Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Preet Kaur Gill and Robert Buckland

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend has raised this issue on many previous occasions, and he knows that I have engaged very closely on it. Now that we have the time and space with regard to the further development of policy, I want to work with him and, indeed, other parts of government to develop these proposals. There is still more work to be done. We have two failing-to-prevent offences in the realms of tax evasion and bribery. We need to understand the learning from those in order to apply those principles to any future further economic crime offence.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

Women are more likely to be imprisoned for non-violent offences and to receive ineffective short sentences of six months or less, and children whose mothers are sent to prison are more likely than their peers to have future problems. With 17,000 children separated from their mothers each year in England and Wales, what steps is the Minister taking to ensure that the safeguarding and welfare of children is prioritised in criminal courts?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Preet Kaur Gill and Robert Buckland

Tuesday 8th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. I think she would agree that it is difficult to extrapolate trends from an individual case, however concerning and deeply distressing that case was. I think the lesson is that knife crime respects and knows no class or race boundaries. We should not stigmatise this, particularly outside London, as a crime that is exclusively based upon any racial profile—that is wrong. However, I take the point that she makes and clearly we need to look carefully across the piece as to whether we are sometimes being a bit shy—institutionally shy—about addressing knife crime in some of the less typical places.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

3. For what reasons the proportion of rape cases that result in conviction has declined since 2010.