Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Davies Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that the growth deal process that was agreed was based on the needs of the entire functional economic area—namely the £55 billion economy that covers both urban and rural areas in that part of the world. The significant transport fund worth £1 billion will lead to a step change in people moving not just between city centres, which he alluded to, but to moving around all of West Yorkshire. While it might be called a city deal, it radiates out to other non-urban areas in that region.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

What can the Deputy Prime Minister do to ensure that local MPs have a formal role in the decision making process, particularly for transport funds in the Leeds city region, and that decisions are not just carved up by five Labour councils scratching each other’s backs to fulfil their priorities, while excluding other parts of the region that have equally important needs?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I certainly agree it is essential that any local enterprise partnership worth the name should consult locally and regardless of party affiliation with representatives in the areas affected, including MPs from all parties.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Attorney-General]

I commend my hon. Friend not just for raising that case today, but for communicating with me about it more than once. He feels very strongly about it, and I understand why: it is clearly a very terrible case. At present, as he will know, the balance is struck between a manageable system that enables us to pass truly exceptional cases to the Court of Appeal and ensuring that people have an opportunity to raise their concerns. I can tell him, however, that I am looking at the unduly lenient sentence scheme again to ensure that its scope is appropriate and that it is coherent and sustainable, and I will take careful note of what he and others have said as I do so.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

As the Attorney-General knows, I refer a number of cases to him for appeal against unduly lenient sentences, and I am very grateful to him and to the Solicitor-General for the way in which they consider them. The Solicitor-General has now begun to view the behaviour of offenders after their conviction to establish whether they have gone on to the straight and narrow as a factor in the decision on whether to appeal. On that basis, is it not time that we increased the period during which people can appeal against unduly lenient sentences from 28 days to perhaps double that, so that everyone has more of a clue about the path on which the offender has embarked after he has been sentenced?

[The Attorney-General]

That is certainly one of the criteria that are considered, but it is not the only one. Most consideration concerns whether the judge applied the information that was available to the sentencing judge appropriately in determining whether a sentence was unduly lenient.

The issue of the time limit for making a reference under the scheme is a vexed one, and I know that my hon. Friend has raised it before. I think it is important for there to be certainty and a fixed end point, and for defendants to understand clearly that after a fixed period they will know what sentences they will be serving. For that reason, I am not currently minded to extend the time limit, although, as I have said to my hon. Friend, I am considering other aspects of the scheme very carefully.