Oral Answers to Questions
Rachel Hopkins Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
We have rolled out the Common Platform at 173 criminal courts in England and Wales and 76% of courts are now live. It has improved the format and timeliness of outcomes of hearings generated and shared with our criminal justice partner agencies and removed the need for staff to re-key information across different IT systems. If we are to reform the criminal justice system, we need to press ahead and reform the IT that underpins it.
Rachel Hopkins
Last month, staff at courts across the country, including the magistrates court in Luton, went on strike—not over pay or pensions, but because the Common Platform IT system is so flawed that it is effectively unusable. That should have been enough to make the Government sit up and take notice, but if the Minister will not listen to his own workers and their trade union, the Public and Commercial Services Union, maybe he will listen to the judges who are speaking out? One judge called the Common Platform “completely unsuitable” and “not fit for purpose”. Does the Minister agree?
Mike Freer
No, I do not agree. All new IT systems take time to bed down and officials continue to work with user groups, both staff within the criminal justice system and judges. The system replaces eight legacy systems that are at the end of their lives, support for which is being withdrawn. If we do not reform the IT system underpinning the criminal justice system, we will not be able to make the progress we wish.
Assisted Dying
Rachel Hopkins Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for leading this debate and for the emotion she put into her speech.
The blanket ban on assisted dying has resulted in unacceptable failings in patient safety. As we have heard, dying people are forced to matters into their own hands without sufficient protection or support for them, their families or the clinicians who care for them. Through the APPG on choice at the end of life, of which I am a member, I have heard from families who have seen family members have a difficult and undignified death not of their choosing. As a humanist, I believe that people are fundamentally good, so I struggle to accept some of the caricatures of people being cynical with their loved ones at the end of life.
Assisted dying reform is a matter of freedom of choice at the end of life. Assisted dying laws can be introduced with robust safeguards. The current system is broken. Research from the Assisted Dying Coalition found that more than one person per week is forced to end their life abroad. This demonstrates an inbuilt inequality in the current system, as only those who can afford the high costs are able to go abroad to do so. If someone is rich, they have a small amount of choice, but if someone is poor and of limited means, they have no choice.
Looking at examples of legislation abroad, we see that all six states in Australia have legalised assisted dying, joining an ever-expanding list of states in the USA, New Zealand, Canada and many countries in Europe that give their dying citizens choice. I want to make one thing very clear: there is no credible evidence from jurisdictions that have legalised assisted dying that vulnerable people will be pressured to end their life.
As has been said, this debate is not about choosing between assisted dying and palliative care. International evidence shows that assisted dying does not harm access to palliative care. A report by Palliative Care Australia concluded that there is no evidence to suggest that the palliative care sectors were adversely impacted by the introduction of the legislation. If anything, in jurisdictions where assisted dying is available, the palliative care sector has further advanced. Evidence shows that the current law is not only cruel but dangerous, as there is little oversight of death by suicide linked to terminal illness or Dignitas deaths, and no formal monitoring. We need transparency and upfront safeguards in legislation, not a continuation of lonely, secretive deaths, with oversight occurring only afterwards.
We have heard how medical opinion supports assisted dying. The British Medical Association decided in 2021 to end its opposition to assisted dying, following a survey of its members. The BMA survey found that half of all doctors personally support legalising a right to die for those who are incurably suffering or are terminally ill.
Thanks to increasing public awareness, the public mood is changing. The petition to legalise assisted dying for terminally ill and mentally competent adults gained more than 100,000 signatures, 120 or so from constituents in Luton South. Public support for assisted dying is unwavering, regardless of age, class, gender or political persuasion.
Whether through an inquiry, a commitment to parliamentary time from Government, or the Government simply recognising that the current law in England and Wales fails dying people and their families, the UK needs to explore whether current laws are fit for purpose. The public need action from the Government and from us, their representatives. It is my opinion that the status quo is failing the public. This is not about either/or. It is about different pathways at the end of life and the right to have a choice.
Ten-Year Drugs Strategy
Rachel Hopkins Excerpts(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
I welcome the strategy’s holistic approach, but there is an element of irony in it, given that it is the Minister’s party that has cut 60p in every £1 to local authorities over the past decade and has failed to address the structurally flawed police funding model affecting counties such as Bedfordshire, which has contributed to increasing drug-related issues in towns such as Luton. Will the Minister commit to addressing the core funding formula issues affecting forces such as Bedfordshire, to ensure the longer-term resilience of our police to tackle organised crime groups and drug-related crime in Luton?
Kit Malthouse
I am hesitant to point out that it was the hon. Lady’s party that crashed the economy, but nevertheless I feel compelled to do so. As she may have heard me say from the Dispatch Box, we have committed to bringing in a new funding formula, and work is under way to devise exactly that.
Prison Officers: Pension Age
Rachel Hopkins Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) on securing this really important debate. Violence in prisons, especially against workers, has increased significantly since the mass cuts to staffing and other budgets from 2013 onwards, with assaults on staff tripling to more than 10,000 a year by 2019. That level of workplace violence should be unacceptable for any employee, but there is increased danger for those over the age of 60. It simply cannot be right to expect officers in their 60s to control and restrain people who are a third their age.
Ministers have not provided any evidence to show that frontline prison officers over 60 can work safely in such a dangerous operational environment. I am aware that the report by Lord Hutton of Furness proposed that some uniformed services—as we have heard, police, firefighters and the armed forces—should be exempt from the rise in the retirement age to 68. The decision excluded prison officers from the “uniformed services” that were spared the retirement age rise. That has never been explained or justified, which has caused anger and despair among prison officers. Expecting officers to manage, care for and control violent, dangerous and difficult people until the age of 68 is quite simply unfair, unsustainable and, as the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey said, dangerous.
The Prison Act 1952 gives serving prison officers
“all the powers, authority, protection and privileges”
of police officers. It is quite right that police can retire at 60, given the often violent and volatile nature of their job. Will the Minister explain why prison officers are not afforded the same protection?
Pension age should be negotiated as a stand-alone issue, but it is clear that Ministers see employee contributions as part of the discussion. But those relate directly to pay, and if pay is going to be on the table, the starting point must be the Prison Service Pay Review Body’s recommendation of a £3,000 uplift to entry-level salaries, which the Government deemed unaffordable. According to the Prison Service Pay Review Body, officers
“were said to be leaving the Service for…supermarkets; the Police; Border Force; railway companies; and other security and uniformed services”,
with one prison visited experiencing a turnover rate of almost 25%. Low pay and a high pension age are both reasons why morale is at an all-time low. The current recruitment and retention crisis shows that we need a complete pay overhaul that makes salaries competitive, attractive and fit for purpose.
Lastly, I am concerned about the growing number of female officers who fail their annual fitness test. The Prison Officers Association believes that menopause may be a factor. The situation has caused accusations of unfair and discriminatory treatment of women. Does the Minister agree that the annual prison fitness test is not fit for purpose, and will she commit to replacing it with a system that measures relative fitness, considering factors such as age and sex?
Victoria Atkins
I am conscious that I have only 4 minutes, so I will continue.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey has already made the point that we have tried to make change on this before. When the Prison Officers Association membership were balloted eight years ago, they did not accept the package to retire at the lower age of 65 with heavily subsidised additional contributions to the scheme. Although POA members rejected the offer, the Prison Governors Association accepted it and as a result some manager grade staff now have a lower pension age. Another offer was made in 2017, in which prison officers would have incurred no cost to access a pension at the age of 65, but again this was rejected by a union ballot union.
Victoria Atkins
I will finish, if I may, because I want to deal with the points about security and I must finish at 5.48 pm in order to give my hon. Friend the Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey time to respond.
Any lowering of the pension age for prison officers would invariably mean that their pension contributions would have to increase. Prison officers’ pension contributions are less than half those of schemes for firefighters or police officers.
Oral Answers to Questions
Rachel Hopkins Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)
Our prison officers have done a truly remarkable job during the pandemic, and through their decisive actions and rapid contact tracing, literally hundreds if not thousands of prisoners’ lives have been saved. Although there are no plans to revisit the retirement age, we are pursuing a series of initiatives to boost morale, safety and retention, and ensure that prisons are as secure and rehabilitative as possible.
Rachel Hopkins
The Government have previously stated that because of the higher potential for serious injury and fatality among firefighters and police, they do not consider prison officers deserving of the same pension age protections and the right to retire at 60. With serious violence against staff still plaguing our prisons, does the Minister accept that the message received by prison officers is that they will have to wait until one of their own is killed in the line of duty before their safety concerns are taken seriously?
Alex Chalk
The hon. Lady makes an important point. Mercifully, during the pandemic violence has come down in prisons, which we welcome. It is also important not to make false comparisons. For example, employee contributions for police officers are at 12%, and 14% for fire officers, and 5.45% for prison officers. Of course we keep such matters under review. We made a generous offer in 2017 to bring forward the retirement date when the taxpayer would pay the entirety of employee contributions, but I regret that that was rejected by the POA.
Protecting the Public and Justice for Victims
Rachel Hopkins Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
The pandemic has stretched our justice system and created an unprecedented backlog of 57,000 cases in Crown court, but the Government must recognise that the past 10 years of their Conservative mismanagement dismantled the justice system’s ability to respond to increased demand, and is undermining the delivery of justice and the safety of dedicated public sector workers.
The Government cannot blame the case backlog solely on the pandemic. Under the Conservative party’s watch, the backlog was at 39,000 even before the pandemic. As Kevin McGinty, then the chief inspector of HMCTS inspectorate, said to the Attorney General in March, the pre-covid backlog was
“unacceptable”
and was
“due to years of underfunding.”
While we have seen the number of cases soar, the number of staff directly employed by Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service has fallen by 15% in five years. To plug the gap, the Government have had to rely on agency staff, but the simple fact is there are now fewer staff, working on more cases. During that period of sustained underfunding, the Government had a fire sale of magistrates courts. Between 2010 and 2020, 164 magistrates courts were closed. That amounts to more than half of all the courts in England and Wales, and equates to 27,000 fewer sitting days than in 2016. Even though the Luton and South Bedfordshire magistrates court in my constituency has remained open, since 2010 46% of magistrates courts in the east of England have been closed. This cuts to the heart of the flawed austerity agenda. It is all well and good to stress that £223 million was made from the sale of court buildings, but that has damaged the delivery of justice. The Government seem to know the price of everything but not its value.
Those seeking justice are now looking at waits of up to four years for their court trials. Such a long delay will impact victims’ recovery, as well as all witnesses’ ability to recollect events and give evidence in court. Does the Conservative party now regret the decision to close more than half the courts across England and Wales since 2010? The chief executive of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service said that we need 200 Nightingale courts to eliminate the case backlog, but only 25 are up and running. It is not overstating it to say that without urgent action, the Government are losing the public’s confidence in the criminal justice system’s ability to serve the public and uphold the law.
Will the Minister, in his closing remarks, tell the House what assessment he has made of the impact of the backlog on the number of cases that are dropped as victims and witnesses withdraw from the process? What steps are the Government taking to speed up justice for vulnerable people who are victims of crimes such as rape and domestic violence? Finally, the justice system should not be run on the cheap, so has the Minister learned the lesson that drastic austerity cuts inflicted on the Ministry of Justice were a false economy?
Oral Answers to Questions
Rachel Hopkins Excerpts(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Alex Chalk
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but he knows and I know that it is not business as usual. In making that remark, he has completely disregarded the guidance that is in place. Of course we want to make sure that these proceedings happen safely. That is why Public Health England has considered these matters, and it is satisfied with the situation as it exists. We have to make sure in this Government that we respect all rights, including convention rights—article 1 of protocol 1—and he should be in favour of that too.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)
In July 2020, the Government accepted in full six out of seven recommendations made by the Prison Service Pay Review Body. This delivered an increase of at least 2.5%, with some staff receiving up to 7% with progression. This delivered an above-inflation increase, and it was the third year in a row that prison staff have benefited from a pay award of at least 2%. In rejecting recommendation 3, the impact on recruitment, retention and staff morale were carefully considered alongside affordability and value for money for the taxpayer. I would like to say that I highly value the work of the prison staff, and the decision to reject recommendation 3 should in no way suggest otherwise.
Rachel Hopkins [V]
Prison officers are poorly paid for the incredibly difficult job that they do, and the Government’s experts recommended a £3,000 pay rise for band 3 prison officers to tackle the crisis in recruitment, retention and morale. The Government are committed to departing from their recommendations only under exceptional circumstances, so will the Minister explain what exceptional circumstances justify not paying band 3 prison officers what they deserve?
Lucy Frazer
To repeat, I recognise the very difficult work that prison officers are doing up and down the country at this time. The pay proposals that we have accepted deliver an increase in pay, and as I mentioned, we took into account factors including affordability and value for money at this time.
Robert Buckland
My hon. Friend is quite right to highlight the particularly egregious nature of offences that are based either on the threatened spread of covid or on the abuse of trust that is inherent with anybody who purports to be a vaccinator but who tries to profit out of it. Having considered the matter carefully with my officials, I think that we have provisions within the Fraud Act 2006 that can cover a lot of the false representations that are being made. Indeed, there does not need to be a detriment proved as a result of the provisions of that Act. We also have other legislation. Any spitting, for example, is an assault and should be treated as such, and I note that a number of cases have been brought against the perpetrators of that appalling crime.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab) [V]
Robert Buckland
The hon. Lady is right to raise the position with regard to our outstanding prison officers. She can be reassured that as a result of the Chancellor’s announcement regarding the pay freeze, a lot of officers will receive the £250 rise next year, and there will be incremental increases to pay that are part of their current terms of employment. I hear what she says about the particular decision that we had to take. It was not an easy one. We are living in exceptional times, and I will continue to work as constructively as possible with the Prison Officers Association and other representative bodies to ensure not only that we reflect the need for support for our prison officers but that we retain as many of them as possible. It is not an easy balancing exercise. We did carry out the vast majority of the recommendations, but considering the times in which we live at the moment, that particular recommendation was not one we felt able to support at this time.
Courts and Tribunals: Recovery
Rachel Hopkins Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Robert Buckland
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who takes a great interest in Medomsley, in his constituency, and all those who work in it. He is right to press the Government for more action. I can reassure him that in the year ahead we will be spending £337 million on the criminal justice system, to address not only the covid pressure, but the other issues relating to criminal justice which will be welcome to hon. Members—the increase in police officers will inevitably have an effect on our criminal justice system. I look forward to engaging with him further on those important local issues in North West Durham.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
I am interested in the response regarding health and safety, and covid security, in the courts, because the level of covid infections among court staff and users is still rising, but the acting head of HMCTS told the Justice Committee,
“We have had to agree to disagree”
with unions on the approach to risk assessments. Does the Justice Secretary accept that HMCTS’s tendency to,
“Try to do everything from the centre and the top in a prescriptive way”—
those were his words—is simply not working? Can he explain why it is the only agency in the civil service that has not agreed a risk assessment template with the staff union, the Public and Commercial Services Union?
Robert Buckland
The hon. Lady is right to quote me, because I do believe in local initiative and I have seen it in action from HMCTS staff, who know the buildings, in which some of them have worked for many years, better than anybody. I take very much on board what she says. Of course, each court building is pretty different from the other; there is no set template and we all know they are pretty unique. The work that is done to make our courts safe is done in conjunction with Public Health England and Public Health Wales. I will consider the matter she raises further in more detail in order to satisfy myself that everything properly is being done.
Probation Services
Rachel Hopkins Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Robert Buckland
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. I pay tribute to the work he did as a Minister in the Department. I can reassure him that this is not a return—a “back to the future”—but a new departure. He is right that I will focus relentlessly on the need to harness the smaller organisations; we are going to do that. At force level, we will do it by working with PCCs. I have already engaged with them on several occasions about the need for co-commissioning. Where we have PCCs working together in reducing reoffending boards, I see that as another vehicle for the commissioning of truly localised services. I hear my hon. Friend, and we are going to act on it.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
I am pleased that the Government are recognising what Labour Members and many others have known—that privatised probation is a flawed system that enables companies to put profit before people. I would like to thank my trade union, the Public and Commercial Services Union, as well as Napo and Unison, and their members, for highlighting the failures of privatisation. How will the Secretary of State improve morale in the profession, particularly after many experienced and highly skilled probation staff were lost as probation services were part-privatised?
Robert Buckland
I am sure that the hon. Lady would seek to qualify her remarks by paying tribute to the ethos that I have seen among the CRCs and their teams in terms of their dedication to the public service approach to probation that we all believe in. I do not want to ignore that for one moment, and I pay tribute to them for their work. With regard to morale, she will be encouraged to know that it is my aim, as a result of the increased funding we are providing, to reduce the workload of individual probation officers by about 20%, and to mix that workload so that they are able to manage it in an even more effective way. That will, I believe, help to increase morale and a sense of value. I hope very much that we can attract new talent, and indeed bring back talent that has left the service. That is something that I am very, very focused on.