Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Bacon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I agree with those sentiments entirely.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

3. With reference to his oral statement of 6 December 2023 on Hillsborough: Bishop James Jones Report, Official Report, column 341, if he will bring forward legislative proposals to introduce a legal duty of candour on public bodies.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

In his excellent report, “The patronising disposition of unaccountable power”, Bishop James Jones called for the creation of the Hillsborough charter for bereaved families, as well as for the imposition of a duty of candour on police officers. We agree wholeheartedly, which is why the Government have signed the charter alongside the Crown Prosecution Service, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and others, and imposed a duty of candour on the police. We are also legislating to create a strong, permanent and independent public advocate to speak up for victims and their families, and to rigorously hold signatories to the charter to account. We stand ready to discuss what further steps may be necessary.

[Richard Burgon]

The parents of Zane Gbangbola are in the Public Gallery today. Zane was just seven when he died, following floods 10 years ago this month. The fire brigade detected hydrogen cyanide multiple times. His parents, Kye and Nicole, have been fighting for the truth about their son’s death ever since, and a duty of candour would have helped them to get it. In lieu of that, will the Government establish an independent panel inquiry with full disclosure, so that all the evidence can be reviewed by experts, we can finally get the truth about what happened to an innocent seven-year-old boy, and justice can be done?

[Alex Chalk]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this deeply upsetting case, and I know the whole House will be thinking of Kye and Nicole as they continue to mourn the loss of Zane. The hon. Gentleman raises a critically important case. May I suggest that he and I discuss it and see what further steps can properly be taken in this difficult case?

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I call Richard Burgon.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

To reduce reoffending we need a strong, locally focused and stand-alone probation service—similar to how things were before privatisation—so why are the Government moving in the opposite direction with their One HMPPS programme, which has triggered a formal dispute with the probation unions because it subsumes probation still further into prisons?

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question; it is nice to answer questions from him again, as I did when he was shadow Secretary of State.

The One HMPPS programme is about different parts of the system working well together to create a system that delivers the outcomes that society wants to see. I take the opportunity, prompted by the hon. Gentleman, to pay tribute to all the staff in the probation service. I had the pleasure of visiting some of them in Southwark recently, and I pay tribute to all the work they are doing.

Hillsborough: Bishop James Jones Report

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

Respectfully, that is not quite a fair representation. Bishop James Jones, in his point of learning 1, talked about the Hillsborough charter, and in paragraph 3 of that recommendation, he talked about candour. We have accepted that entirely. Bishop James Jones’s report was not about the law, although he adverted to it. As I have said, we are going to have further discussions, but it is important to notice what steps have been taken thus far.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

People, including those personally affected by the Hillsborough tragedy, will have listened to the Government’s response today and been deeply disappointed. What is needed, among other things, is a duty of candour right across all public organisations, but also private organisations that are public-facing, such as those involved in social housing, for example. What is also needed is real equality of arms—not just some legal aid for the bereaved, but full equality of arms, meaning the same spending for victims as for public bodies.

The Opposition support a Hillsborough law, and a Hillsborough law is necessary, as the families have called for, to deliver this. Since the Opposition support it, the Government could have got this through and passed it in a number of weeks, and they still can. I urge the Government, before the next general election, to work with the Opposition across the House to get this passed. It is what the bereaved families and those communities deserve, and it is what people in future deserve as well.

[Alex Chalk]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his observations, which I listened to with care. On the issue of equality of arms, it has to be observed, I hope, that the changes that have been made are extremely significant, not least because there is a commitment to ensure is proportionality, so we can no longer go back to a situation where the state is apparently using its deep pockets to unfairly load the dice against victims. That is being changed, and we are very committed to that direction of travel.

Sentencing Bill

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for raising that appalling case. It is important to note that in respect of this Bill and the provision to require offenders to serve the entirety of their sentence, clause 2 relates to section 8 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, on causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, so that is covered.

On my hon. Friend’s separate point about attendance, we are very clear, following the cases of Lucy Letby and others, that it is a grievous affront to victims and families for defendants who have been convicted, after a fair trial, not to face the music, in simple terms. They need to be there in front of the court so that they can hear society’s condemnation expressed through the sentencing remarks of the judge, and so that the peace that has been denied their victims should be denied them as well. They need to understand that condemnation. My hon. Friend raises an interesting point about the scope of the requirement for people to attend court; it is a fair one and we should certainly discuss that.

I turn to the second aim of the Bill: to cut crime. Ultimately, that is how we protect the public. As it stands, the situation is that, too often, offenders are locked up for short periods at exorbitant cost. The experience makes them worse, and they end up committing further offences as a result. Clause 6 will introduce a presumption to suspend short sentences of 12 months or less, directing the courts to hand down a suspended sentence order instead.

The fact is that almost 80% of convicted offending every year is reoffending; much of the crime in our country is committed by someone who has had at least one brush with the law. The criminal justice system is meant to punish wrongdoing—of course it is. But, in the interests of society, it is also there to rehabilitate wrongdoers and set them on the right path so that they do not reoffend and make more victims of crime in the process.

If we want to protect the public and cut crime, the most effective thing we can do is intervene to break the cycle of offending—punish, of course, but rehabilitate too. To do that we must properly examine the evidence available to us.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I thank the Justice Secretary for giving way and very much welcome the introduction of the presumption against short sentences as a way, as he said, of cutting reoffending, cutting crime, cutting the number of victims and helping to turn lives around. However, that will mean greater pressure on probation services to do the job of rehabilitation outside a custodial setting.

Lord Ramsbotham, who is sadly missed in this place and more widely, produced an excellent report, which I had commissioned, called “People Are Not Things”, about the future of a successful probation service. Will the Justice Secretary agree to meet me and representatives from the probation service to look at Lord Ramsbotham’s report and see how it could help to build the kind of probation service that we need?

Cammell Laird Workers Imprisoned in 1984

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) on opening the debate in the way he did, giving all the details of this enduring injustice and outlining what needs to be done to set it right.

I want to start by talking about a day in Parliament I will never forget. In March 2021, I arranged a meeting so that MPs and Lords could come together to listen to trade union activists who had been spied on by undercover police officers and blacklisted. We had an unexpected guest on that Zoom call. I had sent an email inviting every Member of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. I watched what we might call the usual suspects—some of them are in here—sign into the meeting, and then we were very surprised when Norman Tebbit joined our Zoom call. He was full and frank in his disclosure. He said that when he was Secretary of State for Employment for Margaret Thatcher, he received intelligence and information on trade unionists. He said that he even knew when and where trade union activists, deemed to be on the hard left, were going on holiday. He was there not to deny it; he was there to say, “Yes, we did it, and we were right to do it.” I mention that because it gives an insight into the political atmosphere at that time in the 1980s and a window into the ideology and psychology of the Ministers in Thatcher’s Cabinet.

The truth is that the injustice faced by the Cammell Laird workers all comes down to the fact that in the 1980s trade unionists were viewed, appallingly, as the enemy within—people who did not deserve justice, who were a barrier to privatisation and the neoliberal economic dream that Thatcher wanted to push through Britain. We need to understand that they were, at worst, collateral damage for some powerful forces at that time. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West read the names of the 37 Cammell Laird workers; that is something that everybody in a position of power should listen to and reflect upon. Those 37 people were put in prison for taking action as trade unionists to defend jobs and the community. Those decent people were treated like dirt and thrown into a maximum security prison alongside very dangerous criminals—how appalling.

Their maltreatment and punishment did not end then, as we have heard. They were blacklisted. They did not get their redundancy payments and it was harder for them to get jobs. How many lives were detrimentally affected by that brutal mistreatment of 37 decent working people and their families? It is a source of shame. Anybody, regardless of political party, who believes in democracy and civil liberties should know that that injustice needs to be resolved soon.

I was proud when our shadow Secretary of State for Justice committed in the 2019 manifesto to releasing all the papers on the 37 Cammell Laird shipyard workers, as well as the Shrewsbury 24 pickets, and promised to introduce a public accountability Bill. I am proud as a Labour MP that our Labour party still holds dear those important policies. I congratulate the GMB on supporting the ongoing campaign for justice. As we have heard before, justice delayed is justice denied.

Of course there needs to be a public inquiry. The imprisonment of the 37 Cammell Laird shipyard workers was an abuse of state power. When such an abuse occurs in this country we cannot cover it up and pretend it did not happen. We cannot try and explain it away. We need the disinfectant of full disclosure and the light of truth shining upon it so that apologies can be made, compensation can be given and justice can be done. It is an outrage that the GMB still has to run the campaign now. It is an outrage that the surviving workers who were imprisoned have to come to Parliament today to watch this debate. I hope this debate can get the page turned and secure justice for those workers.

The Government have an opportunity to turn the corner. They should release all the papers related to the Cammell Laird 37. The Government should apologise and remunerate the pickets. It is important that the Minister is given the opportunity today to do simple things. I invite him to agree with the European Parliament’s Petitions Committee that the Cammell Laird 37’s basic human rights have been contravened, and to commit to review the files on the dispute that have not been published, including any files held by police authorities or security services.

I invite the Minister to agree, on the public record, that the jailing of striking workers was an abuse of state power against decent, hard-working people and their families and the trade union movement, arising from the fact that trade unionists at the time, and perhaps in the minds of some still politically active today, were seen as fair game for injustice to be visited upon them. They were seen not as the fabric of our country creating the wealth and keeping our public services going, but as the enemy within. Once we have a Government that believe a group of working people and their trade unions are the enemy within, it justifies all sorts—surveillance, blacklisting, and treating people really badly.

We need to see real change. The Minister has a good opportunity today to make a difference, say what is necessary and get the ball rolling on what the surviving 37 imprisoned workers, the GMB and hon. Members have called for—an apology. Let us get the ball rolling on a public inquiry, because the truth is that, without one, justice will never be done. If we cannot achieve that, we must ask ourselves big questions about where we are as a society.

Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill

Richard Burgon Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading - Day 2
Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]]

This is a dangerous Bill in many ways, both in what it contains and in what it omits, including in its stark failure to really tackle violence against women. I want to concentrate, in my three minutes, on the draconian threat to the right to protest.

Under this Government’s plans, protests will still be allowed, just as long as the police say so, just as long as the protests are not too noisy, just as long as they do not cause too much of a nuisance, just as long as they do not seriously annoy anyone, and just as long as they are not too near Parliament. So protests can go ahead, just as long as they do not do what protests are meant to do. And those who do not abide by the new rules could get 10 years in prison—longer than the sentences most men convicted of rape ever get.

Let us be clear: this is a political attack—an attack on people’s ability to exercise of one of their key democratic rights, an attack on one of the ways people have to speak out against Government policies they oppose, an attack on free speech. The Government have already made it much more difficult for people to go on strike, and now they want the police to make it much harder for people to protest.

Even without this new law, we have seen the state, under this Government, clamping down on democratic rights: last week, a nurse fined £10,000 after protesting against pay cuts; women at the Clapham common vigil attacked. And it goes way back: students kettled for opposing higher tuition fees; fracking activists jailed.

This Bill, written in direct response to the growth of Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion, is aimed at suppressing further political opposition and dissent. Instead of tackling the underlying grievances, the state is responding by attacking those challenging injustice. It is a form of state intimidation, designed to stop people organising and attending protests, but people will not be stopped.

Throughout our history, significant gains have been won through demonstrations: eight-hour days won by the trade unions; votes for women won by the suffragettes. Such movements were always denounced at the time as violent by politicians standing on the wrong side of history. If the Government proceed, this law will be broken repeatedly, and trust between the state and its citizens further shattered.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

What plans he has to improve links between probation services and (a) local employers, (b) adult education colleges, (c) health authorities and (d) jobcentres.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lucy Frazer)]

Joining up probation to other community services is critical. The new model for probation will allow us to build on local links that have already been forged. In the future probation system, more than £100 million a year will be spent on specialist rehabilitative and resettlement services, including education and employment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer]

Like the hon. Member, I pay tribute to the dedicated work of all those who have been working in the community rehabilitation companies across the country and, indeed, the National Probation Service. I welcome the work of the CRC in her area. As I mentioned, £100 million has been put forward for the new scheme—the dynamic framework, which has already been launched—so that local voluntary sector and private companies can bid to provide local services in communities. I look forward to seeing their bids.

[Richard Burgon [V]]

The Government were warned repeatedly that privatising probation would be a disaster—that it would cost more and leave the public less safe. The Government not only ignored those warnings but spent years ignoring the mounting evidence of their failed policy. They have practically had to be dragged kicking and screaming to finally agree to reverse this catastrophic privatisation. If they are finally going to properly sort out rehabilitation, is it not time to end, once and for all, the racket of mega-corporations like Sodexo, Serco and G4S profiting from our prisons and probation services?

[Lucy Frazer]

We believe that we should provide good services, whether that is by the public sector or by the private sector. We have in operation some excellent public service prisons, as we do some excellent private sector prisons. We are very pleased that we are integrating probation into the public service, providing a very important role, but we will continue to ensure that private sector companies and local voluntary sector companies can bid for rehabilitative services through the £100 million dynamic framework.

Lammy Review

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

We are absolutely committed to ensuring that there is greater diversity, for precisely the reason my hon. Friend indicated. It is not enough just for the police to be more diverse, to represent the society they police; prison officers must be diverse, to represent the prisons that they manage. We are making great progress in that regard, not least, in part, thanks to the Lammy review, and we will continue to make progress.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]]

I want to pay tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement, here and around the world, which is making important demands to tackle systematic racism in state institutions. David Oluwale was a British Nigerian killed in Leeds in 1969. He was drowned in the River Aire and he is buried in my constituency. His death led to the first successful prosecution—one of very, very few—of British police for involvement in the death of a black person. So as well as finally taking action on the Lammy review, will the Minister agree to implement all the recommendations of the Angiolini report on deaths in police custody?

[Alex Chalk]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that important point. We are committed to taking forward recommendations across the piece. I do not know about every last one in respect of that review, but I undertake to him that I will look at it very carefully.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for citing an example from Llangollen, a wonderful part of my homeland. I agree that meaningful and rewarding paid work can contribute to ex-offenders turning their backs on crime, and I commend his constituent for recognising that potential. As a result of the New Futures Network that was set up last year, over 480 businesses have signed up to offer work to prisoners as a pathway out of crime.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

With their privatisation of probation, the free market fundamentalists in the Conservative party sent reoffending up and made working-class communities less safe. Despite acknowledging that that privatisation failed, under new plans the Tories are still insisting on handing hundreds of millions of pounds over to private companies. Is that because they are ideologically wedded to the free market, or is it because the Tory party is in the pockets of the billionaires and the private corporations?

[Robert Buckland]

The only fundamentalist I see is sitting on the Benches dead ahead. This Government are committed to reforming and improving the probation service by creating a truly national framework. I make no apology for wanting to harness the ability of small organisations and charities who specialise in rehabilitation, working together with our National Probation Service. We are not ideological; the hon. Gentleman is.

[Richard Burgon]

I am afraid that even though the Government do not like it, what I said is in fact the truth. They even had a Justice Minister who was a spin doctor for the private sector justice giant, Serco. If they want to show that they actually care about public safety, will they guarantee today that any corporate giant involved in the probation privatisation scandal will be excluded, as they should be, from the new probation contracts? No waffle, please—a simple yes or no will suffice.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. It is appalling to hear of the experience of her constituent. On the specific issue of compensation, following conviction for an offence under the Fraud Act 2006 or, indeed under the Theft Act 1968, the court has the power to award compensation to victims or even order confiscation of assets. I would, of course, be delighted to speak to her to see how we can strengthen protections more generally.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

The Grenfell public inquiry has been delayed again after firms demanded assurances that their testimony will not be used against them in a criminal case. We need new laws that force officials and private companies to come clean about wrongdoings and failures. The brave Hillsborough and Grenfell families called for a public accountability law that would do this. In the past, there has been cross-party coalitions of support for such a law, often referred to as the Hillsborough law. Does the Justice Secretary agree that it is now time for such a law?

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this important point. He knows that it would be invidious for any of us to comment directly on the ongoing inquiry, which he knows is a judicial process. However, he makes an important point for the long term about the status of individuals with regard to various legal proceedings and consequences flowing from them. I would, of course, be happy to talk to him further about that as an important point that we need to consider carefully, and I will do so.

Streatham Incident

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I had sight of the Secretary of State’s statement only 20 minutes before he started speaking. That left me in the unacceptable position of having to prepare my statement about such a serious matter on the basis of press briefings.

I begin by saying that my thoughts are with the people attacked yesterday, their families and the people of Streatham, who witnessed this absolutely horrific attack. I also pay tribute to our police and emergency services for the professionalism and courage that they demonstrated in their swift response to the attack.

The first responsibility of a Government is to keep their citizens safe. Tragically, cuts over the past decade across our justice system—to the police, prisons, probation and the Crown Prosecution Service—have left our communities less safe. That is why our justice system is in crisis.

It will take time, of course, for the full facts about yesterday’s terrible attack to come out. We owe it to those affected to carefully assess what happened and take the action necessary to reduce the risk of similar attacks happening again. Experts have raised serious concerns about the impact of austerity on the Government’s programmes for dealing with terrorism offenders. A former CPS chief prosecutor for north-west England described those programmes today as “largely underfunded” and “poorly executed”. Does the Secretary of State agree with that assessment? What is being done to address the situation?

I turn to prisons. This is the second such attack carried out by a recently released prisoner in recent months. How many of the recommendations from the 2016 review into extremism in prisons have been implemented? Huge cuts to prison budgets have not only left our prisons with more than 2,000 fewer officers than in 2010; they have also led to an exodus of experienced staff, involving the loss of tens of thousands of years of experience. That experience is vital in maintaining safety and order in prisons and, crucially, in identifying and dealing with radicalisation.

Figures that I obtained last year show that the picture in high-security prisons is even worse, with over 400 fewer prison officers in such prisons compared with the figure for 2010. Does the Secretary of State believe that those cuts to staffing levels have made it more difficult to monitor people convicted of terror offences in prisons? The same figures revealed that Belmarsh, where the Streatham attacker was held until his release last week, has a staggering 100 fewer prison officers than it did back in 2010. By what date will the Government return all high-security prison staffing numbers to 2010 levels?

Sadly, the problems in our criminal justice system are not limited to prisons. Probation manages hundreds of thousands of offenders released from prison. All but a handful of the most dangerous prisoners will at some point leave prison. Probation has a vital role to play in keeping our communities safe. The Government’s decision to break up our probation system, alongside the decision to outsource the monitoring of some of the most dangerous offenders in bail hostels, has left the public at higher risk. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the consequences of the failed probation reforms for the monitoring of those convicted of terror offences?

Finally, I turn to sentencing. Judges can ensure that the most dangerous offenders are not released halfway through their sentence and that instead they serve a minimum of two thirds, and are released then only if the Parole Board determines that it is safe for that to happen. We will look at the proposals referred to in the Secretary of State’s statement, because our priority must be to keep the public safe. But to be clear, the Government cannot use sentencing as a way of distracting from their record of bringing the criminal justice system to breaking point.

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making his points, and I will do my very best to answer them all. On his last point, about sentencing, he is right to make reference to the extended determinate sentence system—but that, of course, depends on the learned judge making a finding of dangerousness. In this particular case, that option was open to the court, but the court decided not to take it, which is why the term was a standard determinate one. More needs to be done on the framework, to make sure that it does not depend on the need to make such a finding and that we can end automaticity when it comes to early release. I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman and his party would support that approach when it comes to the necessary legislation.

The hon. Gentleman makes observations more generally about the justice system. I remind him that the responsibility for the supervision of serious offenders has always lain with the National Probation Service, which remained within the hands of the state. I reassure him that the reforms to probation that I am driving forward mean we will bring together all the arms of the probation service in a way that will leader to greater co-ordination, a better spread of casework for probation officers and improved purchase on the regime, which needs to be applied. We are actively recruiting more probation officers.

Ian Acheson made his report in 2016, and eight of the 11 consolidated recommendations were adopted, with disagreement on three of them. I commend the work that he and others did. Things have moved on considerably since that point, and it is right for me to emphasise the joint working the Home Office, my Department and the security services do to make sure we are all working together to monitor not just offenders of this nature in the community, but terrorist offenders in prison. Other countries are learning from that experience.

The hon. Gentleman made the general remarks about the justice system that we hear from him regularly, so I simply remind him of the choices we had to make at the beginning of the last decade, the difficulty we were placed in and the fact that we are increasing counter-terrorism funding and bearing down on the risk we face. There has never been any question, at any time during the Conservative Government’s period in power, that we have prioritised resources over the need to protect the public. We will continue to put public protection at the centre of our deliberations, irrespective of the cost.