Community and Suspended Sentences (Notification of Details) Bill

Ruth Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider clause 2 stand part.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to move my very first private Member’s Bill through the House—although it may well be my last! It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, as we debate this important Bill. It is good to see the Minister in his place—and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green. I thank the Minister for the proactive approach that he took to ensure that we could be here today.

I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Hornsey and Wood Green, for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins), for Neath (Christina Rees), for Rotherham, for Gower, and for Cynon Valley for their support. I also acknowledge the hon. Members for Westmorland and Lonsdale and for Ceredigion for their support. I thank my colleagues on the Government Benches, too: the hon. Members for Eastbourne, for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith), for Dudley North, for Congleton, for South Derbyshire—who I am delighted to see in her place—as well as my very good friend the hon. Member for South West Devon, and other fellow Welsh Members, the hon. Members for Aberconwy and the right hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan.

This is an important Bill with cross-party support, and I am very pleased to be able to bring it back to the House today. Indeed, there is no greater responsibility on us, as Members of Parliament, than to keep our people and communities safe. That goes for Newport West and for our colleagues right across the country. This Bill will do a great deal to make that objective of keeping our people safe more likely and more durable.

The Bill will amend the Sentencing Act 2020 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, suspended sentence order, youth rehabilitation order or referral order. It will place a new duty on offenders serving a sentence in the community who are being supervised by probation or a youth offending team. The change of name or contact details could be for any reason, and the Bill captures not just formal legal changes of name, but, for example, the use of an online alias. Offenders will need to notify their responsible officer of any change as soon as practicable.

With that in mind, I now turn to the clauses themselves. Clause 1 sets out that the Sentencing Act 2020 sentencing code will be amended to create a new duty on offenders serving a sentence in the community and who are supervised by probation or a youth offending team, requiring them to inform the responsible officer if they change their name, use a different name—for example, an alias—or change their contact information. That will improve the ability of probation and youth offending teams to monitor offenders in the community.

At the end of December 2023, there were 64,800 offenders under probation supervision on a community order and 44,300 on a suspended sentence order. In the year to June 2023, 2,100 children were sentenced to youth rehabilitation orders and 6,200 were sentenced to referral orders. The Bill will ensure that the public are protected so that, while this significant number of offenders are serving sentences in the community, the responsible officers have the information they need to keep tabs on those individuals, including if they change their name or contact information.

The provisions in the Bill are robust. While the name or contact details change could be for any reason, any difference from what is kept on file must be reported by the offender. It captures not just formal legal changes of name by deed poll but also, for instance, the use of an online alias. Although we have a separate youth justice system, it is of equal importance that services can keep tabs on children and have the right information about them in order to do their job. This policy therefore applies equally to offenders of all ages and will create consistency across offenders on licence and offenders serving sentences in the community overseen by probation services or youth offending teams.

Clause 1 establishes that the requirement will apply to offenders under the age of 18 where a referral order has been made by inserting proposed new section 97A, which provides that the section applies to offenders who have been sentenced to a referral order and where a youth offender contract has not been revoked or discharged. It establishes the requirement for youth offenders sentenced to a referral order to notify, as soon as is practically possible, the relevant member of the youth offender panel if they begin using a name or contact detail that is not specified in the referral order while the terms of the contract are active. It also establishes that the duty of an offender to notify details is to be treated as a term of the youth offender contract in order to ensure that enforcement of the measure is effective.

Proposed new section 97A also establishes the relevant member of the youth offender panel that the offender should notify of any change of name and contact details, and it states that this should be done in writing. The requirement to notify the responsible officer of any change of name will also apply to offenders under the age of 18 who are sentenced to youth rehabilitation orders. As regards those sentenced to a referral order, clause 1(3) creates the duty for the offender to comply with the duty as soon as reasonably practicable and states that any offender who breaches the obligation will be dealt with by the court, in the same way as someone who breaches a youth rehabilitation order.

The Bill applies to both adult offenders and offenders under the age of 18 equally. Subsections (4) and (5) of clause 1 provide that the duty on adult offenders to notify their responsible officer if they change their name or contact details as soon as practicable applies to those sentenced to suspended sentence orders or community orders. Probation and youth offending teams will have discretion as to whether an offender is returned to court if they fail to comply with the requirements set out in the Bill. It is right that the Bill’s enforcement provisions are robust and reflect the seriousness of non-compliance, and it is right that probation officers and youth offending teams have the same powers to deal with non-compliance with this duty as they do in any other case of non-compliance with a sentence requirement.

Clause 2 addresses the territorial extent of the Bill, commencement and short title. Subsection (1) states that the territorial extent of the Bill is England and Wales only, as colleagues will have read in the explanatory notes. Subsection (2) sets out that the Bill will come into force at the end of the period of two months following Royal Assent. Subsection (3) provides that short title may be the Community and Suspended Sentences (Notification of Details) Act 2024. It is important for all of us, irrespective of party or background, that the Bill comes to fruition. I urge colleagues to give it their full support.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Mr Rosindell. Huge congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West on bringing forward this much-needed piece of legislation. I am not rising to block its passage in any way, but I am hoping to get the Minister and those in the other place to consider some of the flaws of the Bill as it stands.

This Committee, especially the Minister, is aware that I am obsessed—that is the only word I can use—with sex offenders changing their name to avoid detection. The reason I went for sex offenders was because they are a very defined cohort of people that I could prove were using the loophole of changing their names and breaching the conditions of their existing orders to do so. However, the same principle applies to all offenders, so I rather assumed that the same conditions applied to offenders in this category and was quite shocked to realise that they did not.

I am really grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West for trying to close that loophole. The problem is this: at the moment, both this legislation and the current legislation for sex offenders rely on the offender notifying. That is my problem with this Bill as it stands. By their very nature, the people who come under the Bill will be people who have committed violence, fraud, deception, coercive control, cuckooing—all the things that involve someone presenting a false representation to vulnerable people. And presenting themselves with a different name is a very good way to do that, because now most people, when they meet someone new, will go on Google and put the name in, see who it is and make a decision based on that. That is just where we are in the world at the moment; if a different name—one that is clean—comes up, we would not have any worries. We would invite that person into our home. We would go on a date with that person. Therefore I am concerned that, under the Bill, it is still the offender who is required to report a name change. It is still reliant on an offender doing the right thing when it would actually benefit them, if they wanted to continue their criminal activity, not to do the right thing.

One of the problems if offenders change their name —other than the ones that I have outlined—is that they can disappear. I discovered that when I spoke to my local police chief about it many years ago, when I first became aware of the problem. He said, “To be quite honest, Sarah, if they change their name, they literally drop off the radar. How am I meant to find someone if I don’t know who they are?” That is my concern with this Bill as well.

The next issue is that the offender has to report to their responsible officer or their youth offending team. That is great, but they are incredibly hard-pressed, and the explanatory notes say that they will be meeting the offender perhaps once a month, so I am very concerned about the other 29-ish days when the offender is not reporting and when that eye is not on them, and about what they are getting up to at that point. I am also concerned about this issue: if they are referring just to the probationary team, who do an incredibly good job but in very stressed circumstances, how does that information get to the police? How does it actually feed into systems? That becomes very important. If there is a breach, how do we enforce against that?

Under this legislation, an offender “could” be taken back to court. When an order is returned to court, the court “could” make a requirement of the order more onerous, impose a fine or even sentence the offender to custody. “Could” is not good enough; it needs to be stronger than that. If an offender is breaching their terms, there needs to be a sanction; otherwise, where is the deterrent? I urge the Minister, during the passage of the Bill—to which I hope he gives safe passage—to look at actually enforcing against that.

Let me give an example, because this isn’t just Sarah being obsessed. Well, it is, but I can actually back it up with data. Between 2015 and 2020—this data is from my written parliamentary questions to the Government —16,000 offenders were charged for failing to tell the authorities details such as a name change and address change. They are only the ones who got caught—the ones we found out about. There were 16,000 in five years. The Safeguarding Alliance, which I am very proud to have worked with for many years, found that more than 11,500 registered sex offenders were then prosecuted for failing to notify changes of information between 2019 and 2022. That is only the registered sex offenders who were found out and then prosecuted, so this is a big problem and something that the Minister needs to take seriously.

Let me end on the example that is Clare’s law. Probably many of us have encouraged our friends to use Clare’s law, whereby someone who has a new partner and wants to check that they do not have a background of domestic violence can call up the police and they will check the name against the register. Of course, if the person has changed their name, it will not show up on that register. It is also required that the police know that they have changed their name, and at the moment, there is no statutory requirement for the responsible officer or the youth offending team to refer that to the police, so there is a big gaping hole within this system.

The Bill is a fantastic first step. It has highlighted to me another area of concern, and I am grateful that the Government are recognising that. But let us get it right, because at the moment it is not right. There will be time to make amendments in the other place, or for the Minister to tighten the Bill up. With those caveats, I will be pleased to give the Bill safe passage, but I do hope that it is worked on as it progresses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Argar]

I think there are two points there. There is an opportunity to work with probation to give clarity, but I would hesitate to stray into the territory of “should” for a sentencer, be that a judge or a magistrate, because ultimately the courts have discretion to apply the most appropriate penalty on the facts before them. There is a slight distinction there.

As announced in the spring Budget, we are also improving our digital capability so that information on individuals’ risks will be better shared across prisons and probation, to inform key decisions and better protect the public. The effectiveness of community sentences relies on probation and youth offending teams having the ability to manage offenders in the community successfully, and that means having the right information about an offender. The Bill will help to ensure that responsible officers are given the necessary tools to keep tabs on offenders in the community so they are better able to manage them effectively.

The Criminal Justice (Sentencing) (Licence Conditions) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2022 requires offenders on licence to inform their responsible officer if they change their name and/or contact details. The Government welcome the Bill, which will build on the 2022 order by ensuring that the same duty applies to offenders serving sentences in the community. The hon. Member for Rotherham will recall that we debated a number of these issues in the Victims and Prisoners Bill Committee, possibly even in this room, recognising the challenges in the nature of individuals who commit various crimes and the question of whether they will be compliant and notify, versus the practical challenges of creating another mechanism by which they could be monitored. I am very conscious of the points that she made then—she made them forcefully and eloquently, and I suspect she will return to the issue until it is resolved to her satisfaction. I reassure her that I am conscious of those discussions and I will continue to look at that.

It is also right that swift and clear action can be taken when an offender does not comply. The enforcement provisions for the Bill are tough and reflect the seriousness of non-compliance by giving responsible officers the same powers they have in respect of any failure to comply with the requirement of a court order. If an offender fails to comply with the duty, that will constitute a breach of the order and, as we have discussed, this could result in the order being returned to court. The court could impose additional penalties, but, as I have set out, a degree of discretion is needed.

It is likely that probation would be notified about non-compliance by an external agency, such as the police, in the event the offender was arrested again. To answer the point made by the hon. Member for Rotherham, if that were the case, the default approach would be to treat the failure to notify as a breach. Practitioners will then use their professional judgment and the Probation Service enforcement policy framework to decide how best to approach that, including whether they are going to hand it to the court. As I have set out, the court would then have discretion over what penalty to impose for the breach.

In closing, I thank the hon. Member for Newport West for introducing this important Bill and I confirm the Government’s full and continuing support for it.

[Ruth Jones]

I am grateful to my colleagues across the House who have supported the Bill and joined us for this important stage of its journey. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham, who has been a doughty and tenacious campaigner on behalf of victims and survivors. Her wisdom and experience is very much appreciated, and she has raised some important practical points that I am sure we will seek to take forward as the Bill moves to the other place. I will seek to speak to her and others who want to make the Bill as robust as possible, because at the end of the day we do not want loopholes in legislation.

I am grateful to the Government for their support and would like to pay tribute to the Minister for putting his money where his mouth is. He helped to secure support for the Bill from some of his Back-Bench colleagues. To share what that support looked like, I will tell the Committee that the Minister spent some time walking around Portcullis House with Adam Jogee from my team, seeking gently to persuade people. The fearsome twosome made for a few raised eyebrows from people from all parties, considering that Adam Jogee is the Labour candidate in Newcastle-under-Lyme at the next general election. Luckily, there was no talk of defection either way, so that is good.

[Mrs Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

Coming or going?

[Ruth Jones]

I am saying nothing.

To be serious for a moment, I am grateful to the officials in the Ministry of Justice for their work in supporting us to this stage. They were enormously helpful to me and my team. I know that they will be watching proceedings this morning and I want them all to know that I am very grateful indeed.

Thanks go to my team, too. This is my first private Member’s Bill, as I have already said. Taking it through the House since my election has been a brilliant learning experience, although I am not sure that I would want to repeat it. By supporting the Bill today, the Committee has an opportunity to improve the ability of probation and youth offending teams to monitor offenders in the community effectively and to better protect the public. This is a good policy. It should have been done long ago and I urge colleagues to give the Bill their full support today.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill to the House.

[Edward Argar]

I thank the hon. Member for Newport West and hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. I thank you, Mr Rosindell, for chairing proceedings today, the officials in my Department who have worked on the Bill, Adam from the hon. Lady’s office, and the Clerks and other officials of the House who have assisted in the passage of the Bill to this point.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly to be reported, without amendment.

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.