Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I noted—I am sure colleagues did—that the prince of pithiness was about to leave the Chamber, and I think it ought to be noted.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

T4. What action are the Government taking to protect vulnerable witnesses when they testify in court?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. We want to make sure that vulnerable witnesses, including children, who have to go in front of an open court at the moment, testify and be cross-examined can be cross-examined in advance—pre-trial and pre-recorded. This is much less intimidating, and I think that it will encourage more victims to come forward.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

This is an incredibly important issue. Both the youth justice Minister and I have met Charlie Taylor and we will publish our response this autumn.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

T5. Does the Department intend to promote English law, the rule of law and our legal sector around the world, particularly to take advantage of the opportunities that may arise from Brexit?

[Elizabeth Truss]

English law has had a huge impact, spreading the rule of law around the world. It is the law of choice in over a quarter of jurisdictions, and Brexit gives us even more opportunities to promote this. I will be championing our £25 billion legal services industry as a key part of post-Brexit global Britain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to improve education in prisons.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to improve education in prisons.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

17. What steps his Department is taking to improve education in prisons.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend makes a characteristically perceptive point, and I think a large part of the answer is to encourage more employers to follow the example of Max Spielmann and Greggs, who have set up academies at HMPs New Hall and Drake Hall. Those academies provide work in prison and ongoing support after release, and if more employers did that with women in mind we would have more success in this area.

[Pauline Latham]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is often those who have struggled or dropped out of school and ended up in the criminal justice system whom we must ensure have the skills they need while in our care and afterwards?

[Andrew Selous]

Again, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Giving prisoners a second chance to learn to read, become more numerate and get the skills to hold down a job is central to rehabilitation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to improve education in prisons; and if he will make a statement.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Michael Gove)]

As the House will know, I have asked Dame Sally Coates to bring forward the publication of a report on how we can improve education in prison. Crucial to the direction of travel that Dame Sally is recommending is more control for governors to decide the type of curriculum that prisoners should enjoy while in custody.

[Pauline Latham]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that too much emphasis is placed on the quantity of education in prisons rather than on its quality?

[Michael Gove]

I could not agree more. Inmates are often cycled through a series of low-level qualifications, none of which, after it is initially passed, secures any additional employability gains for the individuals concerned. I was very impressed on Friday, when I visited the military corrective training centre in Colchester, to see how our services have a prison that succeeds in helping individual prisoners to acquire more qualifications en route either to being reintegrated into the services or entering civilian life. That model could be applied with success in the civilian estate.

Dangerous Driving Penalties

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Hollobone. I am delighted to take part in this important debate secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma). He has been a champion on this issue, as he says, since the tragic deaths of two of his constituents who were killed by a dangerous driver. Any positive changes that may come about on penalties for dangerous driving will be attributable to his and his constituents’ hard work. Such events affect families for ever; it never goes away.

Last week in the main Chamber, I held an Adjournment debate on road traffic safety outside Morley primary school in my constituency. I want measures to be taken outside the school to prevent another tragedy. When anyone’s child is killed it affects the whole community, and speeding and the death of a child outside the school would be witnessed by many children. I want to prevent that. One of the main issues I focused on was enforcing penalties for dangerous drivers and what can be done to reduce instances of dangerous driving. If penalties are not enforced and drivers think there will not be consequences for not sticking within the law on the roads, there will be more deaths on our roads and more debates like this one, calling for something to be done to prevent them.

In the previous Parliament, the then Secretary of State for Justice announced a review of dangerous driving sentences, and the outcome of that review process has yet to be finalised. For many victims and families of victims injured, sometimes fatally, by a car driver, it can be baffling, and a source of disappointment and anger, when, often, the driver is charged with a minor traffic offence rather than the more serious crime of dangerous driving. Making sure there are tough and clear penalties for dangerous driving should go hand in hand with practical efforts to tackle it.

One of the key ways in which, I think, we can combat dangerous driving is by increasing the use of cameras that can detect when someone goes through a red light and is speeding. While speed cameras are utilised for recording motorists speeding, bringing prosecutions for dangerous driving strongly relies on there being witnesses to the incident. In rural areas, such as in Morley, that is not always possible, and I agree with the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), who said that cameras can and will change behaviour.

Every constituency has areas of high risk where the chance of someone being hit by a car is much higher. In my constituency the busy A608 leads traffic to and from Derby city and runs through a crossing where schoolchildren cross twice a day, which means that there are up to 200 crossings a day. I do not want to bog this speech down with statistics, but I will highlight a few instances that really frighten me. Outside Morley primary school, over a 40-minute period, with a police van present and children crossing, a car ran straight through a red light at speed, driving at over 59 mph.

The children are used to crossing the road, day in, day out. They stop when there is no green man. They start walking, or running, towards the school or home, when the beeping starts and it is safe to cross; but it is not safe to cross if a car is going through the red light. The children are well disciplined; it is the drivers who are not. During the same 40-minute period, four other drivers travelled at over 40 mph outside a school where there is an explicit 30-mile-an-hour limit. It is my hope that the school’s campaign to have the speed limit reduced to 20 mph will be successful—but it will be successful only if the county council is listening.

Just as importantly, I want the drivers to be properly prosecuted. Kate Marsland, the head, has to spend half an hour at each end of the day trying, alongside the accompanying parents, to protect the children. The drivers know there is a school on the road and they put the lives of the children in great danger by what they do. We only know they were breaking the law because of the school’s requests to have the area monitored by the police. However, the police cannot always be there to monitor the situation. Cameras on areas of high risk can really help to catch dangerous drivers before they kill someone. They can also greatly help with prosecutions by showing not just the speed of the car but whether the driver is doing anything illegal at the time, such as using their phone or texting. The clearer the picture of what happened, the easier it is to prosecute.

Moving control for enforcing traffic penalties directly to local authorities could also make a difference. As it currently stands, traffic penalty enforcement is under the remit of the police who have limited resources to spend on traffic violations. They have many other important things to do. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), said in July that he wants to make effective enforcement of traffic laws a priority to help keep our roads safe.

Would the Minister consider looking at the issue again, and assess the possibility of giving local authorities the power to enforce traffic penalties or even take forward prosecutions, which might persuade drivers to be more careful and obey the law? Giving greater power to local authorities, so that they can allocate more resources to catching dangerous drivers, will help get the message across. If people drive dangerously they will be caught and face the consequences. Maintaining consistency in the penalties given to dangerous drivers will also make people think about their actions before deciding to check their phone or glance at the paper while driving at speed.

I want such measures because I do not want never to have raised the issue and a child to be killed. That is what will happen, with many children witnessing it. They will never get over that and neither will the parents or the school. I want the law changed to allow enforcement against dangerous drivers to be increased.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[James Berry (Kingston and Surbiton) (Con)]

6. What steps he is taking to improve the provision of education in prisons; and if he will make a statement.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to improve the provision of education in prisons; and if he will make a statement.

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

8. What steps he is taking to improve the provision of education in prisons; and if he will make a statement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

There are some formidable organisations that want to improve the quality of education in our prisons. In my previous role as Education Secretary, I saw how a wider diversity of education suppliers can help to raise standards for all, and particularly for the most disadvantaged. I would like to see the same reforming vigour applied to the education of offenders.

[Pauline Latham]

I welcome the written ministerial statement that the Secretary of State mentioned earlier. He will be aware that some prisons, in addition to educating their inmates, provide educational opportunities whereby outside people come into the prison to help and give ex-offenders jobs when they leave. That is a way of preventing prisoners from reoffending, but the practice is declining. Will my right hon. Friend look into this, please?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. One aspect of Dame Sally’s critically important review will cover engagement with employers. I am delighted that the chief executive of Timpson, one of the most inspirational organisations employing ex-offenders, is part of the team that will help Dame Sally to ensure that education, employability and rehabilitation are all operating together.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Actually, I do agree. I have reservations about the number of cautions being used. Of course, one has to remember that the current culture of the use of out-of-court settlements dates back to when the last Government were in power, and the use of cautions was much higher three or four years ago than it is today. I am very clear that we have to look again at the way cautions are used, and I have reservations about the way they are used for some serious offences. It is work we are currently doing.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

T5. What progress has been made on the Secretary of State’s plans to introduce a greater emphasis on education into the youth custodial estate?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

My hon. Friend will know that we are consulting on the idea that we should provide more education for those in youth custody than is currently provided. We are looking for good ideas—from wherever they may come—on how that might be done better, but she is entirely right: education needs to form more of a part of what we do. We have a responsibility to educate these young people, and doing so more effectively will assist in reducing reoffending.