Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Fuad Awale is an extremist and double murderer who later took a prison officer hostage and demanded the release of the radical cleric Abu Qatada. He is the definition of evil. Yet the Justice Secretary’s Department is now set to pay him compensation as his ECHR rights have apparently been infringed, because he could not associate with monsters like those who killed Lee Rigby. Will the Justice Secretary ensure that not a single penny of taxpayers’ money is handed over to this man? If he will not, and he puts our membership of the ECHR above the interests of the British people, will he put his money where his mouth is and pay any so-called compensation himself?

[Mr Lammy]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman is always keen to get headlines, but he knows that the consequences of judgments—their impacts on Government and any payments made—have been an issue for successive Governments for the entire time that he and I have been on the planet. He knows that we are committed to the ECHR—offering asylum to those who are genuinely fleeing torture and execution—but he knows, too, that we are seeking to work domestically and with European colleagues on the issues that I referred to earlier, and article 8 in particular. This is not the time to start revising decisions that have effectively been made by our courts.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Currently, if a child sex offender is released from prison, the police and the Probation Service can track them on the sex offenders register, but if a child abuser is released from prison, the authorities have no register to track them with. There is a glaring gap in the system. Paula Hudgell has been fighting to fix the law after her adopted son Tony was abused so badly that he lost his legs. She has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and she says this campaign is the fire in her belly. Paula is truly inspirational, and we are backing her campaign. Will the Secretary of State take our amendment or bring forward his own, and get this change over the line for Paula, for Tony and to protect children now and into the future?

[Mr Lammy]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. I can tell him that the Minister for Victims, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), met Paula today and we are keen to support her campaign.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call Harpreet Uppal. Not here. I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Last week, the National Police Chiefs’ Council said that there was “no doubt” that the Government’s early release scheme would lead to an increase in crime. This followed the news that a man who had been released from prison early had been charged with murder. So this is a simple question: will the Justice Secretary rule out any more early release schemes for prisoners?

[Mr Lammy]

Can I just remind the right hon. Gentleman that, just before the general election in July 2024, his Government had three different versions of their early release scheme? We inherited a situation, as he knows, where prison capacity was completely unsustainable. Successive former Justice Secretaries under the previous Government have said this in the last week. We brought forward our early release scheme, and it was important to do that to put capacity into the system, but it is the Sentencing Bill that will begin to deal with this issue in a comprehensive way.

[Robert Jenrick]

Well, if we strip back all that waffle—the Secretary of State did not deny it, did he? That is interesting, because there has been another accidental release by the Ministry of Justice, and this time it is an email sent in error by his officials to me. It shows that his Department is looking to accommodate criminals in the community instead of in prison. As we would expect from him, it says that the plans are a “finger in the air” approach. It says that the Department is considering spending up to 100 grand a year per person to live outside of prison. That is more than the cost of a prison cell. Can the Justice Secretary really say with a straight face that his latest scheme is a good use of taxpayers’ money?

[Mr Lammy]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that that email, which was sent in error, referred to women. He knows that when we are talking about women offenders, the system must understandably consider the fact that many of them are mothers and many have been the victims of men who have groomed them, who have pimped them and who have abused them. That is why public policymakers understandably look at alternative ways to deal with women in the community. None of us in this House should make any apologies for that.