Community and Suspended Sentences (Notification of Details) Bill

Debate between Ruth Jones and Heather Wheeler

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[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.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ruth Jones and Heather Wheeler

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

T9.   The news that Ministers who resigned last week will receive nearly £17,000 in severance pay has outraged the people of Newport West. Nowhere in the real world do people get such amounts of money for resigning a job, no matter how sensible the decision might be. I have a long list of things we could do with that money in Newport West, so will the Minister make time to meet me next week to discuss it?

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

I am afraid the hon. Lady should have listened to the answers given at the urgent question the other day—[Interruption.] That is absolutely fine, thank you very much. She can read Hansard; we went into great detail. It is a matter of statute.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ruth Jones and Heather Wheeler

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

My hon. Friend is a champion for everything that has gone on since the Grenfell fire tragedy, and I completely understand and share her concerns about the information that has come to light through the Grenfell public inquiry. Current Government policy is to take into account suppliers’ past performance when awarding contracts. We are currently in the process of transforming the way Government procedures work, which will mean that in future poorly performing suppliers can be more easily excluded from procurements and buyers will have more scope and discretion to do so where suppliers have performed poorly in previous public contracts. Furthermore, the Government’s Building Safety Bill will establish a new regulatory regime for construction products and of course we continue to take action against specific companies where we can.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

T3. The job of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a huge one. The Cabinet Office has responsibility for some very important projects, from the covid-19 inquiry to cyber-security, emergency response and national security. Those all matter to people in Newport West—national security more so than ever today. How will the Minister reassure my constituents that their concerns will be listened to and acted on without dither or delay?