Nigel Evans
Main Page: Nigel Evans (Conservative - Ribble Valley)Department Debates - View all Nigel Evans's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Alex Chalk
As always, my hon. Friend makes a robust point. It is not right that the British people, having suffered the crime in the first place, should then have to pay for the privilege of locking people up for longer at a cost of £47,000 a year. We will send them back. The only people who will try to block it—who will try to block rapists, murderers and grievous bodily harmers—will be the Labour party. And we know that because they have tried to do so already.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
May I thank the Lord Chancellor for his pragmatic statement? I also thank the prisons Minister for his engagement over the weekend. I really welcome progress with IPP sentencing, on which I have a clear constituency interest, but what I really want to ask about is custodial sentences of less than 12 months being suspended. Is there a presumption that those needing to pay a debt to the community will do so in the very communities in which they offend?
Alex Chalk
What an excellent point to end on. It is critical that where a community is offended against, the offenders make that community whole—in other words, that they do the work, whether it is scrubbing graffiti, clearing wasteland or planting trees, in the community to try to atone for their guilt and to repair some of the damage they have done. I am delighted that, increasingly, police and crime commissioners are working together with local probation services to identify the stuff that needs doing in their community so that when defendants go straight, they also look after the community that they have wronged so badly in the first place.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the Lord Chancellor for his statement and for answering questions for just a minute short of one hour and 20 minutes.
Before we move on to the next statement on transport, may I make an announcement? Wendy Morton is pulling the debate on knife crime this evening. We have another two statements to go, which could easily take us to 8.30 or 9 o’clock. I think she has sensibly made the decision that we should have that debate at another time, and I hope that that can be facilitated as soon as possible.