quarter, but remand should be used in response to need, not arbitrary targets. What is the Justice Secretary’s alternative? Will he just send criminals home? Will he stick to that target regardless of the level of violent crime and repeat offending?

The Government want more parenting orders, but this morning the Justice Secretary said that they are not used much at the moment because all judges can do to enforce them is issue a fine. He was unclear on this question. So will Ministers—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman was asked on the radio this morning whether parents who do not comply will face custodial sentences. He fudged that question, so I am asking him to answer it now.

The figures show that young repeat offenders often start with theft and move on to drug offences and violence, yet the Government’s big idea is to stop punishing swathes of crimes committed by under-18s. The gangs who swarm shops to steal goods in places like Oxford Street, Ilford and Clapham do not need to be put on a course; instead, they need clear punishment, which can include prison.

The results of soft-touch liberalism are visible in towns and cities up and down the country, yet the changes that the Justice Secretary is announcing today risk amounting to more of the same. This is a big call. If youth crime goes up as a result, it will be on this Government.

[Mr Lammy]

The Tories have a mixed record when it comes to youth justice and keeping young people out of criminality. We should remember that their local authority spending cuts led to a huge fall in council services for young people—about 70% in real terms. While they were in power, £1 billion was lost, leading to the closure of many youth clubs, a reduction in the outreach work that is vital to keeping young people on the right track, and youth workers being completely undermined. All that early intervention work was stopped—an entire generation sacrificed at the altar of austerity.

As the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) will know—he was at the driving wheel—the Tories also cut 20,000 police officers and 7,000 police community support officers, leading to a collapse in visible neighbourhood policing. On their watch—[Interruption.] Conservative Members really should listen to this. On their watch, more than 1,000 Sure Start centres closed. Early intervention was demolished on their watch.

I said it was a mixed record because there was a fall in the number of first-time entrants into the youth justice system. Figures peaked at around 110,000 back in 2007, but fell to just 7,500 while the Tories were in office in 2023. When they entered government, there were around 2,000 children in youth custody; by the end of their tenure, that had fallen to just over 1,000. Those were great achievements. It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman does not want to celebrate those achievements, which began under David Cameron and Michael Gove.

The hon. Gentleman asks about the age of criminal responsibility. As he will know, the Bar Council is consulting on this issue, and I look forward to receiving the conclusions of its work. He also asks about foreign national offenders. We are absolutely clear in this consultation that we will look at the 16 and 17-year-olds who arrive in our country from somewhere else and commit a violent crime; if they do so, I am afraid that they will be deported. We are really clear about that. We have driven up deportation in our country.

The hon. Gentleman asks whether we are abolishing the youth court and the criminal standard. Of course we are not. However, we are consulting on youth intervention courts because, just as we have seen in our family drug and alcohol courts, problem-solving approaches —gripping the young person, their parents and those who work with them; looking at the addiction and mental health issues and giving them support; holding the multidisciplinary teams to account—can really make a difference. We stand by that.

The hon. Member asked about young people on remand. We want to recruit a new generation of specialist foster carers, because it is much better to have a responsible, loving adult—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Timothy and David Lammy

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Nick Timothy]

The Prime Minister, we learned this weekend, once said that trials without juries mean evidence is not properly tested and can lead to wrongful convictions. Was he wrong?

[Mr Lammy]

Is that the best the hon. Gentleman can do? Of course the Prime Minister was not wrong—that is why jury trials will remain the cornerstone of our system. What a waste of a question!

[Nick Timothy]

I think the public will be disappointed by this behaviour. The Justice Secretary cannot get his story straight. Like the Prime Minister, he once said:

“Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea”.

Now he says they are a good idea, with his justification for this change changing by the minute. Last week, 10 Labour MPs voted against the courts Bill and 90 abstained. They are looking for a compromise—not in the House of Lords, but while the Bill is in this House. The Justice Secretary just refused to agree a sunset clause in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew), so, for the sake of the 100 Labour MPs who do not trust him or his intentions, I will ask again: will he consider a sunset clause, or will he tell his own MPs no?

[Mr Lammy]

I have to say, the hon. Gentleman has not apologised for the state that the Conservatives left the criminal justice system in, closing 40% of court buildings in England—[Interruption.]

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[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I join the Justice Secretary in sending condolences to the family of Jeff Blair. I also pay tribute to the shadow Solicitor General, my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant), for her successful campaign for a child cruelty register, and I look forward to meeting the Hudgell family this afternoon.

The Government have published their Islamophobia definition, rebranded as a definition of anti-Muslim hostility. We are told that the definition is non-statutory, but it is designed to influence official decision making, so will the Justice Secretary make it clear right now that the definition will not be adopted by the police, prosecutors or the judiciary?

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that those are independent bodies, but it is not a statutory definition. It seeks to allow us to intervene to bear down on the rising Islamic/Muslim hate that we are seeing across the country, just as we have had to do to deal with antisemitism and racism more generally.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Timothy and David Lammy

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I have been reading the Labour party manifesto, but without much luck. Can the Justice Secretary tell the House on which page the promise to restrict jury trials appears? Was it on the same page as digital IDs and all the tax rises?

[Mr Lammy]

I welcome the hon. Member to his place, and congratulate him on his recent promotion. We will judge him on his record. We note that he was responsible for cutting 20,000 police officers across the country, and that he was the author of the hostile environment policy, the Windrush tax and, of course, the wonderful election-winning dementia tax. He will note that our obligation in government is—as his was—to ensure a fair trial. We are bringing forward a threshold change very similar to the change that Margaret Thatcher brought forward in 1988.

[Nick Timothy]

Not waving but drowning. Forty of the right hon. Member’s colleagues—the number is rising—say that restricting jury trials is “madness”. He says that he will not listen to them, judges, lawyers or the victims of crime, so perhaps he will listen to these esteemed voices.

“Jury trials will always be a cornerstone of British justice.”—[Official Report, 27 November 2025; Vol. 776, c. 517.]

That was the Minister for Courts and Legal Services. “There must be a right of trial by jury in all criminal cases”—that was the Sentencing Minister.

“Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea. You do not fix the backlog with trials that are…perceived as unfair.”

That was Justice Secretary himself. If even he knows that this is a bad idea, how long must we wait for the 14th U-turn from this miserable Government?

[Mr Lammy]

It is a bit rich raising what my colleagues are up to on the Back Benches when the hon. Member’s colleagues are going to other Benches in this House. He knows that article 40 of Magna Carta makes it clear that justice delayed is justice denied. That is why it is our judgment and the judgment of Sir Brian Leveson that, for example, if someone has shoplifted an iPhone, they should not be entitled to elect for a jury trial. That should be something that can be dealt with by a magistrate or a single judge.

Separation Centres Review

Debate between Nick Timothy and David Lammy

Tuesday 3rd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I thank the Justice Secretary for advance sight of his statement, and I welcome the publication of this important review. The Government commissioned Jonathan Hall to produce his report following the very violent attack on three prison officers last April by Hashem Abedi—the man behind the Manchester arena atrocity. I pay tribute to the vital work done by the brave men and women of the Prison Service.

We should be frank about why separation centres are necessary. They house the most dangerous and radicalised terrorist offenders in the country. Charlie Taylor wrote in 2022 following an inspection:

“The centres were designed to be used for prisoners from any political or religious viewpoint, but so far, they have only been used for Muslim men”.

That should not be a surprise, because Islamist extremism is by far the gravest threat that we face, and attempts to pretend otherwise are not only cowardly but enormously counterproductive. MI5 says that 75% of its counter-terrorism work is focused on Islamists, and 61% of terrorist prisoners are Islamists, yet the figures show that only 10% of Prevent referrals are Islamists. The Justice Secretary was clear about the Islamist threat, but even then he felt the need to caveat his comments by saying that extremism in the prison estate takes many forms. Of course it does, but time after time, we hear people in positions of authority refer to acts of terrorism, antisemitic violence, and the poison of intolerance and hatred, without the bravery or honesty to name the ideology behind it all. Its name is Islamism, and it has no place in our country, but if we are afraid to be honest about it, we will never defeat it.

Mr Hall has said that in prisons,

“The impact of Islamist groups has been underappreciated for too long by the authorities.”

He has reported that Islamist gangs in prisons are too often viewed

“purely through the lens of good order and discipline”,

and governors believe that they

“can sometimes provide a degree of calm and stability”.

He has revealed that

“prison officers sometimes appeal to the wing ‘emir’ for their assistance in maintaining good order.”

When will prison inspectors be directed to investigate Islamist extremism? Will the Justice Secretary ensure that known problems, such as gang-enforced sharia courts in prisons, are investigated and reported on? Will he publish information on the number of religiously and ideologically motivated incidents in prisons?

The problems for prisons caused by our human rights laws are well documented. The Justice Secretary said that he would consider whether new laws are needed to limit litigation based on article 8 of the European convention on human rights. Making full use of the Sir Humphrey lexicon, he said that he was exploring the full range of options, but promised nothing concrete, and—as is obligatory in this Government of human rights lawyers—he pledged fealty to the European convention.

Let us consider the recent case of Sahayb Abu, an ISIS terrorist who planned to “shoot up a crowd” of civilians and is serving a life sentence. He was held in a separation centre and made subject to greater restrictions following the Abedi attack. He used article 3 of the convention—which the Justice Secretary did not mention—to argue successfully that his prison, HMP Woodhill, did not take into account his mental health. Will the Justice Secretary tell us how many prisoners are in the process of suing the Government, under the prison rules and European convention on human rights, to escape separation centres and close-supervision centres? What is he doing to prevent them from being awarded compensation? When will he decide whether he needs to legislate to limit the application of article 8? What will he do about article 3 claims like the one made by Sahayb Abu?

Should not the Justice Secretary be open about the reality of his commitment to the ECHR, which he repeated today? It means rights for criminals and terrorists like Sahayb Abu and Hashem Abedi, but danger for prison officers and the wider public. The Justice Secretary can say what he likes about legislating—perhaps, after careful consideration, and in the fullness of time—to avoid litigation based on article 8, but the simple truth is that, as long as we remain in the ECHR, he cannot guarantee a thing. And that is why we must leave.

[Mr Lammy]

I agree with the shadow Justice Secretary on the dangerous radicalised offenders we are talking about. I sense some cross-party agreement on that and on the importance of the work being done here. He rightly talks about Islamic extremism in our prisons being the main context, and I agree. Some 254 prisoners are in custody for terrorism and terrorism-connected offences in England and Wales, according to the latest figures, and 60% of them have an Islamic ideology, 30% have an extreme right-wing ideology and 10% were categorised as holding other ideologies. He is right that in these separation centres, as I conveyed, we are dealing with Islamic extremism, and it is pernicious and challenging.

The shadow Justice Secretary talked about gangs. Most prisons show no evidence of extremism based on gang activity. Where it does exist, we have a zero-tolerance approach and encourage staff to clamp down swiftly on any threatening behaviour. Jonathan Hall talks about the important training that is necessary in this area. That is why we will be investing in training counter-terrorism specialists and intelligence officers to identify and disrupt gang activity in particular.

The shadow Justice Secretary also talked about previous work in this area. Our internal assessment is that 208 out of 230 recommendations have been completed from all the other reviews that have looked at counter-terrorism work in prison, some of which he will have commissioned during his time in the Home Office. Only seven of those recommendations were rejected, and 15 remain open. All the open recommendations are from more recent reviews and are being actively worked on. Some of them require legislative changes.

We recognise the use of article 8 and article 3 by this group of prisoners, but we are absolutely clear that leaving the European convention on human rights—a convention that was championed by Winston Churchill—would leave children, the elderly and many vulnerable victims, like those of John Worboys, the 97 killed in the Hillsborough disaster and British troops who died in Iraq, in the most vulnerable position. We cannot and must not do that, so first, we are looking closely at the guidance, as I indicated, and secondly, we will explore legislative obligations. That is the sensitive and detailed work that we must do, because we do it within our existing obligations to the ECHR.

Prisoner Releases in Error

Debate between Nick Timothy and David Lammy

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

As I have just said, William Fernandez went on to commit an horrific crime but the last Government never came to the Dispatch Box about that. By definition, if we got to the situation that we did in 2024, when 17 releases in error were happening, of course it is possible that people can go on to commit crimes. That is why I am hugely grateful—I know it involves police resource—for the efforts of our police to re-arrest these individuals. Some of them, as we saw last week, hand themselves back in when they realise that their release was in error. Our job is to minimise risk, but in a paper-based system we can never eradicate risk in time.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

The Justice Secretary said that one of the prisoners accidentally released who is still at large is a foreign national offender. I know that, after PMQs last week, the right hon. Gentleman will be very well briefed this week, so can he say whether the prisoner was inside for aggravated burglary, drug offences or failing to surrender to the police? Can he also say how this foreign national offender entered the country and whether he was an asylum seeker?

[Mr Lammy]

I have made available as much detail as possible, given that this information is normally released in July. Case 2 was in prison for a class B drug offence, and to the best of my knowledge, my understanding is that that was the FNO prisoner. I am telling the hon. Gentleman that, but I will have it double-checked, because this information was made available to me very recently, and I will write to him if I make an error.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Timothy and David Lammy

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

What does it say to Britain’s allies, and to our enemies, when neither the Foreign Secretary nor the Prime Minister can bring themselves to say that the strikes again Iran were right and legal?

[Mr Lammy]

I have spoken to Secretary of State Rubio every single week that I have been in office. The Prime Minister and the President of the United States have the best of relationships. That is a signal of how well our special relationship is working.

China Audit

Debate between Nick Timothy and David Lammy

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

Yes, and yes.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

I want to remind the Foreign Secretary that the Government that invited Huawei into our telecommunications network was actually the last Labour Government between 2003 and 2006. [Interruption.] Well, he has tried to be partisan about it. The ebb and flow of these issues and the mistakes go back quite a long time, and he should acknowledge that.

What assessment has the Foreign Secretary made of China’s dominance of the world market for cellular internet modules, which are subsidised and sold internationally below the cost of manufacture? What assessment in particular has he made of the insertion of kill switches in Chinese-made wind turbines and PV cells, and will he rule out any Chinese involvement in our energy infrastructure?

[Mr Lammy]

I will take no lectures from the hon. Gentleman, whose advice to former Prime Minister May led to the possibility of nuclear information being revealed. He should be embarrassed, and I am surprised he came to this statement this afternoon.

Iran-Israel Conflict

Debate between Nick Timothy and David Lammy

Monday 16th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I can confirm to my hon. Friend that, along with my colleagues in France and Germany, I expect to be engaged with Iran on this very issue in the coming hours.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

The Foreign Secretary has said, and just repeated, that no military threat can prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons, but surely that is not correct. Given the danger to us all from Iran, which the Foreign Secretary acknowledged in his statement, and its continued attempts to increase its ability to enrich uranium, will he very clearly agree with me that Israel was right to strike the nuclear sites?

[Mr Lammy]

The phrase that I have used about no military endeavour being able to achieve this without diplomacy has been used by the US and by the Israelis themselves.

China: Human Rights and Sanctions

Debate between Nick Timothy and David Lammy

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

One of the most impressive parts of Government that I have seen in my three months in this job is the work of GCHQ. A fiscal event is about to happen, so I hesitate to talk about the finances available to GCHQ, but my hon. Friend can be absolutely sure that I have made the case for it, because it deserves the funds and does a great job to keep us all safe.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

Ambiguity can sometimes be helpful in diplomacy, but it is less helpful when answering a direct question about the actions of the Government here at home. The Foreign Secretary has been somewhat evasive in answering some of the questions today, so let me ask just one of them again. Did any of his officials play any part in the decision to stop the visit by President Tsai, the former President of Taiwan—yes or no?

Middle East

Debate between Nick Timothy and David Lammy

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I stand by our carve-out for F-35s, because there are other important theatres of conflict around the world that this House has discussed and will continue to discuss at length. I am not prepared to ground planes that are saving lives in other theatres, which is why we made this decision, and I stand by it. It was the right decision.

[Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)]

Today, as on other recent occasions, we have heard Labour Members suggest that Israel is somehow conducting a war of annihilation, extermination and genocide. Although we all accept that there is obviously much suffering in Gaza, this terminology is completely inappropriate and inaccurate, and it is repeated by the protesters and lawbreakers who are intimidating British Jews, as we saw again this weekend. Will the Foreign Secretary take this opportunity to say that there is not a genocide occurring in the middle east?

[Mr Lammy]

These are legal terms, and they must be determined by international courts. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that those terms were largely used when millions of people lost their lives in crises such as Rwanda and the Holocaust of the second world war. The way that people are now using those terms undermines their seriousness.