Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I was asked about my priorities when I was appointed to this role, and I said that the guilty should be convicted, that the innocent should walk free and that the public should be protected. It is very important that people who are accused of an offence have confidence that the process will be prompt and humane. Ultimately, the British people are fair minded. They want people to be rightfully convicted, but they also want the innocent to walk free.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

T6. Since 27 February, there have been six sudden deaths at HMP Parc in Bridgend, and it appears that at least four of those tragic deaths were drug-related. What are the Government doing to ensure that inmates at Parc are kept safe and walk out of prison safe and well at the end of their sentence?

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for highlighting a serious and important issue. I am happy to meet her to discuss it further, if she wishes.

In line with established protocols for deaths in custody, we are not able to comment on individual cases until the relevant investigation by the prisons and probation ombudsman has concluded, but HMP and YOI Parc has mobilised a range of actions to gather intelligence on drug entry points and on what has happened. I am happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss this matter privately.

Community and Suspended Sentences (Notification of Details) Bill

Ruth Jones Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 23rd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I am delighted to rise to bring this Bill to the House today. It is an important but focused Bill that will amend the 2020 sentencing code to create a duty on offenders to notify the responsible officer of any change of name or contact details if they are sentenced to a community order, a suspended sentence order, a youth rehabilitation order or a referral order.

The Bill will place a new duty on offenders who are serving a sentence in the community and who are being supervised by the probation service or a youth offending team to ensure that any change of name or contact details is notified to the relevant responsible officer. That captures not just any formal legal changes of a name, but the use of an online alias. Offenders will need to notify their responsible officer of any change as soon as is practicable. My Bill will apply to adults and child offenders alike, so that we can create some form of consistency across all offenders who are on licence. Importantly, it will extend to offenders serving community sentences.

In 2022, secondary legislation was passed requiring offenders on licence to inform their probation officer if they changed their name or contact details. The Bill will help to ensure consistency across the sentencing framework and that offenders serving community sentences have their risks managed effectively. For those offenders who are serving community orders, youth rehabilitation orders and referral orders, the requirements contained in the Bill will last for the whole duration of the order while the offender remains supervised by probation or their youth offending team, until it reaches the end date set by the court, or is otherwise terminated. For suspended sentence orders, this requirement will last for the period when the offender must keep in touch with probation. Once the offender is no longer required to keep in touch with probation or the youth offending team, this requirement will also end.

Failure to comply with the duty will be treated the same as failure to comply with the requirement of the order. An offender could be taken back to court. When an order is returned to court, the court can make the requirements of the order more onerous, impose a fine or even sentence the individual to custody. The management of offenders in the community is of the utmost importance to protect people in Newport West and across the United Kingdom and to reduce reoffending.

It is vital that probation and youth offending teams have the information required to be able to effectively manage offenders in the community, and the ability to take swift enforcement action where needed. The Bill will improve the ability of probation and youth offending teams to monitor offenders. It will help to protect the public by ensuring that while an offender is serving a sentence in the community, the responsible officer has the information they need to keep an eye on that individual. As I have noted, that requirement already applies to offenders released from custody, so I believe it is important to ensure that the same requirement applies to offenders serving sentences in our community.

As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on safeguarding in faith communities, I have heard harrowing accounts of offenders who have changed their name—legitimately, at present—by deed poll and then gone on to commit harrowing offences again and again. That is not acceptable.

The people of Newport West elected me to this place in April 2019, and since then, I have sat through many a Friday sitting, listening to detailed and, on occasion, lengthy opening remarks on Second Reading. In the hope of getting this Bill speedily through to the next stage of its journey in this House with support from colleagues on all sides, I will bring my remarks to a close shortly.

In supporting the Bill, this House has an opportunity to improve the ability of probation and youth offending teams to monitor and support offenders in the community as effectively as possible. Most importantly for me, it allows us all to better protect the people who sent us here—the British people. Keeping our people safe, from Newport West to North Down and from Newcastle upon Tyne Central to North Devon, is our most important responsibility as Members of Parliament. With that in mind, I urge colleagues from all parts of the House to give the Bill their full support today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Jones]

With the leave of the House, I rise to close the debate. I thank everybody who has taken part today for the atmosphere of co-operation and consensual politics—it is very different from what happened earlier this week. I start by thanking the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson); I agree with him that the “lock them up” philosophy is not always the way forward, and community sentences are a vital part of our punishment options. I was recently fortunate enough to go to Cardiff Prison with the Welsh Affairs Committee, where we saw for ourselves prisoners who might be in for just seven days. Seven days is not long enough to do anything useful in terms of rehab or breaking the cycle of offending, so the points that the hon. Member made were very important.

I thank the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) for her very important points about female offenders and the distances involved. We do not have a single prison for women in Wales—I am not saying that we should have one but, like her constituents, those women in Wales have a long way to travel. That means women being apart from their families. That is disruptive, and it is very costly to visit. If anyone is in any doubt about female prisoners, they should watch “Time” with Jodie Whittaker; it is a very powerful series.

The hon. Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) made an important point about aliases and social media. I am sure we have all had issues with people who have had different names on emails; it is a concern that I share. He also highlighted the importance of staff working in the criminal justice system. I, too, pay tribute to those staff and thank them for all their efforts.

I thank the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan)—I hope he can put his feet up on the plane to Dublin after this, because he has been very busy today. I also thank the Minister and the team in the Department. The Minister rightly highlighted that the responsibility for reporting a change of details is on the offender; it is very important that we know that. Finally, I thank the Whips, the Public Bill Office and Adam Jogee in my office. This week has seen our Parliament—the mother of Parliaments—at a low point, but I wish the media could be here to see and feel the atmosphere today. I am not a fan of adversarial politics; I believe consensual politics is the way forward. That has been the case today, and I thank the House for it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her remarks.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

18. What steps his Department is taking to protect the privacy rights of rape victims in criminal justice processes.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

19. What steps his Department is taking to protect the privacy rights of rape victims in criminal justice processes.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Laura Farris)]

It is paramount that victims come forward without fear that their privacy will be violated. That is why we are taking steps, through the Victims and Prisoners Bill, to create a statutory restriction that limits police requests to third-party material that is necessary and proportionate, and to inform victims of why such material is being requested. The Government have also asked the Law Commission to undertake a review on the use of evidence in sexual offence prosecutions, and it is due to report later this year.

[Laura Farris]

I am truly sorry to hear of what happened to the hon. Lady’s constituent. I hope that I can reassure her by saying that new regulations will be published under the Victims and Prisoners Bill to create a code of practice setting out the principles that the police should apply to all third-party requests, including for counselling, therapy and medical notes. The police will be required to complete a new request form that sets out the purpose and impact of their request. The Crown Prosecution Service also has a robust case file review process to ensure that guidance on necessary and proportionate requests is complied with. The CPS pre-trial therapy guidelines make it crystal clear that victims must not delay therapy for criminal investigation and prosecution.

[Ruth Jones]

Recently, I was able to visit the Gwent rape investigation unit and see what an excellent job the police officers there are doing. However, can the Minister explain why the Government thought it was appropriate to boast about the so-called progress on the rape review when the proportion of cases being charged has halved since 2016, and the key adviser quit because of the lack of drive to improve outcomes for victims?

[Laura Farris]

I have also heard very good reports of the work that Gwent police are doing, so I am glad to hear what the hon. Lady says. I must push back very slightly on what has happened since we launched the end-to-end rape review. We are prosecuting more rape cases than we were in 2010. Conviction rates are higher, and perpetrators are going to prison for almost 50% longer than they were in 2010; the average sentence increased from six and a half years to nine and a half years. I accept that the last independent adviser to the rape review went, but last week we announced the appointment of Professor Katrin Hohl, a legal academic who pioneered Operation Soteria, which I think every Member of this House agrees has transformed the way in which police investigate and prosecute rape, and is leading to better criminal justice outcomes for victims.

Prisons in Wales

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I take the opportunity to welcome the Minister to his place. This may well be his first debate, but I imagine we will be debating issues relating to prisons and to Wales, of course, in the future.

I mentioned the in-country rate, because we know that many prisoners from England are present in Wales. I will come back to that. It is also interesting that per 100,000 of the population, there are 151 people with addresses in Wales in prison, whether in Wales or England, compared with 134 in England. That matters. Something is going on in Wales, and the England and Wales way of approaching justice does not reveal it or seem to be solving it.

The average number of people held in the Welsh prison estate—that is, the five prisons of Berwyn, Cardiff, Parc, Swansea and, considered together, Usk and Prescoed—surpassed 5,000 for the first time in 2022. Berwyn almost surpassed 2,000 for the first time, and answers to my written parliamentary questions show that 2,000 is Berwyn’s operational capacity. I know from contacts there that it is not full; it would be, but there are cells that have been trashed and have not been fixed. Those are the sorts of numbers we are talking about.

Such overcrowding brings problems. There are legitimate safety concerns, including problems relating to prescription and illicit drugs, and failures to provide basic medical care. The number of assaults in the first six months of 2023 were higher year on year—

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for securing such an important debate, which concerns an issue that I have spent a lot of time looking at since my election. I have especially looked at the physical and mental health and wellbeing of prisoners. Does she agree that the provision of healthcare to prisoners in Welsh prisons is inadequate, and that that has resulted in a number of avoidable fatalities? I call on the Minister to deal with that; it is a UK issue that affects Welsh prisoners.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

That is exactly why it is important that we have the data that allows us to scrutinise what is happening in Wales, which appears to be different from what is happening in England. We have higher numbers of prisoners and, as I will return to, not surprisingly, Wales operates in a social policy context that is different from that anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Health, housing and much of the social policy framework have been devolved since 1999. This is not just a constitutional anomaly; it is affecting outcomes for offenders in prisons. I emphasise that that then affects our communities: people return from prison to communities in Wales, and if they return less healthy, less able to work and without a roof over their heads, the likelihood of reoffending appears to be higher, as we see from some of the crime figures.

Staff retention is a significant problem in Berwyn. Staff from other prisons as far afield as Swansea and Hull are sent there to make up for recruitment short- falls. Detached duty, as that is known, is expensive and is not a long-term answer. The officers do not know the prisoners they are working with; it is just a matter of people making up the numbers. That is not a sustainable solution, and unless we draw attention to it we will not find a solution.

Staff also complain of an experience gap, because more experienced staff are exhausted and burnt out. Let us recall that the Professional Trades Union for Prison, Correctional and Secure Psychiatric Workers has long said that 68 is too late for officers to retire. We lose people because they cannot take it any more.

Just as Berwyn staff are brought in from everywhere else, so too are the prisoners. Berwyn was meant to serve local populations, including, fairly enough, the north-west of England. We were told that was the intention at the time. However, Berwyn has housed prisoners from 75 English local authorities since it opened in 2017, and 62% of the population came from outside of Wales in 2022. For women, the opposite is true: in December 2022, Welsh women were held in 11 of the 12 women’s prisons in England, and were on average—it would be far further from my constituency—101 miles away from home.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Yes, indeed. Of course, the residential women’s centre in Swansea was first mooted in 2018, but it has yet to arrive. We have concerns about the exact nature of the services: will it effectively be just another prison, or will it be equipped to make a real difference to the lives of women?

Welsh women prisoners are on average 101 miles from home, which makes it difficult for them to maintain contact with families, children and support networks, as well as creating issues related to housing and work upon release. Welsh men struggle with issues including identity, discrimination and access to the Welsh language in jails, and Welsh women have their own distinct set of issues.

As 74% of all women sentenced to immediate custody were given sentences of 12 months or less, and one in five given one month or less, there is a real need to consider these issues and opt for alternatives to custody for low-level, non-violent crimes. When I was in Styal in May, I saw in reception that a woman had been admitted to the prison from Wales on the Friday before a May bank holiday, and was due to be released on the Tuesday. What good was that going to do her, except disrupt her life?

The Welsh Government’s women’s justice blueprint is an attempt to do that but, without the political will of the UK Government, such attempts are doomed to fail. Although the Swansea residential centre is a sweetener from Westminster, there are real concerns that it will become a pathway to conventional custody. Swansea remains, but is far away from home for those in northern areas of Wales, who will still be sent, of course, to Styal near Manchester.

The over-representation of certain groups also underlines the need for alternatives. In Wales, black people represented 3.1% of the prison population in 2022, despite comprising only 0.9% of the general population. Those from a mixed or Asian ethnicity background were also over-represented. The average custodial sentence length, between 2010 and 2022, was 8.5 months longer for black defendants than for those from a white ethnic group.

The link between incarceration and homelessness is difficult to justify, as the BBC alluded to in its recent drama “Time”. Like Orla, the character played by Jodie Whittaker, 423 people were released from Welsh prisons without a fixed address in 2022-23. That is the equivalent—this is striking—of eight people a week. The number of those rough sleeping after release into Welsh probation services more than trebled in a year.

[Ruth Jones]

The right hon. Lady is being generous in giving way. Regarding the release of people from prison, the prison date is well known. It is known when the prisoner goes in. To have the prison date but not have a proper plan for that person once they are out of prison seems nothing short of criminal itself. Does she agree?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

That is exactly the point. We hear of people being released on Fridays; it is almost a cliché. We must ask why, if we have so many prisoners from 75 English local authorities, what is the connection between their release from a Welsh prison and the question of homelessness, let alone the homelessness of people with Welsh addresses?

A number of those who had recently begun rough sleeping were still rough sleeping three months after release. Many of those—almost one in five—arriving at our prisons are already homeless. There is an obvious connection with reoffending, or that tragic situation when magistrates talk of putting people back in prison because that is the safest place for them to be. That is a grim indictment of the criminal justice system. Almost a third of prisoners arriving in HMP Swansea in 2022 were homeless. Given that homeless ex-prisoners are significantly more likely to reoffend than those in housing, that cycle urgently needs to be broken.

There is a glimmer of hope: 53% of those managed by Welsh probation services went into settled accommodation immediately following release last year. That compares with 48% in England. However, that is short-lived. The number of Welsh prisoners recalled to prison has increased by 58% compared with 2017. It is evidently necessary for dangerous or non-compliant offenders to be recalled. However, speaking to members of Napo Cymru, the Welsh probation union, I was interested to learn of their fear that the increasing recall numbers are not just related to public safety, which is right and proper. They are also related to an understaffed, under-resourced and overloaded service that turns to recall as a first resort, when it should surely be better equipped to engage and assist people who are struggling to rehabilitate.

That is only compounded by the backlog of court cases: more than 64,000 in England and Wales in September, clogging up prison places. Those on remand numbered 14% of the Welsh prison population in 2022. Strikingly, the figure was 52% in Cardiff—half of the prisoners there were on remand. There is a question to be asked when comparing England’s rate of improvement in Crown court sentencing after covid with the rate of improvement in Wales. Again, that is why we need the data, so we can compare what is done and have proper scrutiny of, and a proper debate on, the state of criminal justice in Wales.

Some Westminster colleagues continue to believe and argue that the system is working well for Wales, but I would urge them to consider the data provided to them this morning. The Wales Governance Centre suggests that its data is a direct challenge, and I honestly suggest it is grounds for a complete overhaul. Repeating that argument year on year does not change that call, because the evidence demands it.

That is not just coming from someone like me from Plaid Cymru. It is a call echoed by those working within prisons and the probation service in Wales. Napo Cymru is calling for the devolution of probation and youth justice, as did Gordon Brown in the report of the Commission on the UK’s Future. A devolved national probation service would allow us to start addressing structural issues in the probation service in Wales, and to focus on crime prevention in the first place. It would allow us to work with offenders to improve their post-release life chances, and would be integrated with areas that are already devolved such as health, housing and social policy. Such devolved services are already working with prison leavers, and are integrated with a wider justice and policing strategy. With focused recourses, that makes logical sense.

I will go a little bit broader, because the criminal justice system is not only within the control of the Ministry of Justice. Criminal justice also involves the police force—that is the entire arc. I must touch on this, because it is striking that in Wales we are now contributing more than Westminster towards our four Welsh police forces. Police funding, between the precept contribution and the Welsh Government-directed funding, despite changes in Home Office funding for 2023-24, is now over half-way devolved. Wales is paying more for its policing than the Home Office is contributing.

That is critical. Devolution is happening because the Welsh Government and Welsh politicians want to see a different direction of spend. We are already paying for it. Plaid Cymru is calling for the full devolution of justice and policing powers. I note that all four police and crime commissioners in Wales—Labour and Plaid Cymru—are calling for the devolution of policing.

To close, research shows that disaggregated data is key to understanding the specific complexities of the justice system in Wales, and to any related policy and strategy. I was glad to have a meeting with Lord Bellamy in February this year to talk about disaggregated data. None the less, it remains the case that much of that information had to be gathered through freedom of information requests. That is a labour-intensive and difficult way to access the basic information necessary for the creation of robust and effective policy.

This is public money. We as politicians should be able to scrutinise this; the public should be able to scrutinise this. What is happening in Wales is different from what is happening in England; we should be able to find the line between what the spend is, whether the spend per head of population in Wales is equivalent to that in England, and what the different outcomes are. As things stand, without disaggregated data, what is actually happening in Wales is effectively being concealed from us by the Government. With every year, the information gleaned by the University of Cardiff through these freedom of information requests becomes irrefutably stronger.

In all honesty, if we were not holding this debate formally, I do not think any of us looking at the state of play in the rest of the nations of the United Kingdom would say that justice will not be devolved to Wales in future—it will. It is a matter of when, it is a matter of how effectively, it is a matter of how we prepare and it is a matter of how we work out the funds to do that. This is not a political issue. Unless the party in power, whether Conservative or Labour, chooses to allow nostalgia for the 1536 Act of Union to override 21st-century pragmatics.

The England and Wales structure is an anomaly when we compare it with the way in which justice is done, not just in Northern Ireland and Scotland, but in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. For some reason, Wales is seen as unfit to do similar. Criminal justice, like crime, happens within a context. The institutions responsible for criminal justice cannot and do not operate in isolation from broader frameworks and institutions of social policy. To state the obvious, these are now almost all devolved in Wales. I await the Minister’s response.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

10. What steps his Department is taking to reform the criminal justice system to help tackle violence against women and girls.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

12. What steps his Department is taking to reform the criminal justice system to help tackle violence against women and girls.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

The crimes associated with VAWG are abhorrent, which is why we have already taken significant action to strengthen the criminal justice system’s response to it, including for example through our end-to-end rape review, driving up prosecutions, and the introduction of new protections for victims through the landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021. Much has been done, but we are ambitious in wanting to go further.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

It is nice to see the hon. Lady in her place and it is always a pleasure to answer questions from her. She highlights an important issue raised by IICSA and historic and current child sexual abuse. It is worth remembering that the investigation of such crimes can be lengthy because of the complexities of the crimes and of obtaining evidence. While training for the judiciary and courts is a matter for the judiciary and the Judicial College rather than for the Government, we have been investing in training, as have police forces, across a range of specialisms, including handling child sexual abuse cases. It is important that they are handled with sensitivity and with an understanding of the impact that the trauma has had on those who are victims, and indeed also those who are witnesses. She touched on a specific case and I am happy to engage with her outwith the Chamber if that would be helpful.

[Ruth Jones]

According to the latest research, rape charges are taking longer to be brought forward; the average time a victim has to wait for their attacker to be charged—just charged—is now 400 days, over a year. That is disgraceful, and the situation is getting worse. When will Ministers speed up the process and give women, girls and all victims of rape across England and Wales the justice they deserve?

[Edward Argar]

The hon. Lady is right to highlight the importance of timeliness. One of the key aims of Operation Soteria—the new model for investigating rape and serious sexual offences that is being rolled out to all police forces in the coming months—is to improve timeliness. Investigations in this space are, of necessity, often complex and can take a long time. The number of rape convictions is at or around the level it was in 2010. Now, the number of cases passed by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service for charge is up 130%. The number of cases charged is up more than 90%, and the number of cases received in the Crown court is up by more than 120%. Much has been achieved, but she is right to highlight that there is always more that we can and should do in this important space.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

13. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the level of rape charge rates.

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

Through the rape review, we are making strong progress in our ambitions to increase the number of referrals to the Crown Prosecution Service, CPS charges and Crown court receipts for adult rape cases back to 2016 levels. Incidentally, 2016 levels are ambitious, given convictions in that year were 30% higher than in 2010. According to the latest quarter of data, we are on track not just to meet but to beat each ambition. Adult rape prosecutions continue to rise, up 44% in the last year, meaning that more people are being put on trial for this devastating crime than in 2010. There is further to go, but it is important and welcome progress.

[Alex Chalk]

I regret that language. As a matter of fact, convictions are at or around the 2010 level. If the hon. Gentleman wants to suggest that rape was decriminalised in 2010, he is welcome to, but it is completely untrue. The number of prosecutions is higher this year than it was in 2010. Of course we must continue to invest in supporting victims—that is why we have 800 independent sexual violence advisers to accompany those victims on what can be a difficult and traumatic journey. How many were there in 2010? There were a handful.

[Ruth Jones]

There were 580 rapes recorded by Gwent police for the year ending March 2022. Given that, as we have heard, across England and Wales only 1.3% of rape cases result in a charge, will the Secretary of State tell me how many Gwent cases resulted in a successful prosecution and what is being done to increase prosecution rates?

[Alex Chalk]

The statistic that the hon. Lady just cited is completely wrong. Let me make a couple of points. The number of rape convictions is at or around the level it was in 2010. The number of cases passed by the police to the CPS for charge is up 130%. The number of cases charged is up more than 90%. The number of cases received in the Crown court is up more than 120%. Of course there is more to do. Of course work needs to take place, but the system is recovering very well. People are getting justice and those rapists are being convicted, punished and disgraced. Finally, the sentences they receive are around a third longer than the sentence they received in 2010. That is just deserts for wicked rapists.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Johnson]

We believe that our proposals to process people in Rwanda are compliant with not only the UN convention on refugees, but the European convention on human rights. We believe that our proposals are within not just international law but national law. There is nothing in those laws that prevent us from carrying out the policy we are proposing.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

T4.   A teenage girl in my constituency was sexually assaulted by two boys from her school. The police took a long time to investigate, but eventually the file was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service. The CPS has stated that there was sufficient evidence to show that the young woman was physically and sexually assaulted by the two youths; however, it went on to state that despite this evidence it would be dropping the case because it would prejudice further the two youths in future. Is this justice? What message does it send to women and girls across England and Wales?

Rape and Sexual Violence

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

I am glad to be able to speak about this Labour motion in support of victims of rape and sexual violence on International Women’s Day, although it is ironic that on a day when we celebrate the role and importance of women in society, we also hear that women and girls continue to suffer rape and sexual violence.

This Government are not doing enough to tackle this issue. The response to a freedom of information request submitted by the South Wales Argus, my local newspaper, to Gwent police revealed that in 2021, 587 incidents of rape were reported, only five of which resulted in charges, and 436 are still under investigation. That is completely unacceptable. If the crime were murder, there would be a public outcry at those appalling figures, but crimes of rape and sexual violence can be as devastating as murder for the victims and their families, and can leave mental and physical scars that will take years to heal, if they ever do.

However, those figures represent only a small fraction of the real problem. Rape Crisis, an umbrella charity for rape crisis centres across England and Wales, has stated:

“More than 1 in 5 women and 1 in 20 men have experienced rape or sexual assault as adults.”

This is an epidemic, in which not enough is being done. It needs to be treated seriously, and Labour in power will do that. Meanwhile, the Conservatives’ record speaks, loudly, for itself. Rape prosecutions and convictions have reached historic lows, and the typical delay between an offence of rape and the completion of the resulting criminal case exceeded 1,000 days for the first time in 2021, under this Tory Government. Make no mistake, Madam Deputy Speaker: the Government's actions so far, and their continuing inaction, speak more clearly and loudly than any words spoken from the Conservative Benches today. Labour will guarantee 33,000 extra sitting days to get case loads down, and the creation of a Minister for rape and sexual violence survivors. We will also remove the legal barriers that prevent victims of domestic abuse from receiving the help that they need through legal aid. Labour will fast-track rape cases to ensure that people are not waiting years for their day in court, because justice delayed is justice denied. We cannot allow on any level a culture of obstruction and delay to prevent that justice from being delivered.

At the moment, rapists and perpetrators of sexual violence are walking free as victims are dropping court cases because of delays, a lack of confidence in the system and the threat of being confronted in their local area by their attacker. Victims of rape face having their phones taken from them by the police and not returned for many months. This leads to further anxiety and to another avenue of communication and comfort being closed off to the victim. Again, this is simply unacceptable, as the victim is made to feel vulnerable and alone at a time when they should be supported and reassured to know that their attacker is being brought to justice swiftly and punished accordingly.

My constituents in Newport West want to know that they are safe. They want to know that if something terrible happens to them they will be supported and that they will have justice. Under the current Government, that justice is lacking, and people’s faith in our justice system has been eroded. Max Hill QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, has described how the criminal justice system that deals with rape and sexual assault is creating a “crisis of public trust”. The Conservative Government have hit a historic low and I urge them to raise their game for the sake of all women and girls across the UK. We must protect and support them all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the importance of community provision. Indeed, among those sectors that were helped by the £5.4 million funding during covid was the Law Centres Network, which plays an invaluable role. He will be glad to know that the Legal Aid Agency has launched a procurement process to identify new providers in the areas of housing and debt, where there is currently little or no provision, to help citizens get that advice. It will shortly announce a positive outcome to that process.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

What recent assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the justice system.

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

At the beginning of the pandemic, we were guided by public health advice, and we took immediate and decisive action across prison, probation, youth justice and courts services, to implement a range of measures to respond. Our protection of those in prisons, through compartmentalisation, testing, the use of exceptional delivery models and probation services and the creation of Nightingale courts, alongside physical changes to courtrooms and increased video technology, helped to mitigate the severe impact of the pandemic.

[Ruth Jones [V]]

I am grateful for the Lord Chancellor’s response. We all know the impact that the pandemic has had on life in our country, and I have seen for myself its impact on many communities who live, learn and work across Newport West. What discussions has he had with the Welsh Government about ensuring that those who need justice are able to get it in a timely manner?

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Lady will be glad to know that I regularly engage with the Welsh Government, Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, and Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service in Wales to ensure that the prison estate is safe, and the probation service is delivering. We have heard about the sobriety tags that have been piloted in Wales, and our courts are working well. I am glad that in Wales the management of cases has demonstrated that, now that there is no backlog. In particular, Newport Crown court was home to a multi-handed murder trial, which was dealt with successfully in recent weeks. A lot of good work is going on in Wales. Wales is leading the way, and I am proud of that.

Courts and Tribunals: Recovery

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

I can assure the hon. Lady that, as set out in the terms of reference for the independent review of administrative law, the principle of judicial review and its importance in our system is something that we all believe in. The Aarhus convention will continue to apply with regard to environmental cases. The review is, as she would expect, independent. It has embarked on a large call for evidence, which has been completed. I anticipate a report soon. I will then consider the matter carefully and come back with a full response, and I will keep the House updated on progress once I receive the initial report.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab) [V]]

The people of Newport West are concerned that the courts recovery plan comes alongside the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s public sector pay freeze—a freeze that will hit court and tribunal staff very hard in their pockets. Can the Lord Chancellor explain to the people of Newport West why he thinks it is okay for the hidden heroes working in our justice system to do their very best to clear the backlog of cases without being given the fair and decent pay rise that they need and deserve?

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Lady will know that we have had to make some very difficult choices, bearing in mind the unprecedented recourse to public funds placed upon us as a result of the covid emergency. We have worked as hard as we can to ensure that people stay in employment and that our economy is saved as a result of the necessary decisions we have had to make to protect public health. She will be glad to know that the Chancellor is targeting help at people who are on lower pay. There is particular provision for those who are earning under £24,000 a year, which will see an increase in their salary. There are existing increments as well. I am looking carefully at the overall impact on HMCTS staff, and I will do everything I can to ensure that, within the parameters set by the Treasury of necessity, those in most need will receive an increase in pay next year.