Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Q12. I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to their hospital buildings programme. Can the Prime Minister clarify what criteria will be applied for the allocation of those new hospitals? Will it be done in line with the Prime Minister’s personal commitment to a merit-based system of government? My hospital in Medway serves half a million people, is the busiest hospital A&E in Kent and we have some of the highest health inequalities in the country. Medway was one of the hardest-hit areas during covid-19. We need our fair-share allocation of resources in Medway. Will the Prime Minister visit Medway Maritime Hospital with me and fellow local MPs to look at our urgent need?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for his local area, but especially for his local hospital. He will know that I cannot comment on any specific scheme, but I can tell him that submissions to be one of the new hospitals are being reviewed in the Department and an announcement will be made shortly.

Legal Advice: Prorogation

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

If I were to answer that question—tempting though it is, particularly from the hon. Lady, who is also a friend—I would be transgressing the Law Officers’ convention, because I would be telling her what advice I had or had not given. But if she is asking, “Did it occur to me?”, my answer is that of course it did. Any barrister who enters into litigation without it occurring to him that he might lose is a bit of a nit, isn’t he? Of course it occurred to me that we might lose; it would be ridiculous for it not to occur to me.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Does the Attorney General agree with the view of the overwhelming majority of my constituents that the continued delay in delivering on the result of the referendum by 31 October is leading to a lack of public confidence in our democratic process, and that the only way to resolve that now is to have an election and let the public decide?

[The Attorney General]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who has put his finger right on it. This continuing artificial prolongation of this dead Parliament is undermining people’s confidence—[Interruption.] I know why Opposition Members are not doing it; they know they will not survive, but they have to have the courage of their convictions, get on it, and put it to the country.

United Kingdom’s Withdrawal from the European Union

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Friday 29th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

I rise to support the motion. I have not spoken in many of these debates, but I have been driven to speak. We have heard time and again from all the same people, but not much from what I call the voices of reason. I am speaking because I am exasperated and fed up with the bickering that has gone on in this House. It cannot be beyond the wit of the men and women of this great place to come to a decision that puts the good of the nation first.

Every single day, obfuscation—I cannot say the word very well because I am so exasperated—causes more difficulties for the businesses of this country. We rely on those businesses to fuel our economy and give us jobs so that people can work and pay taxes and we have the public services that we need. A recent straw poll that I undertook of businesses clearly highlights that they want a decision, they want it now and they do not want it in a year’s time.

Many individuals confess that they do not understand half of what we are debating in this place and many wish they had never heard of it all. I do not profess to be legal, but I do know that we have to make a decision. Some 52% of people in Taunton Deane voted out, while 48% voted to remain. I said that I would respect that decision. I have moved from supporting remain and I am putting the country first.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Others have said that there is a cynical reason for people moving their position. I resigned in November from all Government and party positions when I saw the legal risk of the backstop. However, now there is a bigger risk: not delivering Brexit at all. The country’s interests come first. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Rebecca Pow]

I absolutely 100% agree. Yes, 17.4 million people voted to leave and yes there was a roar for change, but more than 16 million people gave a yell to be noticed as well. That indicates that we need compromise. We have had nearly three years of debate in this place. I ask colleagues this: how many people have really changed their position? The polarisation is frankly disturbing.

Today, let us demonstrate that we can take one small step for Parliament and one giant step for the UK and the men and women of this nation by passing the withdrawal agreement—the legally binding agreement that sets out the UK’s departure from the EU bloc, that fits with EU rules and that involves the longer extension to 22 May. That is a legal right, as the Attorney General clearly outlined, and it takes us straight to the Bill, which was also touched on by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith).

Let us not forget that both Labour and the Conservatives committed to honouring the results of the referendum. I ask right hon. and hon. Members on both sides: can we really countenance voting against Brexit on the day when Brexit was meant to happen? I find that extraordinary. By separating the agreement from the declaration, which sets out the framework for the future relationship, we can go on and continue to discuss what type of Brexit we really want, and it has to be something that we can all live with. I still firmly believe the PM’s deal was a good one. She has fought doggedly and determinedly—I do not think anyone can disagree with that—and I believe that she has come up with a very comprehensive deal, which fundamentally is good.

I voted in the indicative votes and did what people may think is a strange thing: I voted aye to two completely contrasting things—a closer relationship with the customs union and a relationship with the European economic area and the European Free Trade Association—because I felt that I had to indicate that we needed to reach consensus in the House. Neither was my favourite, and neither was as good as the Prime Minister’s deal. Today, at least let us get this over the line. Let us discuss all the other permutations later. Let us demonstrate to the nation that we can all work together, at least today. Let us make it, step by step. I say this to my children and to my husband, who is not very well and who is watching this at home: step by step, all things are possible. As the sun shines on a glorious spring day in Taunton Deane, let us bring some of that sunshine to the rest of the nation and vote for this today.

Unduly Lenient Sentences

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Sir Mike Penning]

My hon. Friend hits the nail on the head. I congratulate him on the work he has done to address the law in this area. If we work together across the House, we can address what he wanted his Bill to do with regard to other anomalies. When we talk about the juvenile courts, we think about really young people, but I could have been prosecuted in a juvenile court—had I committed an offence—while I was serving in the Army, which I joined when I was 16. It seems to me that we are removing a whole plethora of cases—with victims who still desperately need to feel that they have been heard and listened to—simply because they were tried in a certain type of court or involved a certain type of offence.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for securing the debate. He has mentioned his time as a Transport Minister. I completely agree that one should do everything one can to support victims, but at the same time one should prevent people from becoming victims in the first place. Does he agree that, in certain circumstances—such as sentencing for driving while disqualified or drink-driving, for which only a six-month custodial sentence can be given by the lower courts—we need not only that review of unduly lenient sentences, but a review of sentencing in the wider context, including for such transport matters?

[Sir Mike Penning]

Absolutely. Colleagues across the House will bring up such anomalies during this debate. I am enormously proud of the very few drug-related driving offences that were prosecuted—I had the honour of being the Transport Minister when we introduced the drugalyser at the roadside—as well as of the first prosecutions that took place, although that took nearly four years and I was in the Ministry of Justice by then. But the sentencing also needs to be a deterrent. People need to realise that when they commit certain offences, the penalty will fit the crime. If people go before magistrates courts—I think this is what my hon. Friend was talking about—knowing that they will get only six months, they will not opt for trial by jury or to go up through the system to be tried before a judge in the Crown Court. I agree—though this is not something I will concentrate on today—that we need a much wider debate on the types of sentencing to which I am referring.

Before I became a Minister, I did try—I appealed against the leniency of sentences, particularly those to do with paedophiles. I had real concern about some of the sentences for paedophiles who not only did not plead guilty, but did not think that they had done anything wrong, and I have always had concerns about racially aggravated offences. I think such offences are an abhorrence to our society.

I appealed successfully. One of my constituents was murdered by a man called McLoughlin, who was out of prison on day release. He attacked my constituent’s neighbour and my constituent did what I hope I would do, which was defend their neighbour, but they were murdered. McLoughlin was found guilty in the courts and given a sentence of something like 20 years—don’t quote me on that. We all knew what would happen—it would be three years or something. Nor was that the first offence, because he had murdered before. I appealed to the then Labour Attorney General that the sentence was unduly lenient. He should have got a much more severe sentence, or at the very least an indeterminate one.

In court the judge had said, “I cannot give an indeterminate sentence, because the European courts will strike it down.” That was like a red rag to a bull. The sentence a judge in our courts gives has nothing to do with a European court. We subsequently won the appeal—the Attorney General agreed with me, as did, eventually, the Court of Appeal. McLoughlin was eventually given the right sentence, which was an indeterminate one. Hopefully, he will spend the rest of his life in prison. That will never bring back my constituents’ husband and father, but the original sentence was wrong.

When I got into being a Minister, in particular for policing in the Ministry of Justice, I kept asking: why are we not addressing those anomalies in the law? It is fundamentally unfair that victims do not have the same rights as the perpetrators. The Ministry of Justice is not represented in the Chamber today, but I know that the briefing would be that the cost implications of having more people in our prisons are disproportionate.

I am afraid that that is tosh. I have seen no physical evidence for that—not in the whole two and a half years I was in the Department, and I asked for it several times. The Attorney General and I debated it around the ministerial table and with the Prime Minister, who was then the Home Secretary. We never got to the bottom of the great opposition in the Ministry of Justice to more people going to appeal. In actual fact, from the other end of the telescope it looks like fewer people go to appeal because they do not all opt to go to the Crown Court, opting instead for their defence to be heard by their peers in a magistrates court. There is no evidence and we do not know exactly what is going on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

I know that my hon. Friend, who represents a rural constituency, is dealing with this issue and working with local farmers and others to try to combat it. Each Crown Prosecution Service area has a wildlife co-ordinator so that the knowledge needed to prosecute these offences is readily available. The CPS works closely with the police and other wildlife communities to tackle this serious scourge.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

10. What the Government’s policy is on which factors to take into account when deciding whether responding to an imminent threat is permitted under international law.

[The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)]

It is the long-standing position of successive UK Governments that a state may use force in self-defence not only in response to armed attacks but to prevent an armed attack that is imminent. In each exercise of the use of force in self-defence, the UK asks itself questions such as: how certain is it that an attack will come; how soon do we believe an attack could be; what could be the scale of the attack; could this be our last opportunity to take action; and is there anything else we could credibly do to prevent that attack?

[Rehman Chishti]

I thank the Attorney General for that answer. Does he agree with me that there is an important difference between the threats we face now and the threats that have not materialised but that may develop later?

Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Thursday 14th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

I would have thought that the hon. Lady would welcome the fact that the gender pay gap is narrowing so much. In fact, the steps that we have taken in the 2016 Budget, which will increase the pay of 900,000 women, mean that the gender pay gap for the lowest paid will have been eliminated by 2020.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the Chancellor’s measures on small business rates will be hugely beneficial to business women across the country?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I also point out that we are making substantial progress on the number of businesses in this country owned and managed by women, which I believe will also lead to greater gender equality.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

I know that the hon. Gentleman would like to rewrite history, but there was a decisive result in the Scottish referendum, and the vow has been delivered completely and faithfully.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

4. What assessment he has made of progress on implementing Medway’s growth deal.

[The Minister for Universities, Science and Cities (Greg Clark)]

The South East local enterprise partnership has a large portfolio of projects ready to start in April, including 22 in the Thames Gateway, 12 of which will have a direct impact in Medway. For example, a new Kent and Medway growth hub will deliver improved advice services to local businesses.

[Rehman Chishti]

I thank the Minister for his answer and the Government for the £33.4 million given to Medway, which will create more jobs and businesses and get Medway moving with better transport infrastructure. I know that local authorities have received a letter, but when will the formal agreements be signed with them?

[Greg Clark]

The money will be available from April, and my colleagues and I are going around signing the agreements, but no LEPs should wait to have the signature on the dotted line: they can plan with confidence in the projects that have been funded.

John Downey

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

So far as rescinding of the letters is concerned, that is not a matter for me. [Interruption.] No, it is not a matter for me, acting in my capacity; I accept that it could be a matter for Government, but it is not a matter on which I can give such an assurance to the hon. Gentleman.

On the question of case law, let me make the position quite clear. There is very well-established case law about abuse of process, and cases being stopped on the basis of an abuse of process, particularly in relation to assurances given that an individual might not be prosecuted for something, has not just suddenly emerged. It is perfectly well established in our law and indeed is part of our rule of law, for the very good reason that assurances given by public administrations may be binding upon them if they lead somebody to do something to their detriment.

In this case, as I have made clear, we took the view that there were arguments that could properly be put forward to the court that, although there was an error, it did not amount to an abuse of process and was not justified. The court has taken a different view, but I do not think that one can draw general conclusions about other cases from this case, which falls on its own individual facts.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

First, may I applaud the Attorney-General for the way in which he has handled this case by authorising prosecutions? My question relates to what he has just said. If there are other cases with similar circumstances and similar letters, will they still be prosecuted in the light of the judgment and the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service has not challenged that decision?

[The Attorney-General]

As I have indicated, all the background facts relating to each letter that has been sent will be checked, and that should disclose whether any error has been made. I want to reiterate the point that if it were to emerge that no other letters contained errors the suggestion that those letters in some way amounted to an amnesty simply cannot be right. They would be mere statements of fact, and of the position that existed at the time at which those letters were written.

Communications: Social Media

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin.

On 19 December 2012, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, issued interim guidelines on prosecuting cases involving communications sent via social media. It was a welcome move in the right direction and I hope that Parliament and the judiciary will study internet abuse more closely and begin, as I have been urging Ministers to do for some time, to distinguish between the different degrees of online abuse.

As I explained in my Adjournment debate in September last year, trolling first came to my attention following the tragic death of Liverpool teenager, Georgia Varley, in October 2011. Since then, it has become clear that there is no clear-cut definition of trolling. Too often, this is confused with cyber-bullying, cyber-stalking or even child grooming. Trolling is something very different. I would characterise it as something said online that carries online consequences and poses no offline, real-world risk to the individual in receipt of the message. Trolls demonstrate immoral and unethical behaviour and, quite often, as in the case of Georgia, they trade entertainment on the back of an individual’s personal grief. In essence, the victims of trolls suffer psychological, not physical, abuse.

It is a growing problem in British society and one that Parliament and the legal process have been slow to recognise. I want to focus on concerns regarding the advice given to prosecutors, suggesting that messages sent that are of a grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false nature do not meet the public interest test, inasmuch as they are unlikely to lead to prosecutions. Indeed, Crown Prosecution Service rules state:

“Just because the content expressed in the communication is in bad taste, controversial or unpopular, and may cause offence to individuals or a specific community, this is not in itself sufficient reason to engage the criminal law”.

That should concentrate the minds of parliamentarians. There are rightly concerns because the guidelines fail to articulate exactly what trolling is or identify what kind of people are commonly victims of it; instead, the guidelines attempt to issue a one-size-fits-all solution that is not contextually bound and takes no consideration of personal relationships between the sender, the recipient and/or the subject matter.

The guidelines set out by the DPP that most relate to that issue are referenced in section 127 of the Communications Act 2003. The interim guidelines attempt to make a clear distinction between the different degree of abuse sent via social media, and so instruct prosecutors accordingly. For example, because of the seriousness of the potential offence threatened in a message as outlined in paragraphs 12(1), 12(2) and 12(3), such misdemeanours would be prosecuted robustly using, it has to be said, mainly legislation designed for offline offences.

We are advised that offences deemed to have been committed in accordance with paragraph 12(4), which are likely to be grossly offensive, indecent, obscene, menacing or false, are unlikely to lead to a prosecution despite the distress, hurt and needless anxiety that such contraventions can cause. That is where the guidelines have failed adequately to address the growing problem. Indeed, the directive highlights one of the major problems for prosecutors, because, in accordance with the guidelines, something said online is not punishable in law in the same way as something said offline. In essence, the guidelines fail to address the increasing grey area of trolling: the difficulty of proving what a troll intends and what a victim interprets the troll’s intention as being. That, coupled with the ease with which anonymity is afforded to social media users, has led to deliberately manipulative and deceptive behaviours with which prosecutors have not been able to get to grips. Put differently, there is a fundamental failure to grasp the intention of trolls: namely, it is their sole purpose on the internet grossly to offend with obscene messages. The DPP’s justification for what I perceive to be leniency is that it is not in the public interest to prosecute such people, which is germane to my critique of the guidelines because, in my opinion, they misinterpret the public interest.

In describing the dilemma, I am aware of a quote from an illustrious former Prime Minister and Merseyside MP, Harold Wilson. He said:

“I doubt whether any Member could provide a legal definition of what he means by the public interest, capable of covering changing national conditions and of being applied to all…cases”.—[Official Report, 22 April 1948; Vol. 449, c. 2035-2036.]

I do not profess to being legally trained, so I would no doubt fail the Wilson test, but as the use of social media increases exponentially, the exposure to such gratuitous activity increases in proportion. It stands to reason, therefore, that the public’s propensity to want to see such crimes dealt with by the criminal justice system will have increased consequently.

Paragraph 39 of the guidelines specifically addresses the question of public interest. The guidelines advise that if a suspect has taken swift action to remove the communication or has expressed genuine remorse, he or she should not face prosecution. I broadly welcome that clarification, but swift removal does not necessarily mean someone has not already been grossly offended. The internet allows individuals to build an audience of tens, hundreds or even thousands within a very short space of time. Under the guidelines, an individual troll could post a series of grossly offensive messages that are seen by many people, but simply removing the posts within a short space of time—and “swift removal” is not defined in the guidelines—makes it hard for action to be taken against that troll.

Similarly, deletion does not take away the possible psychological impact on someone who has already seen the message. Deleting a message from the internet does not delete it from someone’s mind. Additionally, the guidelines advise that if swift and effective action has been taken by others, such as a service provider, to remove the communication in question, or otherwise to block access to it, prosecution is not in the public interest. Surely that would depend on the particular type and frequency of such transgressions. The guidelines are a “get out of jail free” card that offers virtually no deterrent whatsoever. To all intents and purposes, prosecution can be avoided because of the discretion of others, which is something we should not endorse.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. I have two points. First, he talks about people retweeting a message on Twitter. Does he agree that, whether someone is the first or the fifty-thousandth person to retweet a message, there should be equal liability? Otherwise some people would not be prosecuted because they retweeted later than others. Does he also agree that it is good to have a review of the guidelines? We need to make the public aware of how defamation laws apply to social media, otherwise people will say, “Well, I did not know.” The message has to go out to the country: “If you commit a crime or breach the defamation law, you will have to face the consequences.” We need new guidance, but, equally, people must be aware of the existing guidelines.

[Steve Rotheram]

The hon. Gentleman will know that, in law, ignorance is no excuse. So someone could be prosecuted for defamation if they transgress the guidelines. On the first point, I believe that anyone who engages in social media should be aware of the social consequences of posting such tweets or Facebook statuses, as my assistant, who is a regular Facebook user, tells me they are called.

The guidelines advise that if a communication is not intended for a wide audience, nor is that the obvious consequence of sending the communication, the offender should not face prosecution, particularly where the intended audience did not include the victim or target of the communication in question. That is weak and, with respect, misunderstands social media. In the case of an RIP memorial page on Facebook, for example, a troll’s message on a status is not directed solely at the person who authored the status but is also directed at other people who have commented on the status and all those who have visual access to it. In the case of Georgia Varley, more than 4,500 people had liked her page and were therefore able to see a whole host of comments, unfortunately including those posted by trolls. That calls into question how the DPP uses the term “wide audience.” Does a prosecutor have to investigate the computer literacy of a suspect to determine whether they knew the exact figure of the audience in receipt of their post? Additionally, the subject of an RIP memorial page on Facebook would, of course, be deceased. The intended victim of the troll, therefore, is not necessarily the deceased person but the reader of the message.

The guidelines also advise that if the content of a communication does not obviously go beyond what could conceivably be tolerable or acceptable in an open and diverse society that upholds and respects freedom of expression, no prosecution is necessary. Of course I agree with that, but I also believe that greater consideration must be given to enforcing the law when grossly offensive comments have been made. There should be some online equivalent to offences committed offline. Only two people in England have been successfully prosecuted and jailed for sending messages considered to be grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing. Is that really an effective deterrent to the people who are sitting at their computers right now, contemplating sending a disgusting message that might cause gross offence?

I understand that questions have been raised about a person’s right to freedom of speech offline versus their right to freedom of expression online, and I accept that it is about proportionality, but the reality is that anyone who knows anything about trolling will say that the problem is that too much grossly offensive material exists, and it would be far too resource-intensive for the criminal justice system to investigate each and every case.

I agree with paragraph 29 of the guidelines, which suggests that any parliamentary proposal would have to ensure that it did not have

“a chilling effect on free speech”.

We must take into consideration the European Court of Human Rights directive, which protects an individual’s right to speech that is offensive, shocking or disturbing. There is still a debate to be had about whether free speech even applies to the sending of communications via social media, or whether it is classed as freedom of expression, which is not an absolute right.

We are talking about vile, insulting and unacceptable behaviour, such as the comments that I have seen posted on RIP memorial pages on Facebook and that were revealed in a BBC “Panorama” documentary. We are not talking about someone’s legitimate right to express themselves freely. There is a world of difference between a fair comment and a wilful denigration without validity that aims simply to cause as much hurt and offence as possible. If we try to protect trolls’ freedom to offend grossly, we are essentially defending the indefensible.

The guidelines clearly give preference to physical abuse or the risk of physical abuse over psychological abuse. When I met the Crown Prosecution Service, its view was that, given the complexity of online abuse, the police are not afforded enough time to compile the evidence necessary to take a case to court. Often, a maximum of six months is not long enough to gather sufficient proof of the alleged offence for a successful prosecution. In any such investigation, the police must routinely combat fake accounts, fake identities, fake e-mail addresses and issues with mobile communications, such as pay-as-you-go devices. Deception makes it difficult for officers to know where to start when looking for a troll hiding behind the anonymity of a computer.

However, that should not prevent us from trying to rectify the problem and eradicate the grey area that I have described. In fact, as I have said, I believe that granting the police and the CPS additional time to gather evidence for court cases would allow them to obtain evidence that meets the test of what is grossly offensive and even expose patterns of behaviour in some individuals that could lead to criminal prosecution.

As well as additional time to compile evidence, the police need innovative approaches to assist them. For example, the university of Central Lancashire is in the early stages of looking at ways to identify trolls through written word patterns. Dr Claire Hardaker, a lecturer in linguistics and English language at the university, said:

“Everyone has a unique way of writing, of putting certain words together, which is subconscious. Many teenagers say they are able to identify who sent a text to them just by the style of writing and word habits or the way the words are written. Someone might be pretending to be someone else, but by analysing the way they write online, we can determine a probable, age, gender, even a probable region from where they come from.”

Such creative approaches could be invaluable in convicting trolls. However, it is also true to suggest that any such invention will be for nothing until the DPP can adequately provide prosecutors with a definition of trolling that is separate from cyber-bullying, cyber-stalking or grooming and that can be robustly prosecuted where appropriate.

One conclusion that I reached early in my investigations into trolling is that a multi-agency approach is needed to tackle the problem effectively. As I have repeated, I am of the firm belief that the way to deter individuals from sending grossly offensive comments on social media is to change the culture of online users. That in turn requires a clear lead from the judicial system. That does not necessarily mean changing the law, but it does mean changing the application of the law, which the guidelines fail to do. The final part of Harold Wilson’s quote in the Commons is:

“In the last resort this House is, and must be, the authority which decides whether or not any particular practice is in the public interest.”—[Official Report, 22 April 1948; Vol. 449, c. 2037.]

He was, of course, right.

I conclude by thanking hon. Members for taking part and by asking the Solicitor-General the following questions. How does he define internet trolling? Does he agree with the DPP’s assessment that messages sent via social media that are grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false are unlikely to warrant prosecutions because it is not in the public interest to do so? Does he agree with the approach set out in paragraph 12, which is to assess initially offences that may have been committed using social media? What steps is he taking to work with prosecutors to find new ways to identify trolls, such as the scheme devised by the university of Central Lancashire? Finally, will he consider my request to increase the period of time that the police have to collect their evidence on trolls before a case must be brought before the courts?

Assisted Suicide

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there are good examples of the community supporting the provision of palliative care? For example, in Medway, the Friends of the Wisdom Hospice raised more than £500,000 to support the excellent palliative care there. The community and the voluntary sector want palliative care, so we have to work with them to ensure that such excellent facilities carry on.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I thank my hon. Friend and I entirely agree with him. In my constituency, we have the great work of Katharine House and, across Staffordshire, many other places, which I applaud.

Dying with dignity involves being treated as an individual—yes, having physical symptoms such as pain treated, but a lot more than that. Good palliative care is essential and we need to recognise that for the vast majority of patients, good palliative care—including the opportunity to express oneself as an individual and to retain control over the areas of life that one can have control of—will result in a desire for life rather than death.