Pam Cox
Main Page: Pam Cox (Labour - Colchester)Department Debates - View all Pam Cox's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
(3 weeks, 5 days ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
We are raising defence spending to keep this country safe in an increasingly volatile world. That does require tough decisions, and the Department for Transport will set out £700 million-worth of savings from roads funding, but we will consult on the next road investment strategy and set out decisions in due course. I reassure the hon. Lady that safety would come first.
Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)
Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be executed in this country. Her case serves as a haunting reminder of a time when our justice system ignored the realities of domestic abuse and coercive control. In the decades since, members of Ruth’s family and supporters have campaigned unwaveringly for her to receive a posthumous pardon. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that their courageous campaign and the terrible lessons of Ruth’s case must strengthen the Government’s resolve to free women from devastating cycles of abuse?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have the honour to say that His Majesty the King has accepted our advice to grant Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom, a conditional pardon. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] While the pardon does not claim that she was innocent of killing David Blakely, it replaces the death penalty with a sentence of life imprisonment to recognise a profound injustice in this exceptional case. I know that her grandchildren, Laura Enston and Stephen Beard, are in the Gallery with us today. We hope that this pardon brings a measure of peace to Ruth Ellis’s family, who have carried the weight of what happened to her for over 70 years.