Sentencing Council Guidelines
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(2 days, 16 hours ago)
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Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor must be living in a parallel universe if she is giving herself a pat on the back today. The truth is she has completely lost control of the justice system. She sat on her hands for weeks and took seven days to gather her thoughts and put her views in writing to the Sentencing Council. Her incompetence took this down to the wire.
Magistrates and judges were updated by the press office of the Sentencing Council only at midday that the guidelines due to come into force had in effect been suspended. That raises the very real prospect that magistrates and judges sitting from 10am this morning were unaware of this chaotic last-minute change and sentenced people under guidelines that the Justice Secretary herself has conceded are two-tier. But it gets worse. In that very email to thousands of judges and magistrates sent just 90 minutes ago, the Sentencing Council states:
“we remain of the view that the guidelines are necessary and appropriate”.
Confusion reigns. They are being told one thing by the Lord Chancellor and another by the Sentencing Council. Who really is in charge here? Yet again, the Justice Secretary has been humiliated and undermined by activist judges seeking to undermine the will of this place—our Parliament. Her authority has been shredded—she is being treated as a two-tier, second-tier Justice Secretary.
This situation was entirely preventable if the Justice Secretary had simply put party politics to one side and backed our Bill weeks ago to restore accountability and empower her to actually control justice policy, but the Labour party blocked it. If the Prime Minister has been tricked into sitting at the front of the docklands light railway thinking that he is in charge, as his chief of staff mocked him for the other day, the Lord Chancellor has chosen to sit there in the passenger seat allowing the judiciary to take charge. She decided to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, all-powerful to be impotent.
Even after this complete shambles, the Lord Chancellor will not even re-establish ministerial oversight. We are told via frantic press briefings that her Bill, which we have not even seen yet, will surgically remove these two-tier sentencing guidelines. That does not tackle the root cause of the problem at all, which is an activist legal quango that holds views completely divergent to the public, to Parliament and—now we are told—to the Government. Unless she follows the formula of the Bill produced by Conservative MPs, we will be back here time and again to unwind the next piece of madness coming out of the council.
Take the Sentencing Council’s immigration guidelines that water down sentences for immigration offences below the 12-month threshold for automatic deportation: if published, it will mean hundreds of illegal migrants and foreign national offenders will avoid deportation every single year. It will blow a hole in border security. It even waters down the maximum life sentence for people smugglers that was legislated for just under a year ago. It completely disregards parliamentary sovereignty.
At our last exchange, the Justice Secretary said there would be no two-tier justice on her watch. Well, there it is—and it is worse than that. On 2 January, her own Department—not the Sentencing Council—published guidance ordering the prioritisation of bail for ethnic minorities and transgender people, continuing a practice introduced under Gordon Brown. Contrary to the misinformation peddled by her press office, the Department produced new guidance on pre-sentencing reports that have been in force for months, which state that probation officers should consider the “culture” of an offender and whether they have suffered “intergenerational trauma” from “historical events”. Well, that is cultural relativism, which violates the rule of law and puts the British public at risk. This time, nobody is to blame other than her. It is her Department; it is black and white; it is two-tier justice.
I have some questions. Will the Justice Secretary reassure the House that nobody was sentenced this morning under guidelines that she concedes are two tier? Can she honestly say at the Dispatch Box that she has confidence in the head of the Sentencing Council, Lord Justice Davies, given that he has brought it into total disrepute—yes or no? If she can, is she aware that he took to the airwaves yesterday, in an astonishing departure from the expected standards of judicial conduct, to advocate for abolishing short sentences, especially for hyper-prolific offenders, effectively instructing lower courts to follow suit? It is time for him to go, and if she will not sack him for that, what will it take?
Does the Justice Secretary have confidence in Johanna Robinson, another member of the Sentencing Council, who took a moral objection to border control and described the Illegal Migration Act 2023 as appalling? Lastly, will the Justice Secretary change the guidance that her own Department is producing and which has created a two-tier Probation Service? Or is it, once again on her watch, two-tier justice under two-tier Keir?
Shabana Mahmood
Dear, dear, dear me. It seems that the right hon. Gentleman’s amnesia is as bad as ever: 14 whole years appear to have disappeared entirely from his memory. He talks about parliamentary sovereignty, but when his party was in government and he was a Secretary of State or a Minister, he appeared never to know what on earth parliamentary sovereignty was or how to exercise power.
I think the right hon. Gentleman is rather distressed that my approach has led to a pause in the guidelines, that I will introduce a Bill that will deal with the offending bit of this guideline, and that I will consider the wider role and powers of the Sentencing Council ahead of the sentencing Bill later this year. I understand that it must be very disappointing for him that he has been exposed as someone who is all talk and no action, and that I get the job done. I can see that that annoys him greatly.
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would like to begin by apologising to the country, as I often invite him to do when we have our exchanges across the Dispatch Box. In 14 years, he never appeared to discover any of the things that he now discusses regularly from the Opposition Benches. He did nothing about those matters when he was a member of the Government that ran the country. Perhaps that is the problem: the Conservatives never really ran the country; they gave up on the job. He never rolled up his sleeves and put in the hard work to get the job done. That is why we inherited prisons on the brink of collapse, and why I am now unwinding all the mistakes that his party made and the guidance that he and his party welcomed.
The right hon. Gentleman did not tell me what discussions he has had with the shadow Transport Secretary, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon). Before the Conservatives explain why they are so het up about things now, they should explain why they welcomed those things when they were in office. There was no answer to those questions. I do not believe that there were many questions in that diatribe from the shadow Justice Secretary.
On sentencing, the pause in the guideline was communicated—that is a matter for the Sentencing Council. I will, of course, engage with the judiciary to ensure that all is understood regarding the pause. Nothing has changed in relation to the ordering of pre-sentencing reports by judges in all the circumstances in which they would ordinarily do so. The guideline is what has been paused, and it will now not come into effect until Parliament has had its say. The right hon. Gentleman references two individuals. That is the difference between me and him: I do not make it personal. I just focus on the job, and I get the job done.
Sentencing Council Guidelines
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if she will make a statement on the Sentencing Council’s publication of community and custodial sentences guidelines.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Sir Nicholas Dakin)
The Sentencing Council is independent of Parliament and Government. The council decides on its own priorities and workplan for producing guidelines.
The Sentencing Council consulted the previous Government on a revised version of the imposition guideline, which included new guidance on pre-sentence reports. That consultation ran from November 2023 to February 2024. The previous Government responded to the consultation on the guideline on 19 February 2024. The former sentencing Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), who is now the shadow Transport Secretary, wrote to the chair of the Sentencing Council thanking him for the revisions to the guideline. In particular, he thanked the council for fuller guidance on the circumstances in which courts should request a pre-sentence report.
The Lord Chancellor was clear about her discontent with the guideline when it was published. It is our view that there should not be differential treatment before the law. The House will be pleased to hear that the Lord Chancellor met the chair of the Sentencing Council last week, and the discussion was constructive. It was agreed that the Lord Chancellor will set out her position more fully in writing, which the Sentencing Council will consider before the guideline is due to come into effect.
Robert Jenrick
In just 14 days, new two-tier sentencing rules will come into force. These sentencing rules will infect our ancient justice system with the virus of identity politics, dividing fellow citizens on the basis of their skin colour and religion. The rules will ride roughshod over the rule of law and destroy confidence in our criminal justice system. The stakes are high, but the Justice Secretary seems clueless—in fact, she is not even here. Has the Department conducted an assessment of the additional pre-sentence reports that will be required and the impact of that on the Probation Service, given that it is already working above capacity? Is it considering providing the Probation Service with additional resources to cope with the extra demand? Does it expect the additional pre-sentence reports to lead to further delays in our courts?
I ask these questions because not only do these new rules violate the most foundational principle of equality before the law, but they also create immense pressure on the criminal justice system. If the Justice Secretary wanted to stop two-tier justice, she would have supported my Bill on Friday. She would have used her powers of appointment to sack the individuals who drafted the rules. Time is running out, and so is confidence in the Sentencing Council. Frankly, the public are losing confidence in the Justice Secretary and her Ministers, too.
I cannot escape the conclusion that the Justice Secretary actually supports these two-tier sentencing rules. Why? Because she supported a group that called the criminal system institutionally racist. Her representatives walked through the two-tier guidance and approved it, and she refuses to legislate to block the guidance coming into force or to take any sanction against the members of the Sentencing Council that drafted it. If there is one thing we know about Labour Governments, it is that they always end in tears. This time, it is a second-tier Justice Secretary pursuing two-tier justice, all to suck up to her boss, two-tier Keir.
Sir Nicholas Dakin
There is one thing that we know about Labour Governments: they always have to clear up the mess left by Conservative Governments. That is what the Lord Chancellor is doing at the moment. She is clearing up the mess left by the previous Government: the clogged-up the courts, the overflowing prisons and the overworked Probation Service.
Getting back to the facts of the case, the Lord Chancellor met the Sentencing Council last Thursday and had a constructive discussion. It was agreed that she will set out her position more fully in writing, which the Sentencing Council will then consider before the guidance is due to come into effect. This is serious government, not auditioning for government. The Conservatives were not only consulted; they welcomed these guidelines when they were in office. The former Minister for sentencing wrote a letter of welcome to the Sentencing Council setting this out on 19 February 2024. There is a process in place now that needs to be allowed to play out. We will not pre-empt that process.
Sir Nicholas Dakin
The letter the previous Government wrote to the Sentencing Council during the consultation is clear. The previous Government were not just consulted; they welcomed the guidance. The initial version of the guidance included reference to specific cohorts of offenders, including ethnic minorities.
Robert Jenrick
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. In his response to the urgent question, the Minister has repeatedly told the House that the previous Government approved the guidelines. In particular, he besmirched the name of the former sentencing Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon). What the Minister said to the House today was wrong. On page 4, paragraph 4, of the Sentencing Council’s letter of 10 March to the Justice Secretary, it made it perfectly clear that the guidelines published under this Government were materially different from those considered by the prior Government. In fact, the Minister’s official was present at the meeting of the Sentencing Council at which this version of the guidelines was signed off. Will he take the opportunity to correct the record? I am afraid that he has misled the House not once, not twice, but on numerous occasions today, and that is quite wrong.
Mr Speaker
Order. Nobody misleads the House; the right hon. Gentleman means “inadvertently” misled the House.
Sir Nicholas Dakin
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I do not believe that I inadvertently misled the House.
Oral Answers to Questions
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
Under the Justice Secretary’s leadership, her Department let out dozens of dangerous prisoners by mistake last year. Now we have uncovered that criminals who were let out early by her Department were not monitored for up to eight weeks, as they were not fitted with electronic tags. It is another glaring error. Will the Justice Secretary clear up some confusion? How many criminals did her Department fail to tag? Were any offences committed while these criminals went unmonitored, and who has been held accountable for this gross incompetence?
Shabana Mahmood
I am really concerned for the health of the shadow Justice Secretary, because he appears to have amnesia; he has forgotten who was in government just a few short months ago. He appears to have entirely forgotten that it was the previous Government who let the tagging contract to Serco, which I have inherited. I have made it clear that the delays that we have seen are totally unacceptable. Although the backlog has been significantly reduced, Serco’s performance is still not good enough, and although last year’s backlog of outstanding visits has been substantially reduced—it is down to normal levels—I will continue to hold it to account and will not hesitate to impose further financial penalties where necessary.
Robert Jenrick
We can all see that the Justice Secretary had no answers to my questions. If her Department cannot even tag prisoners properly, why should the public have any confidence in her plan to use tags in place of short prison sentences? The threshold for a prison sentence is already high. Often, criminals have committed multiple offences before they are first considered for prison, which is why scrapping short sentences will endanger the public and will serve as a green light for criminality. Will the Justice Secretary take this opportunity to reassure the public and rule out reducing sentences for burglary, theft or shoplifting? It is a simple question—yes or no?
Shabana Mahmood
The public will know that when the right hon. Gentleman’s Government left office, prisons were on the point of collapse. They can have confidence that this Government will fix the mess that his party left behind. We will ensure that prison places are always available for everyone who needs to be locked up to keep the public safe. We will expand the range of punishment outside prison and, crucially, we will ensure that those who enter the prison system can be helped to turn their back on crime. That is the best strategy for cutting crime, and one that his party never chose.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
Yesterday, the Sentencing Council issued a letter correcting the Justice Secretary. It made it clear that the new sentencing guidelines were not the same as the draft guidance under the last Government and explained that her Department supported the new two-tier guidance—her representative was at the meeting—and it was approved on 24 January. Her officials were even given a walkthrough on 3 March—a dummy’s guide to two-tier justice. After I brought that to her attention last Wednesday, her team briefed the papers that she was “incandescent”. Was she incandescent at her officials or at her own failure to read her papers and do her job properly?
Shabana Mahmood
The shadow Lord Chancellor’s amnesia continues, because he clearly has not done his homework; he has forgotten that his Government were consulted extensively on this guidance. It also appears that he cannot read, because the letter states very clearly all the consultation that took place under his Government. It shows that they were consulted numerous times on the new guidance and welcomed it—I notice that he did not refer to that. He knows full well that the change he refers to is a minor change, because the reference to race, ethnicity and cultural backgrounds has been retained in the time his Government seeing it and the changes that occurred, so he cannot hide behind that. The last few days have therefore been an expert lesson from the right hon. Gentleman: he has taught us all how to throw the shadow Transport Secretary under a bus.
Robert Jenrick
As a lawyer herself, I would have thought that the Justice Secretary would know the difference between the last set of guidance and the new one. I say “as a lawyer,” but in this Cabinet we never really know who is a real lawyer and who is just pretending to be one. In 21 days’ time, by the Justice Secretary’s own admission, we will have two-tier justice. Her plan to fix that will not come into effect for a year, and that is unacceptable. As she has been too lazy to do her job, I will do it for her. Today I am presenting a Bill to block these two-tier sentencing guidelines and fix her mess; it is here and ready to go. Will she support it? Will she stand with us on the Conservative Benches for equality under the law, or will it be two-tier justice with her and two-tier Keir?
Shabana Mahmood
The whole House can see that the only pretence at a job is the one that the shadow Lord Chancellor is making, because he is pretending to be the Leader of the Opposition. We all know exactly what he is about. My reaction to what has happened in relation to the Sentencing Council’s guidelines was very clear when I made the oral statement last week in this House: we will never stand for a two-tier approach to sentencing. I am actually getting on with fixing the problem, rather than looking for a bandwagon to jump on, which is why I have already written to the Sentencing Council. I will be meeting it later this week, and I have made it very clear that I will consider its role and its powers. If I need to legislate, I will do so, but I will ensure that whatever changes I bring forward are workable and deliver the fair justice system that we all need and deserve—one that his Government did not deliver.
Courts and Tribunals: Sitting Days
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(4 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
It is great to see the Justice Secretary back in the country after her holiday in Texas. If she can find time to travel to America, why can she not find time to travel to the two category A prisons—[Interruption.] I will be pleased to hear from the right hon. Lady if that is the case. That was not the answer to our written parliamentary question the other day.
Today, the central criminal court has 13 courtrooms sat empty. In Preston, 40% of courtrooms sit empty, and in Winchester the figure is two thirds. That is a result of the court backlog, which has grown under this Justice Secretary. We need to be maximising court capacity, taking full advantage of all available days and probing the judiciary for options to create more capacity. I know that, and I would like to believe that the right hon. Lady knows that, but how did we get here? We got here because, just like in every other area, this Labour Government came into office with no plan whatsoever, and they have wasted their first eight months in office.
Upon the Justice Secretary entering office, the Lady Chief Justice informed her that there were at least 6,500 sitting days available to address the court backlog. The Justice Secretary responded by adding a measly 500 sitting days, and the court backlog kept growing. So frustrated was the Lady Chief Justice that she came to Parliament in November and took the unusual step of publicly chastising the Justice Secretary, and reiterated her offer of 6,500 sitting days. The Justice Secretary responded a month later by adding 2,000 sitting days, and the court backlog kept growing.
Here we are again, eight months on from the Justice Secretary taking office and on the very day that the Public Accounts Committee has published an excoriating report into her Department, with her promising more sitting days. Is it third time lucky for the Justice Secretary? No. What we have learned again today is that she is still turning down available sitting days, and astonishingly, she has conceded that the court backlog will keep on rising. That is simply not acceptable.
Of course, I welcome the changes made by the Justice Secretary, but they are not enough. She says that victims will get quicker justice—tell that to the victims of rape who are having their court cases listed for 2028. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Please, I need to be able to hear the shadow Lord Chancellor, and when Government Front Benchers shout for so long, I cannot hear. I will decide whether a statement is in order or not—are we understanding each other?
Robert Jenrick
I do not pretend that cutting the court backlog is easy, or that it will be quick, but the Justice Secretary owes the country a plan and a timetable for when that backlog is actually going to fall. This morning, she was repeatedly asked that question, but refused to give an answer. Can she tell the country now when the court backlog will begin to fall, by what date her Department has forecast it falling, and why she will not take up the 2,500 additional sitting days offered time and time again by the Lady Chief Justice?
Lastly, the new sentencing guidelines published alongside this statement will make a custodial sentence less likely for those
“from an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community”.
Why is the Justice Secretary enshrining this double standard—this two-tier approach to sentencing? It is an inversion of the rule of law. Conservative Members believe in equality under the law; why does she not?
Shabana Mahmood
The shadow Secretary of State asked, “How did we get here?” I will tell him how we got here—his Administration and the 14 years they had in power, and the absolute mess they made of the criminal justice system; a mess that this Government are clearing up. I am sorry to deprive him of what I am sure he thought was a clever attack line on my recent visit to Texas, but I can inform him that I have in fact visited HM Prison Manchester. I did so during the February recess. [Interruption.]
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
I thank the Lord Chancellor for her honesty in setting out so clearly the difficult situation that we have inherited from the Conservative party, and I welcome the measures that she has proposed: the record investment in the justice system, and the measures taken to reduce the number of cases going to the Crown courts.
Warinder Juss
It has got worse, because of the Conservative party.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as well as focusing on the measures that she has already proposed, we should continue to focus on reducing crime in the first place, and pursue our policies for tackling youth crime, knife crime and violence against women and girls?
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I am slightly worried about Conservative Members, who appear to be the arsonists complaining that the fire brigade has turned up too late to put out the fire, when they were the ones who lit it in the first place. I worry that they do not understand the scale and magnitude of the challenge that they left behind, which I have heard about from constituents who have been waiting years for their court cases.
Oral Answers to Questions
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
The courts backlog is growing by 500 cases every month, and the Ministry of Justice has not set a date for when it will come down. Victims are being forced to put their lives on hold while they wait for a trial date, yet today at the Old Bailey half of all the courtrooms sit empty. The Lady Chief Justice has said that there are 4,000 additional sitting days available that could be used now. Who is the obstacle to resolving this? Is it the Justice Secretary, who is content for rape trials to be scheduled for as far off as 2027, or is it the Chancellor, and the Justice Secretary has just had rings run around her by the Treasury?
Shabana Mahmood
What an absolutely outrageous set of remarks! The right hon. Member completely forgets that, only six months ago, his Government were in charge. The Government of which he was part all but ran our justice system into the ground. I do not recall seeing him standing up and speaking about delays for rape victims, or indeed any other kind of victim, when he was on this side of the House. I am glad he has now realised that the system ought to try to put victims first. His critique would have more force were it not for the fact that this Government, having come to office only six months ago, have increased Crown court sitting capacity by 2,500 days.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
Contempt of court laws are guardrails that ensure fair trials. Does the Justice Secretary accept that, as the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation has said, by failing to provide basic information to the public that has been disclosed in previous cases—information that would not prejudice a trial—the authorities created a vacuum in which misinformation spread? That misinformation could itself have been prejudicial to the trial. Does she agree that in an age when most people consume their news through social media, saying nothing is not cost-free? Will she commit to reviewing this issue now, rather than waiting for the Law Commission?
Shabana Mahmood
There will always be differing views among lawyers about what can and cannot be said. It is right that the Government took their own position and that we did nothing that could risk collapsing the trial. I agree with the shadow Secretary of State that the online world poses a significant challenge to our contempt laws. That is why that is already being looked at. As there is a piece of work already under way, I do not want to pre-empt where that could land. The Law Commission has a good track record of considering major law changes. Because of the inquiry and the fast-moving nature of these things, I will keep this area under close review myself.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
Two weeks ago, three grooming gang members were sentenced at Bradford Crown court for the most appalling rapes of children, but they received only six, seven and nine-year sentences respectively—six years, out on licence in four, for the rape of a child. Does the Secretary of State agree that those sentences are disgracefully short, and will she commit to using the sentencing review to mandate full life sentences for these evil people? If she will, she will have our support.
Shabana Mahmood
We have a shared objective in making sure that these evil individuals feel the full force of the law. I will not comment on individual sentencing decisions, and the shadow Lord Chancellor might wish to reflect on that decision; it is not appropriate to do so, given our collective commitment to the independence of the judiciary. However, as I said in response to earlier questions, we will legislate to make grooming an aggravating factor, and this Government will make sure that victims get the justice they deserve.
Robert Jenrick
I have written to the Attorney General asking him to review those sentences as potentially unduly lenient. Two of the men who were sentenced at Bradford Crown court for grooming gang offences were absent. They are thought to have absconded abroad. Can the Justice Secretary confirm how many grooming gang defendants the Government are currently pursuing overseas and what efforts are being made by the Government with, in this case, the Pakistani authorities, using every lever of the British state to locate these evil men and get justice for the victims?
Shabana Mahmood
I will happily write to the right hon. Gentleman with details on the specific case that he raises. He is right to say that we have international agreements and arrangements with other jurisdictions to ensure that offenders can be brought back to face justice in this country. I am sure that those arrangements are being applied appropriately, but I will make sure that he gets a fuller answer on the case that he has raised.
Drones: High-security Prisons
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
(Urgent question): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if she will make a statement on the national security risk of drones being used to deliver weapons to high-security prisons.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Sir Nicholas Dakin)
This is not a new issue. Effective prison security is fundamental to the rehabilitative nature of prisons and ensuring public confidence in the criminal justice system. The availability of illicit items in our jails, including drugs and mobile phones, undermines prison officers’ ability to do their jobs. Drone sightings around prisons in England and Wales are a matter of great concern and pose a major threat to prison security.
The Government inherited a prison system in crisis, with violence and drug use on the rise. We are working hard to deter, detect and disrupt the use of drones. It is not possible to talk in detail of the tactics we use to disrupt drones, given the obvious security implications. What I can say is that His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service invests in targeted countermeasures such as improvements to windows, netting and grilles to stop drones from successfully delivering cargo such as drugs and weapons. In January 2024, restricted fly zones were introduced around all closed prisons and young offender institutions, supporting police and prison staff to disrupt illegal drone use.
Ultimately, it is crucial that we tackle demand. Almost half of people entering prisons have a drug problem, so we must get them into the right treatment to tackle the drug misuse that is so often a driver of their reoffending. Contraband supply and the illicit economy drive violence, self-harm and instability, and prevent offenders from engaging in rehabilitative activity. We are working to crack down on the levels of violence and drugs in our prisons.
The illicit economy is unfortunately highly profitable, with prices for drugs and other commodities between 10 and 100 times their street values—an A4 sheet of paper laced with drugs can be worth £1,000—so we must tackle the organised crime gangs behind it. That is why we have invested in a dedicated serious and organised crime unit who will work with law enforcement agencies to disrupt these sophisticated criminal networks. We will continue to take a multifaceted approach to drones and the disruption that they cause to our prison system.
Robert Jenrick
Given that this is a question of national security, I find it astonishing that the Lord Chancellor cannot be bothered to turn up to the House today. Yesterday—[Interruption.]
Robert Jenrick
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Yesterday, the chief inspector of prisons warned that the police and prisons service have “ceded the airspace” above two high-security prisons to organised crime groups. The result is that organised crime gangs can deliver drugs, phones and weapons such as zombie knives to inmates with impunity due to the absence of basic security measures such as functional CCTV, protective netting and window repairs. Across two visits in September and October, he described a damning picture of thriving illicit economies that jeopardise the safety of dedicated prison staff.
In HMP Manchester, almost four in 10 prisoners have tested positive in mandatory drug tests, and in HMP Long Lartin the figure was nearly three in 10. Those two prisons hold some of the most dangerous men in our country, including murderers and terrorists. If organised crime gangs can deliver phones and drugs to inmates’ cells, they could be delivering serious weapons and explosives as well.
The chief inspector said that the potential for escapes or hostage taking is of enormous concern. This could not be more serious. The situation has become, in his words,
“a threat to national security.”
I do not pretend that these problems are entirely new, but they have deteriorated and they need urgent action. Will the Minister provide the timeframes for fixing the most basic security measures? What visits has the Lord Chancellor made to HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin? If she has not visited, when does she intend to go? Little else could be more pressing. What discussions has she held with the prison governors? Will the Minister assure the House that the Government have confidence in the senior management to restore order? Does he agree with the chief inspector that the failure to grip the situation is a serious indictment of the Department?
Sir Nicholas Dakin
Who had 14 years to grip this situation? At least this Government are taking action—[Interruption.]
Oral Answers to Questions
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
The Lady Chief Justice has said that the courts are not operating at full capacity, perpetuating the record numbers in prison on remand, awaiting trial. There could be an extra 6,500 sitting days if the Government allowed them. Cases such as rape and sexual assault are being pushed into 2027. Baroness Carr warned the Justice Secretary that failure to maximise judicial capacity would actually cost the Government more in costly and limited prison places, yet the Justice Secretary failed to agree to her request. Why are the Government letting out criminals rather than hearing more cases?
Shabana Mahmood
I am tempted to remind the shadow Minister about his own Government’s track record. He ought to know that it was my predecessor, his colleague, the former Lord Chancellor who agreed the allocation of sitting days with the Lady Chief Justice and that that concordat agreement was concluded during the election period when the Tories were still conducting business. When the right hon. Gentleman responds, perhaps he would like to explain why the allocation was made for only 106,000 sitting days. What I have done is increase sitting days by a further 500 and increase magistrate courts’ sentencing powers, which is the equivalent of an additional 2,000 Crown court sitting days, in order to start cracking down on that backlog.
Robert Jenrick
Instead of increasing sitting hours, the Justice Secretary’s defining intervention in her five months in office has been to accidentally let out dangerous criminals from our prisons. Just last week, she rushed to Parliament to close loopholes that she created for stalking, for disclosing private sexual images and for murder. She could be signing deals with other countries to get new prisoner transport agreements. She could be using visa sanctions with foreign countries to force them to take back the 10,000 foreign criminals in our prisons. She is not doing so. Meanwhile, criminals are being released and are reoffending already. Will the Justice Secretary commit now to ending her dangerous and unnecessary early release scheme?
Shabana Mahmood
The shadow Minister could at least have apologised to the country for being part of a Government and a party that ran out of prison places. It was the Tory party that ran the system at boiling hot—at over 99% capacity. I hate to remind him, but for months before the previous election, the Tory party operated its own emergency release scheme, which did not have any exclusions for offences connected to domestic abuse. I will take no lessons from him, as it is this Government who are cleaning up the mess that his party left behind.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
In London, there is a phone theft epidemic, and this time it is not the former Transport Secretary on the loose. Last year, more than 64,000 mobile phones were reported to the police as stolen in the capital alone. The small number of individuals responsible should be locked up for a long time, yet last month, a criminal who used a motorbike to steal 24 phones an hour was jailed for just two years. Enough is enough, so will the Justice Secretary commit to dramatically increasing sentences for career criminals, get them off our streets and slash crime?
Shabana Mahmood
Where was the shadow Secretary of State over the past 14 years when the theft epidemic began? Again, given the scale of his party’s general election defeat, some humility is usually required—perhaps even an apology to the British public—before he and others can earn the right to be heard again. He is right about the issues with mobile phone theft, and the Home Office and the Home Secretary in particular are meeting with tech companies to talk about how we can break the business model of those criminals.
Robert Jenrick
Cousin marriage has absolutely no place in Britain. The medical evidence is overwhelming that it significantly increases the risk of birth defects, and the moral case is clear in that we see hundreds of exploitative marriages that ruin lives. Frankly, it should have been stamped out a long time ago. Will the Justice Secretary commit to ending this medieval practice, which is rearing its head once again in modern Britain?
Shabana Mahmood
The right hon. Member will know that there has been a recent Law Commission report on marriage law more generally. The Government are going to consult on broader reform of marriage law, and we will certainly consider the issues that he has raised before setting out a public position.
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Robert Jenrick ExcerptsFriday 29th November 2024
(4 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
I want to talk about two aspects of the Bill: what it could have done in terms of safeguards but does not; and what it does not do but could never resolve. On the first point, the safeguards—in particular the legal and judicial ones—are grossly inadequate. Bad law on trivial things is bad enough—I have seen a lot of that in my time in the House—but bad law on matters of life and death is unforgivable.
We have spoken about the role of doctors; let us think about the role of judges. The test to be applied is a low one: the civil law threshold, which is a balance of probabilities. This means that a judge could see real risk of coercion and still sign off an individual for assisted death. If the threshold of 50% or more was not reached, the judge would sign off the individual. The next of kin is not informed. There is no right of appeal, which is extremely unusual in English law, and the process is conducted in secrecy. It could be done on papers alone. Transparency is critical to the law. It is one of the oldest principles in our English legal system. As Jeremy Bentham said more than a hundred years ago, evil can arise in secrecy, and publicity is at the heart of justice. This is not a transparent process and that leaves it woefully open to abuse.
Secondly, all of us in this House want to believe that the laws that we pass are final, full stop, the end. That is not the case. I worry—in fact, I am certain—that as night follows day this law, if passed, will change; not as a result of the individuals in this Chamber or the other place, but as a result of judges in other places. We have seen that time and again. It may be on either side of the debate, but it will happen. If passed, the Act will be subject to activist judges in Strasbourg. They will change it fundamentally and we have to be prepared for that. I do not want to see that happen.
My last point is not about how we can improve the Bill; it is about something that we can never resolve as a House. The Bill is not so much a slippery slope as a cliff edge. When we walk out of this Chamber, or out of the gates of this building tonight, we will, in a way, walk into a different country if the Bill passes. There will be different conversations around kitchen tables. There will be different conversations had by couples lying in bed at night, or on quiet country walks where people talk about difficult things. They will not be conversations that make our country a better place.
More important, there will be people who do not speak about these things at all. There will be imperceptible changes in behaviours. There will be the grandmother who worries about her grandchildren’s inheritance if she does not end her life. There will be the widow who relies on the kindness of strangers who worries—it preys on her conscience. There will be people—we all know them in our lives—who are shy, who have low self-esteem, who have demons within them. I know those people. I can see them in my mind’s eye. They are often poor. They are vulnerable. They are the weakest in our society. And they look to us, to Parliament, to represent them, to support them, to protect them. In their interests, I am going to vote against the Bill today. Sometimes we must fetter our freedoms. We the competent, the capable, the informed sometimes must put the most vulnerable in society first.
Oral Answers to Questions
Robert Jenrick Excerpts(4 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I belatedly congratulate the Government Front-Bench team on their appointments—I have been a little busy over the summer. The only group the Labour Government’s popularity has increased during that time with is criminals. How many domestic abusers and sex offenders released under their early release scheme have gone on to reoffend? Would the Minister like to apologise to the victims?
Alex Davies-Jones
Well, I was going to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his new role, but he seems to have a very short memory. It is he who should be apologising to the country as a whole on behalf of his Government for their woeful abuse of our justice system and our prisons. Under the previous Government’s ECSL scheme, there were zero exemptions to protect the public. This Government put in serious exemptions to prevent sex offenders and serious violent criminals from being released on to our streets. Maybe he should have a bit of humility.
Robert Jenrick
There were exemptions in the previous Government’s scheme, but the key thing is that we need to get on and build more prisons. Prison works, and we need to see more prisons being built. The last Conservative Government built more prison places than any prior Labour Government in living memory, but we clearly need to go further. What funding has the Lord Chancellor secured to build prisons over and above those secured by the previous Government? Does the Minister agree with the other junior Minister that fewer people should be sent to prison?
Alex Davies-Jones
Again, the right hon. Gentleman forgets who was in power for the last 14 years and who failed to build any prison places. Just 500 extra prison places were built under his Government’s watch. The Government have allocated a record £1.2 billion for prison building in the Budget, and we will be going further. We are the party of law and order. He needs to look at his record.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
Police firearms officer Sergeant Blake was a hero and we all want to see individuals like him, who put themselves in the line of fire, respected. What work is the Lord Chancellor doing, alongside the Home Secretary, to review the threshold for prosecution for individuals such as Sergeant Blake, so that they never find themselves in the invidious position that he did?
Shabana Mahmood
I thank the shadow Secretary of State for his question. He will be aware that charging decisions are a matter for the independent Crown Prosecution Service. What the Home Secretary has announced, and what I have been working with her on, is the introduction of a presumption of anonymity for all firearms officers if they find themselves being charged by the CPS. We believe that such a measure could have made a difference in this case. The Home Secretary has also announced measures that resulted from the police accountability review work undertaken by the previous Government, and we are taking those forward.
Robert Jenrick
I thank the Lord Chancellor for her answer. Jonathan Hall KC, the reviewer of terrorist laws, has said that the authorities should put as much information as they can in the public domain to maintain public trust in terrorist cases, which have the highest public interest. In the void, misinformation takes hold and that diminishes public trust. While of course respecting the judicial process and not commenting on the individual facts of the case, can the Secretary of State explain the reported two-week delay between the CPS making a charging decision with respect to the alleged Southport attacker and it being announced to the general public?
Shabana Mahmood
As the right hon. Member is now the shadow Lord Chancellor, may I remind him that we do not comment on cases that are sub judice? That includes commentary that everyone is aware relates to cases currently going through our legal processes. What I will say is that those are independent decisions for the Crown Prosecution Service, which ultimately decides what charges to bring. In live police investigations into complex cases, it is appropriate that those investigations, the charging decisions and, ultimately, the cases are done by the independent parts of the process and that there is no interference from Government.