Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rob Butler and Robert Buckland

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

As I said to the House earlier, the Afghan relocations and assistance policy scheme covered the initial flights out. We have now extended and created a new scheme yesterday, which will cover and make a priority those particular judges. The hon. Gentleman knows that the issues in the country are complex and that colleagues across Government are working out ways in which we can facilitate safe passage, but I assure him that everybody who fits that category will get the warmest of welcomes in this country and that that work goes on daily. [Interruption.] I do not know how many times I can explain this: there is a clear plan and we are getting on with it.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

Prison officers and staff have done an amazing, excellent job of keeping prisoners safe during the pandemic, with much lower infection rates in jails than had been feared. That has mainly been achieved by keeping prisoners locked in their cells, but, obviously, we now need to move beyond that so that they can access education, work and other rehabilitation programmes. So will the Minister tell the House what progress has been made on rolling out vaccines in prisons, which would allow this vital work to resume?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rob Butler and Robert Buckland

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to reform sentencing.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)]

On 9 March we introduced the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which has been carried forward into the new Session. This legislation will deliver on our manifesto commitments to make punishments tougher for the most serious offenders and to introduce more effective community sentences, and work is also under way on the non-legislative reforms set out in my White Paper last year, which aim to tackle the underlying causes of criminal behaviour and improve the rehabilitation of offenders in the community.

[Rob Butler]

It is essential that the public have confidence in the sentencing decisions reached in our courts. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that an important element in that confidence can come from judges and magistrates explaining clearly the aims their sentences are designed to achieve, recognising that they are about not just punishment but rehabilitation in order to reduce reoffending and then create far fewer victims of crime in the future?

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend speaks from experience about these matters, and he will know that by law the court must explain the effect of a sentence and its reasons for deciding on it in clear, ordinary language. The pre-sentence report pilot that I announced in the sentencing White Paper also aims to increase sentencers’ confidence that their determinations will indeed improve outcomes for offenders and reduce reoffending.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rob Butler and Robert Buckland

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

What progress his Department has made on the proposals in its September 2020 White Paper, “A Smarter Approach to Sentencing”. [R]

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)]

Last week, we introduced the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. This landmark piece of legislation will deliver on the commitments that I made in the White Paper to make punishments tougher for the most serious offenders and those who commit crimes against women and girls, and to introduce more effective community sentences. We are working on those non-legislative reforms in the White Paper that aim to tackle the underlying causes of criminal behaviour and to improve the rehabilitation of offenders in our community.

[Rob Butler [V]]

I thank the Lord Chancellor for that answer. Over the years that I have been involved in the criminal justice system, I have often been struck by the potential for technology to play a greater role in keeping the public safe, punishing criminals and helping to reduce reoffending. I wonder whether my right hon. and learned Friend can tell the House how measures in the White Paper will enable the courts, prisons and probation services to exploit new technology.

[Robert Buckland]

As ever, I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s continued commitment to this issue. We are expanding the use of electronic monitoring to support robust and responsive community supervision. Following its well-received launch in Wales, as I mentioned, courts in England will shortly be able to impose the alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirement—the sobriety tag—to help tackle offending. We will shortly lay legislation to impose GPS tracking on offenders released from custody who have committed burglary and theft offences. The Bill will extend the maximum length of a curfew from 12 months to two years, making the use of those powers more flexible, and we will use those powers to test the house detention order concept outlined in the White Paper to see how that can contribute to reducing reoffending.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rob Butler and Robert Buckland

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Lady raises a very disturbing case, and sadly, it is not alone. Many shop workers have been at the frontline of providing vital services through the intensity of the lockdown and continue to do so. It is incumbent on all of us to make sure that sentencing guidelines properly reflect the role that they play. There is helpful reference in the sentencing guidelines, of course, to people in that line of service, but if there is more that we can do to draw the courts’ attention to the particular importance of shopworkers, we should do so.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

  The White Paper published last week by my right hon. and learned Friend’s Department proposes extending whole-life orders to 18 to 20-year-olds in wholly exceptional cases. I think that most people understand and agree with that, but there are many others in that age group who will be released, including those serving at Aylesbury young offenders institution in my constituency. Will my right hon. and learned Friend ensure that young adults in custody can access programmes tailored to their specific age group and their particular needs, in an effort to ensure that they do not commit crime again once freed? [R]

[Robert Buckland]

I pay tribute to those who provide the therapeutic services at Aylesbury YOI, whom I have met in the past. We have clearly stated that we see young adults right up to the age of 25 as a group that need treatment that is different from other cohorts, and we have specialist models for operational delivery to support prisons holding young adults to get the best results for that group. The curriculum at Aylesbury includes personal and social development skills, business, horticulture, barbering and decorating, and we will reinforce that with our new national prisoner education service, which is focused on work-based training and skills.

Sentencing White Paper

Debate between Rob Butler and Robert Buckland

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Lady makes a really interesting point about childhood trauma. In the call for evidence on neurodivergence I want to open up some of these issues in a much more novel way, because I am sure that, with proper support and proper intervention, we can divert a lot of people away from a life of crime. When they get into the system it is vital that we expand community sentence treatment requirements. I am a strong believer in the mental health treatment programme, and the NHS, which is scaling up its support for that, is to be thanked. We will expand the availability of that type of treatment order throughout the jurisdiction, so that judges have a real choice when it comes to passing sentences: it does not always have to be custody; there can be a constructive way forward, properly tailored around the offender.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the White Paper and in particular its proposal for longer curfew periods alongside GPS tags. That strikes me as something approaching a smart house arrest system. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that that could fill a significant gap in current sentencing options, because it would be an excellent way of punishing criminals by restricting their liberty while at the same time enabling them to be successfully rehabilitated and therefore less likely to reoffend?

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I pay tribute to him for his long work in the criminal justice system, as a member of the Sentencing Council, for example. I warmly welcome his comments, and I am a strong believer that an element of house arrest, let us call it—the use of curfew together with electronic monitoring —alongside various other treatment orders that could be imposed could be a really intelligent, smart way of providing a tougher, more robust approach to sentencing. It will deprive the offender of liberty—causing, of course, huge changes to their life—but, frankly, that is part of the punishment and part of the solution if we are really going to move people on from a cycle of crime.

Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Bill

Debate between Rob Butler and Robert Buckland

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I rise only briefly to state my strong support for the Bill. I should declare that prior to my election, I was the magistrate member of the Sentencing Council and a non-executive director of Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service. Accordingly, I was honoured to be a member of the Public Bill Committee for this legislation.

As we have heard several times during the debates on the Bill, the overarching responsibility of any Government is to keep their citizens safe, and one of the five set out purposes of sentencing is to protect the public, and that is rightly the priority of the Bill. Terrorist attacks cause carnage, murdering indiscriminately and injuring wantonly. The Bill sends a very powerful message to those who seek to bring terror to the lives of innocent people. It demonstrates the contempt in which we hold those who seek to kill and maim to further their warped ideologies. A minimum sentence of 14 years to be spent entirely in custody is a clear signal that if someone commits a serious offence linked to terrorism, they can expect to spend a hefty proportion of their life locked up, and rightly so.

I, too, am a firm believer in rehabilitation, and the Prison Service has worked incredibly hard to devise and implement deradicalisation programmes, but I think most people would acknowledge that there is considerable scope for further improvement. Several times during the Committee’s evidence sessions, we were told that the reoffending rate of terrorists is low—perhaps just 3% —somehow implying that we therefore do not need such lengthy sentences as proposed in the Bill, but that surely misses the point. Even one terrorist reoffending is one too many, because even one terrorist attack can kill hundreds of people. In cases of terrorism, we cannot take risks.

The Bill also sends a strong message to the public that this Government are absolutely committed to protecting lives and minimising the chance of terrorist attacks taking place. The changes to TPIMs reflect the needs of the Security Service to have every tool to keep us safe. When Assistant Chief Constable Tim Jacques, the deputy senior national co-ordinator in the UK’s counter-terrorism policing, gave evidence to the Public Bill Committee, he stated:

“Protecting the public is our No. 1 priority and sometimes that means we have to intervene regardless of evidence, because the risks to the public are so great.”––[Official Report, Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Public Bill Committee, 25 June 2020; c. 26, Q69.]

Our priority must be to support our Security Service and police in the heroic work they do day in, day out, often at considerable danger to themselves in their constant quest to thwart would-be terrorists from wreaking their havoc. We owe it to them to give them what they need to keep us safe.

Finally, it is vitally important that the courts take immediate note if and when the Bill is passed. I hope that sentencing guidelines can be introduced quickly to reflect the clear will of all sides of Parliament to ensure that dangerous terrorist offenders spend more time in prison.

[Robert Buckland]

On that point, my hon. Friend will be assured to know that the Sentencing Council is putting work in train in any event to revise the terrorism guidelines and this Bill, should it become law, will no doubt form part of its work.

[Rob Butler]

I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for reassuring me of that. I know from having served on the Sentencing Council that its members will diligently proceed with their efforts. That work will surely reflect, as I was saying, the clear will of Parliament to ensure that dangerous terrorist offenders spend more time in prison, to give greater opportunity for rehabilitation, to reflect the seriousness of their crime and, most importantly, to protect the British people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rob Butler and Robert Buckland

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

Children do not instantly turn into adults on their 18th birthday, yet our justice system often treats them as though they do, despite a huge amount of evidence that neuro- logical development continues well into the 20s. Will my right hon. and learned Friend look into ways the entire criminal justice system can better reflect the increased knowledge about maturity, perhaps starting with the sentencing Bill his Department is currently working on?

[Robert Buckland]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his previous service as a member of the Sentencing Council and his work in the youth justice sphere. He is right to recognise that the 18 to 25 cohort have distinct needs relating to maturity and development. In his constituency, excellent work goes on with regard to the neurological challenges that he mentions at Her Majesty’s Young Offender Institution Aylesbury. I will, of course, further engage with him and others on this issue as we develop the White Paper.

Probation Services

Debate between Rob Butler and Robert Buckland

Thursday 11th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who I know takes a keen interest in these issues. Perhaps I will emphasise the second part of his question. I thoroughly agree about the need to harness that experience and talent. That is what we are going to do. We will work with the unions and all the representative bodies to make sure that as we emerge from June of next year, we will be in an even better position to reduce reoffending.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

Having been a non-executive director of HMPPS before my election to the House, I was privy to some of the challenges that have perhaps contributed to the decision today. With that perspective in mind, the timetable for reintegration seems tight, and I wonder whether my right hon. and learned Friend has considered further extending the CRC contracts, as is permitted, by six months, to enable that to happen smoothly. When that transition does happen, can we make sure that we keep the ethos of innovation, flexible staff and empowered staff so that we bring the very best back into the public sector?

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He knows that I value the work that he did prior to his election to this House very greatly indeed. He is right to outline some of the options that were before me. I looked very carefully at that option among others. I could not see that bringing real value in time or space in order to make the necessary changes. The Government rightly committed to June or to the spring or summer of 2021 as the time by which we had to make these reforms. I thought that we needed simplicity and clarity, which is why I have elected to take this course.