Victims and Prisoners Bill

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes, and the answer to the last line of my right hon. Friend’s intervention is, “What is the difference here?” That is a very pertinent question, which I know the Minister will want to answer when he gets to the Dispatch Box to reply to the debate.

I wish to pay tribute to Sir Brian Langstaff and the inquiry team for their work and their unstinting commitment to deliver justice for those infected. I would be grateful if the Minister could update the House on what work the Government have been doing since the publication of the report. I accept that that is part of the Cabinet Office’s responsibility, but it sits with us this evening and, of course, Governments are supposed to be joined up. I know the House would also be grateful for an update on the expected timing of the publication of Sir Brian’s final report, as this issue affects Members across the House. In that spirit, let us try to rise to the occasion and find a way to work constructively on a cross-party basis, but crucially at speed. To be clear, I urge my hon. Friends to support new clause 27, tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North, should it be pressed to a Division.

New clause 1 was tabled by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), and he is absolutely right that it concerns a very serious matter. Unfortunately, given the impact of the Government’s effective destruction of the criminal justice system, we lack the infrastructure and resources to keep the public safe, should his new clause be implemented immediately. Our priority is, and always must be, the safety of the British public. We are concerned that if new clause 1 were enacted without provisioning for significant improvements in probation and parole, we would potentially significantly increase the risk to the public and to the prisoners themselves. The Government’s movement on this issue is a welcome first step. I look forward to seeing what further progress can be made by our colleagues in the other place.

On parole, I express our disappointment, generally, regarding part 3 of the Bill, the addition of which diverts attention away from the Bill being a victims Bill. However, I recognise the Government’s acceptance of the basis of our argument, which is contained in new clauses 15 and 16. Those new clauses, tabled in my name, would prevent a Justice Secretary from overturning Parole Board decisions and redirect appeals for an independent decision. I emphasise the critical need for the Government to fulfil their duty to protect citizens, rather than pursuing political gains or attempting to exert control over independent quasi-judicial entities.

The Government are right in recognising the gravity of the substantial challenges in parole, many of which, I am afraid, stem from 13 years of their own misrule, marked by systematic underfunding and undermining of our criminal justice system. We are devoted to upholding law and order, pledging to enhance the Parole Board’s effectiveness and to reinvest in our criminal justice system. We extend an invitation to the Government to align with our endeavours and aspire to foster improvements for victims and prisoners alike.

On the Government’s amendments, there are a lot of them. It is not always the case that the Government are willing to table substantive amendments in the House of Commons. I think it is the right thing to do, rather than keeping them until the Bill arrives in another place. Quite a few of the amendments represent the Government’s alignment with our previous amendments, so it would be churlish of me not to welcome them. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit!

[Kevin Brennan]

I know the hon. Gentleman is an expert on that subject.

New clauses 22 and 23 represent movement by the Government towards our long-standing campaign for a Hillsborough law. They introduce a statutory definition of “major incident” and “victims”, and legislate for a permanent advocate on the side of victims to speak to their best interests and the treatment they receive from public bodies. Ministers will be all too familiar with our commitment to bring in a Hillsborough law. We tabled new clause 14 to push the duty of candour, which we have already discussed.

I understand there is a possibility the House might divide on new clause 10, tabled by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron). The Conservatives’ failure to prevent illegal sewage leaks has led to a drastic increase in illegal discharges, trashing nature, damaging tourism and putting people’s health at risk. They promised us the affluent society; they gave us the effluent society. Labour believes that when Ofwat concludes that the water companies are inflicting the damage, the cost must be paid by the offending companies and not the taxpayer. The polluter should pay.

Finally, I want to refer to Jade’s law and the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside. His campaigning, along with Jade Ward’s family and the community, has been incredible; they have fought to ensure that no family endures what that family did ever again. My right hon. Friend stood by his constituents, who fought their campaign in an incredible and exemplary manner. It is welcome news that the Government will protect children where one parent murdered the other. I must state some disappointment that elements of the amendment that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge tabled in Committee were not carried over, too. None the less, it is a celebratory event for Jade Ward’s family and the community, and for my right hon. Friend. We should offer them our thanks and congratulations.

The Government have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make a real change for victims. I urge them not to waste it. I hope they will support our amendments on that basis, and I hope they continue their trend in following in our footsteps.

Ten-Year Drugs Strategy

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I know that my right hon. Friend will need no persuading on this point, but will he set out his view on how the strategy will help those of us who represent rural constituencies and our rural communities? Very often, this is seen as an urban problem. He knows that county lines comes into the small, rural market towns of North Dorset, as it does into other counties, and missing the opportunity to nip that problem in the bud would be a huge omission.

[Kit Malthouse]

As a rural Member, I have seen the impact of county lines in my constituency, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right that the pernicious effect of this method of distribution and marketing is felt in towns and villages across the land. Drug dealers have become very entrepreneurial, very crafty and clever in the way they do business, so we must be as well. I hope that in his county, in mine and in counties across the country, we will see a reduction in drug dealing in towns and villages and, as a result, a reduction in violence and degradation.

Sexual Misconduct in the Police

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. On her substantive point about the inquiry, she will know that a statutory inquiry is a very long-winded affair to set up, and a non-statutory inquiry can be much quicker. She will also be aware that it is contrary to regulations, since a change in the law recently, for a police officer not to co-operate with such an inquiry, whether statutory or otherwise, and they would be subject to disciplinary proceedings if they did not co-operate. Having said that, if the chair of the inquiry feels that he or she is not getting the co-operation or the information they need, we have reserved the right to convert the inquiry into a statutory one.

The hon. Lady is right that the inquiry forms part of a suite of tools that we need to restore and enhance the confidence particularly of women and girls in our police forces. One of those processes is what we are seeing with the uplift programme, which is essentially a greater feminisation of UK policing. We have moved over the past 10 years from 25% of the force being female to just over a third, and we have a number of forces where more than half of new recruits are female. I am hopeful that that progress will mean that women and girls feel that the police force better reflects them and may result in better contemplation of these issues.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I am sure my right hon. Friend would agree that any barrel can have a rotten apple. Most of our police are law-abiding, honest folk going about their job, protecting us properly. I know also that he will agree that this is not just an issue for the Metropolitan police, but is something affecting the whole police family and the nation’s confidence in policing in our country. Can he assure me on two things? First, can he assure me that the widest part of the culture of the police understands that because they are there to enforce the law, that means they are not beyond it? Secondly, can he ensure that when a police officer changes to another force, they are vetted as if from scratch, rather than just for specific serious tasks, usually involving the carrying of a weapon? When people move too quickly between constabularies, as in any other job, it usually should ring alarm bells.

Prisons and Probation

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon]

Women’s centres play a crucial role, and their work needs to be expanded. The female prison estate is a case study in illustrating that short-term custodial sentences do more harm than good to the individual, to wider society and to the public purse. My hon. Friend makes an important and powerful point.

Returning to private prisons, I want to focus on staffing levels, disproportionate violence, overcrowding, the lack of accountability, the extra costs incurred by the taxpayer, and the funds that could go towards public investment that actually go into private profits.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has been making a case predicated on ideology. To be clear, is it his view that there should be no private involvement in the prison estate whatsoever as a matter of principle, or is he arguing for a mixed economy but merely better management and supervision of private providers to ensure equity of service?

[Richard Burgon]

We are looking for an evidence-based approach. Given that privatisation in the justice system has been such a failure, it seems rather strange that the Government’s response seems to be to carry on digging while in a hole. As I will say later, even answers to parliamentary questions on private prisons often do not provide statistics and answers about, for example, the necessary staffing levels to sort out the crisis in our prison system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves). Devotees of Mortimer and the Rumpole series will well remember the Penge bungalow murders, so it is appropriate that she has spoken in this debate.

I stand to speak as neither a lawyer, a member of the Justice Committee nor indeed a former Minister, so I am tempted to say that I start with a distinct advantage. However, I particularly want to note the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis). I thought she spoke with incredible care, attention and knowledge, and we were lucky to hear what she had to say.

May I join many across the House in welcoming my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Robert Buckland)? He is, I am tempted to say, one of my oldest and dearest friends in politics and personally. He is godfather to my youngest daughter and she is thrilled that he is now a Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice. He is a fan and an impersonator of Mr Francis Sinatra. He will do this job his way, and he will do it magnificently.

Let me start by stating what I hope will not be controversial: our prison estate needs more money. Since 2010, I would suggest there has been too great a willingness by Ministers to accept overly zealous reductions in departmental funding in one of the most crucial areas of social and domestic policy. Those reductions have clearly affected the physical fabric of the estate, which means that the environment in which prisoners are held and in which our devoted prison staff work has gone down. It does need new funding, and I know that the ministerial team—coming, as others have referenced, from the centre ground-based, one nation Tory tradition—will make a very strong case for that to the Treasury. In making that case, I hope the Minister will underscore what I think is a feeling, certainly across the Conservative Benches, that new departmental money should not be found by milking the probate cash cow.

The hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) spoke about ideology. I have some sympathy with him, but I was also confused by his argument. There is nothing more arid, given the sensitivity and importance of the subject, than rightly to clobber, as I do, those who say, in some sort of Orwellian way, that only the private sector can do these things and we must chase out the public sector—“private good; public bad”—only then to weaken one’s case by adopting at the Dispatch Box exactly the same position in reverse. He seemed to suggest that there was neither merit nor benefit in involving either the third sector or the private sector. Given the magnitude of the task and the importance of getting it right, I suggest—I say this not as a lawyer—that we should be encouraging an attitude of, “All hands to the pump.” I very much agree that we need to ensure that there is a level playing field—for want of a better phrase—in the assessment and monitoring of private and public provision.

I am lucky to have HMP Guys Marsh in my constituency. James Lucas is its first-class governor, and I have met many of the staff there and know that they are devoted in their duty. However, like many others, the prison is infested with Spice and has problems with the misuse of mobile phones and the drugs culture generally. It appeared in the national newspapers only a few weeks ago, when the entrepreneurial spirit of the criminal classes was found to be in full tilt after prison staff discovered that dead rats stuffed with SIM cards and drugs had been thrown over the fence for prisoners to find. I raised the matter with the previous Prisons Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), and I echo the point to my hon. and learned Friend the current Minister, that, given that one of the prison yards is adjacent to open farmland and a public footpath, a simple security net over the yard would make rat tennis a sport of the past.

We must take our hats off to those who devote their lives to working in our prisons. Many of those who work in our public services face threats of intimidation and violence on a daily basis, but those who work in our prisons do so in a heightened and tense environment. Prison officers face the scourge of “potting”, the uncertainty of what drug-induced state they will find a prisoner in, and worries about the impact on their own health of inhaling drug fumes in the prison environment, as the Prison Officers Association explained to me at our last meeting.

Carillion used to manage HMP Guys Marsh, and it did its best, but what sticks in my mind—this speaks to the point made by the shadow Lord Chancellor—is that a contract involving the private sector is really only as good as those who manage it. Its assessment—I have heard nobody disagree with it—is that the expertise of the National Offender Management Service in managing those contracts was pretty poor. When contract management is poor, it should not be a surprise that the outcomes of the contract are not as good as they should be.

One of the challenges, I suggest to my hon. and learned Friend, is to identify bespoke policies to drive up recruitment in our rural prisons, where property prices are high and housing is often scarce. There are some incentives that could be deployed. Certainly, having talked with the governor at HMP Guys Marsh, I think the problem is not lack of appetite for recruitment, but lack of interest from people in the immediate locality. If we are to attract high-grade prison officers, we need to do something about that.

The third sector is absolutely crucial. I have had the pleasure of meeting Clean Sheet and Astara Training, whose managing director, Victoria Smith, is based in my constituency. I have also seen the excellent work of Eva Hamilton MBE, who runs Key4Life, which has a contract with HMP Guys Marsh. Their work is focused, bespoke and attentive to detail. Those are the sorts of charitable-focused, third-party social enterprises that my hon. and learned Friend and his ministerial team should really be focusing on, to foster their support, engagement and initiative. They work in education, apprenticeships, securing vocational qualifications and drug rehabilitation.

I will close my remarks with this cri de coeur. The aridity of an Orwellian approach of “Two legs good; four legs bad”, whether from the left or the right, will not benefit our country, our society or our communities, and it will certainly not benefit those who work in our prisons or those serving sentences. The state should always have this as a final test: if it is to hold the right to deprive a man or woman of their liberty, it should always consider what impact any decision it makes will have in order to ensure that that man or woman is a one-time visitor to prison. If the state keeps that in mind when making each decision, whether it is the third sector, the private sector or public sector, and with the instincts and experience of the Lord Chancellor and the new Prisons Minister, I have every hope that we can get this right.

Children’s Funeral Fund

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Edward Argar)]

I am pleased to see you in the Chair, Mr Speaker, as it highlights the importance of this debate and—I say this having known you before you were Speaker—your interest in this area.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing this hugely important debate. It gives me the opportunity to update the House and to reaffirm the commitment made by the Prime Minister on something of huge importance not only to this House but across our country.

Before I begin, I want to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the hon. Lady for her tireless campaigning on this important issue, which, as she says, sadly touches the lives of many families. As she has so incredibly movingly reminded us today, she has herself suffered the tragic loss of a child—her son, Martin, who I appreciate will always be her little boy—and I feel deeply for her.

It is to the hon. Lady’s outstanding credit that she has been willing and able to draw on that most painful of experiences to press for so positive and important a measure. Her constituents and this House should be incredibly proud to have someone such as her representing them and as a Member of our legislature. I am very proud to say that, having got to know her since I have been in this House, but particularly since last year when I took up ministerial office, I can begin to call her a friend as well.

I know that many hon. Members across this House have supported the hon. Lady in her endeavour. It is right that I mention my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), who is now also the junior Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions with responsibility for this area—jointly with us in the Ministry of Justice. When it comes to delivering this, I hope she will accept that she would struggle to find two junior Ministers more determined and willing to deliver for her, both because it is the right thing to do for our country and because it is the right thing to do for her and for many other parents across the country. I pay tribute to the work of a number of campaigners and organisations across the country, and to bereaved parents who, like the hon. Lady, have summoned up the courage—however hard that is—to speak up and join this campaign.

The commitment to develop a children’s funeral fund for England was announced by the Prime Minister at Easter last year. As she said in that announcement, no parent should ever have to endure the unbearable loss of a child. Although nothing can ever truly heal the pain of such a loss, as the hon. Lady has shown, we must recognise that, as the Prime Minister said, in the darkest moment of any parent’s life there can still be a little light if there is the support and care that they need. The Government are committed to ensuring that that support exists for those who lose a child. I have known this Prime Minister for a very long time, and while she has many priorities, there are some that are particularly important and personal to her, which run through everything she tries to do, and I think that her personal commitment on this issue is very much there.

The children’s funeral fund is being established in recognition of the fact that it cannot be right for grieving parents to have to worry about meeting the cost of burying or cremating their child. It is in memory of the hon. Lady’s son Martin, and in support and memory of all parents who experience this most painful and tragic of losses, that the Prime Minister made the commitment to establish this scheme. Under the scheme, parents will no longer have to meet the costs of burial or cremation. These will instead be met by Government funding, meaning that parents will no longer be subject to the sometimes significant variation in charges across the country. The hon. Lady also highlighted the elements that she considers the basic essentials that need to be covered: the fees from the local authority and others, and the coffin. I share her view.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I echo everything that everybody has said. I also consider the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) a friend. She has dealt with this campaign with what we Welsh would call hwyl, and she is to be congratulated on that. When these final decisions are being taken, may I just urge the Minister to bear in mind the phraseology that the hon. Lady used—that this is the last gift of a parent to a dead child? It is not just a pounds, shillings and pence coffin and headstone; it is the whole emotional issue. If we keep that in mind, we will get the right outcome.

[Edward Argar]

As ever, my hon. Friend puts his point simply but eloquently, and he is absolutely right about the prism through which we should be looking at this matter.

The scheme that we are envisaging will not just bring England into line with broadly comparable arrangements in Wales and Scotland. I am keen that we go a bit beyond that where we can. The children’s funeral fund will complement other measures to support grieving parents, including the social fund funeral expenses payment scheme and the Parental Bereavement (Leave and Pay) Act 2018, which was enacted last September. But I do understand that, alongside the welcome for the fund across both sides of this House, hon. Members and others clearly and rightly want to see the scheme in place as soon as possible, and to be reassured of the continued commitment to and progress towards that.

As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said on 6 February at Prime Minister’s questions, it is important that we get this right. We have therefore been working hard across Government to identify the most effective way to deliver the fund. For all the clear simplicity of what it seeks to do, it is none the less a complex and challenging policy legislatively and in delivery on the ground, bringing together a number of Government Departments, but it is a challenge that the Government and I have willingly accepted.

Children Act 1989 (Amendment) (Female Genital Mutilation) Bill [Lords]

Simon Hoare Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

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

Members will know that this is a private Member’s Bill, so I will start by putting on the record my thanks to the Government and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), for giving it Government time and for their broader efforts to help tackle the scourge of FGM and to protect those at risk of it. The Bill has passed through the other place and received cross-party support in its Second Reading Committee a fortnight ago and again last week in Committee, and I put on the record again my thanks to the hon. Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero) for her words in Committee and for the cross-party manner in which the issue was tackled.

The Bill was initiated by Cross-Bench peer Lord Berkeley, who became aware of an omission in existing child protection law whereby family courts do not have the power to compel the involvement of a local authority in an interim care order relating to FGM. He decided to act and piloted this simple, two-clause Bill through the other place with passion, clarity and decency, and I am grateful to him. It has been my pleasure to work with the Government to attempt to get the Bill through this place, notwithstanding one or two hurdles earlier on.

I also want to place on the record my thanks to the FGM survivor and extraordinarily effective campaigner, Nimco Ali, who will be known to many Members. She is probably this country’s best-known FGM campaigner, and using every opportunity at her disposal to push the issue right to the top of the political agenda. It was wonderful just three days ago to see on Twitter a picture of her standing in No. 10 next to the Prime Minister. Nimco has taken the issue literally to the heart of Government.

Nimco Ali’s work has extended well beyond what she has achieved in this country. She famously persuaded all three contenders in the 2017 Somaliland presidential election to commit to legislating against FGM, and I do not think that many people thought that she had the slightest chance of succeeding. The election was won by President Muse and, good to his word, he introduced the legislation as soon as he took office. Incidentally, the vote itself was a model election, the first in the world in which iris-recognition technology was used to avoid electoral fraud. In one of the most troubled parts of the planet, we had the extraordinary scene of the contenders shaking hands and accepting the result without any fuss whatsoever—something that we could perhaps learn as we discuss ongoing Brexit problems.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend for his work on this matter. Given Nimco Ali’s great powers of persuasion and advocacy, maybe a role in the Whips Office might be of use as we approach difficult times.

[Zac Goldsmith]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Nimco is effectively my Whip. Most of what I do in this place in relation to FGM is down to her wagging finger telling me exactly what and what not to do. At a recent event with her, someone described me as “Nimco’s intern”, but it is a great honour to be her intern. She is an extraordinary campaigner, and if I can help her in any way, it is an honour to do so.

Members will be familiar with the horrors of FGM, but I think they bear repeating to remind us why this issue matters so much and why it should matter to everyone here. According to the World Health Organisation, female genital mutilation includes

“all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.”

FGM is almost always carried out on very young children, rarely by medical professionals and rarely with pain relief.

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who is a bright beacon when it comes to this issue and the safeguarding of children—the most vulnerable in our communities up and down the land. I am tempted to say in passing that, at a time when our politics and this House are so divided on other issues, debates such as these remind us of one of the benefits of this job, which is the coming together of the House to discuss in a united, informed and respectful way an issue that matters to the future of our country and can certainly be deemed to be for the public good.

I listened with the most careful attention to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). It was interesting that she used the term “prehistoric” to describe the way that this House can often look. It is not the first time that I have made this comment: I am the Member for North Dorset, and not everything that comes out of Dorset is Jurassic.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Guy Opperman)]

You are!

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

I can assure the House that I am not.

I echo entirely the comments that my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke made about the all too demonstrable need for reform of how we deal with private Members’ legislation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) said, this is a simple Bill of just two clauses, but it is terribly important, and it beggars belief that a Bill of such importance was blocked for no particular apparent reason. It reminds me of the dictum of the late Ronald Reagan—if the 11th commandment is, “Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Conservative,” my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) stretches that almost to the point of breaking.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park rightly praised the work of Nimco Ali. I do not want to interject a moment or two of partisanship, but I will pause to make this point. I thought it was heart-warming—absolutely heart-warming—to see the pictures on social media last week of Nimco and our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, at the very heart of Government, discussing FGM and other women’s issues. For my party, which all too often allows itself to be painted as out of touch or not interested in such issues, if we wanted a startling picture showing why that is not the case and how our party is able to deal with these important issues, that was the picture. The fact that my hon. Friend has taken up this issue and run with it with such passion and so authoritatively—he is too modest, I know, and he may blush—is so important. He has added not only to a public health issue, but, I suggest, to the profile of our party on this issue.

I rise to speak in this debate as the father of three daughters: Imogen who is 10, Jessica who has just turned nine and Laura who is six. At least, that is what Laura’s birth certificate says; from the way she talks to me, she is six going on 26. When a parent sees the little, fragile bodies of small children, we do have to wonder where on earth somebody came up with the idea of FGM. As others have said, this is not a medical procedure and it is not the religious requirement of one faith or another; it is quite simply child abuse. If it was a practice in which a young girl’s arm had to be broken or some fingers or toes removed, we would have been in a state of uproar. However, over the years, there has been a squeamishness among politicos about dealing with some of the issues that have masqueraded or hidden under the cloak of cultural sensitivity. I could not care less who, if anybody, is offended by this Government and this united Parliament standing up and saying, “It is wrong, it is abuse, it has got to stop, and if you do not agree with us in that analysis, then the full weight of the law will be brought to bear upon you.”

[Eddie Hughes]

My hon. Friend mentions that this is not a medical procedure. One of the problems is that the medicalisation of the procedure can sometimes be seen to give legitimacy to it, and that is far from being the point. It is frequently the case that the procedure is carried out where there is no antiseptic, so it is incredibly dangerous with the possibility of future infection for the woman and of ongoing medical problems.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It carries all the concomitant health risks of the backstreet abortionist and of the barber surgeons of the 18th century, but things have moved on so much since then. That is why it is extraordinary, when we pause to think about it, that this debate or this Bill is even required.

A number of right hon. and hon. Members have spoken, perfectly properly, about awareness. This debate and the Bill, the event at No. 10, the work of the all-party group on female genital mutilation—my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park leads it with such conviction—and the work of people such as Nimco Ali are so important in raising awareness. As the hon. Member for Rotherham intimated in relation to smear tests, raising awareness of such an issue will obviously involve certain personal issues—about personal health, or perhaps about embarrassment—and I think this is frightfully important. Those women who have been genitally mutilated should in no way be made to feel ashamed or reluctant to seek medical advice and help or to turn up for smear tests. Let the House say clearly, “It is not your fault.” We are focused properly on blaming the perpetrators and on arresting the practice in this country and—I say on Commonwealth Day—hopefully throughout the Commonwealth and elsewhere.

I say to those who have been mutilated, “Do not hide in shame or embarrassment. Something horrid was done to you and, as a civilised society, we are here to help.” If this debate helps to raise awareness among community leaders throughout the local government family, in sports clubs, in law enforcement and in our GPs’ surgeries, that is good. A problem, which FGM clearly is, ceases to be as much of a problem when it is talked about frankly, openly, honestly and with no sense of shame.

I have to confess to the House that, much to my wife’s amusement, I cannot watch “Casualty” because I do not like the sight of blood, which makes me feel a little wobbly. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park explained in typically gentle terms what the male equivalent of FGM would be. He rightly made the point that the linkage between or coalescence of FGM and circumcision is erroneous. When he described the male equivalent of FGM, several hon. Members, including me, put a handkerchief to their eyes and clenched their knees a little tighter. If this was a male issue, it would not have been tolerated for as long as it has been. The fact that it has affected little girls is all the more shaming and should prompt, as it is doing, greater action and attention.

I welcome the prison sentence that was handed out recently and the fact that anyone who commits FGM now faces a prison sentence of up to 14 years. It is also important that anyone found failing to protect a girl from the risk of FGM will face up to seven years’ imprisonment. That takes away the protection for aunts, cousins, grannies—or grandfathers, for that matter.

It is perfectly proper that the Bill is an amendment to the Children Act 1989 because, as has been pointed out, the issue affects children.

In making my final point, I will breach the ministerial code as it relates to Parliamentary Private Secretaries—the Whips are on duty; they can sack me at their leisure—by speaking, albeit briefly, about the work of Departments, starting with the Home Office. I commend my hon. Friend the Minister for Crime, Safeguarding and Vulnerability for her violence against women and girls strategy. The Department for Education is doing very important work. I am delighted to see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development on the Treasury Bench and I commend the Department’s work. This is a collective, governmental approach to stamping out child abuse. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), who will reply to the debate, looks at me with a squint in her eye. Indeed, I have neglected to mention the Ministry of Justice, which is putting in the sentences that will ensure that the Bill will be a deterrent.

In a small way, this small Bill takes a huge step for the rights of women and girls. It seeks to end a terrible example of child abuse and I am delighted to speak in support of it.

Courts and Tribunals (Judiciary and Functions of Staff) Bill [Lords]

Simon Hoare Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 12th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

That is an important point, because when we talk about what we have saved, we often mean what has been saved at the Ministry of Justice, but the reality is that ensuring that justice is served for the people who use it is at the heart of our reforms. Many of our changes have received positive feedback. In a recent trial at the tax tribunal, people were able to access justice from remote locations and not have to go to a physical court. That was well received, because people did not have to disrupt their day by physically entering court. Of course, that will not be appropriate for everyone, but we must ensure that we use the advantages of technology in the future.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice for giving way—[Laughter.] That bought us 32 seconds. I am interested in what she has said. Is she able to dilate—preferably at some considerable length—on the benefits that might accrue from people not having to go to court in rural areas, such as North Dorset, where public transport is scarce and where not everybody has access to a motor car? The changes could be of huge benefit to large, sparsely populated rural areas such as mine.

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I also represent a rural area. Interestingly, some of the greatest and most interesting innovations at our conference were from Australia, where the geography is an issue, and we can learn a lot from its procedures. Over recent years, 300,000 people have started engaging with our online services, which have been well received.

[Simon Hoare]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Lucy Frazer]

I will take one intervention and then address the amendments.

[Simon Hoare]

I am grateful. Can we read across from what my hon. and learned Friend says that she is making strong representations to ministerial colleagues at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, to BT and to other providers to ensure that hotspots, blackspots, notspots—call them what you will—in rural areas that are poorly served by a reliable, speedy, robust internet will be filled to allow all our citizens to access justice and make representations using technology? With the best will in the world, if the technology is not there—I know that my hon. and learned Friend knows this—people will not be able to use it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer]

I am pleased to hear that Mrs Cleverly is undertaking this important role. My hon. Friend is right that it is important, and employers do understand. The Lloyds banking group recently won an award for encouraging staff to take time off to undertake this important role, and we need to do more to encourage employers to encourage their staff to take part in this important function.

[Simon Hoare]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

A short intervention.

[Simon Hoare]

Everything I do is short, Mr Deputy Speaker.

We are all, thank God, living longer. At some point, might there be merit in reviewing the retirement age both for our judges and our magistrates? With people taking early retirement and so on, the receptacle of wisdom should not be lost to the courts, particularly taking the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly) on the difficulty of finding people to fill these posts.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. We need to move on now. I was very generous before, but magistrates have absolutely nothing to do with the Bill, as the Minister well knows.

Courts and Tribunals (Judiciary and Functions of Staff) Bill [Lords]

Simon Hoare Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 27th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I do not think that the hon. Lady is correct in the association that she makes. The reality is that we have to ensure that our resources are deployed as efficiently as possible. That is to the benefit of the system as a whole. I will make the case in more detail as to why the steps taken in the Bill to give authorised staff greater responsibility to undertake some roles that they are currently unable to undertake will be to the benefit of the system as a whole. I make no apology for wanting to find efficiencies within the system, but this is in the context of a £1 billion court reform programme. Those efficiencies can improve the experience of the users of the system, and could also ensure that judges will be able to use their time in the areas that are most useful to them. Indeed, the experience of authorised Courts and Tribunals Service staff will be a more positive one, as they will be able to make a greater contribution to the efficient running of the court system.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Setting aside the whys and wherefores of the Bill, may I invite my right hon. Friend to confirm from the Dispatch Box that the independence of the judiciary and the separation of powers between the judiciary and Parliament will be absolutely sacrosanct and at the heart of everything that he, his ministerial colleagues and the Department will do? This is an issue of great concern to many people, irrespective of the Bill, and people always need to have faith that this central pillar of how we are governed in this country will remain intact, protected and preserved.

[Mr Gauke]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me the opportunity to respond to that point. The independence of the judiciary is at the heart of our system and a long-standing part of it. It is as important, if not more important, than it has ever been that we reiterate that and support those institutions. As I was saying a moment ago, this is a big part of what our nation is about, and in the years ahead, after we have left the European Union, one of the most important institutions to us will be our independent judiciary. It is a large part of what the UK is about and of how we should project ourselves around the rest of the world.

Civil Liability Bill [Lords]

Simon Hoare Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 23rd October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend makes a good and valid point, because legislative consent does seem to mean different things in different Parliaments. Here, for example, we have the Legislative Grand Committee: an innovation of this Parliament to allow English Members the opportunity to put forward their own particular English-only issues and amendments. In Scotland, of course, we have legislative consent motions that require our Scottish Parliament to agree, on its own behalf, to legislation passed in this House. There seems to be a particular problem with this. We have our own Parliament that is responsible for legislative consent motions, which are now more or less ignored by this Parliament. Here we have the English Legislative Grand Committee squatting in the UK Parliament. This is the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but somehow it still operates as a de facto English Parliament and as the venue for this Legislative Grand Committee.

It strikes me that that might be a bit odd. I have a little solution that I have presented to this House before, thus far without any great success and without anybody really paying attention to what was suggested, so I will make one more attempt: how about English Members getting their own Parliament? Then there will be a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly, a Northern Ireland Assembly and an English Parliament. Then, instead of having all these Legislative Grand Committees, we can all come together in a United Kingdom Parliament that is responsible for particular, defined issues, instead of having this ridiculous notion where English colleagues seem almost to squat in this place in order attend a debate that nobody takes part in.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

rose—

[Rory Stewart]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

rose—

[Rory Stewart]

I will give way in one moment. To clarify, the intention is that the companies not just may but will pass this information to the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority, and the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority not just may but will request that information, so that we can accurately explain to Parliament and the people how much money the insurance companies are making from their premiums, how much they are paying out to claimants, how much savings they are making and how much of those savings they are passing on to their customers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rory Stewart]

Absolutely. It is an unprecedented move. The fundamental idea is that the insurance companies are operating in a competitive market, so this is not simply a question of how much money they take in premiums or how much money they pay out; it is also about attracting customers, and in order to attract customers, they need to compete with one another on price. If they were not to do so, they would in effect be running a cartel, and the information they give to the Treasury and the Financial Conduct Authority would provide exactly the evidence to display that kind of unfair practice. We are therefore guaranteeing that the commitment made by 85% of the insurance industry to pass on these savings to customers will be upheld. I give way to the hon. Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly). [Interruption.] Oh, no, she was not intervening on me. I apologise.

[Simon Hoare]

It was me.

[Rory Stewart]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Simon Hoare]

I must say that I have been confused with many things, but to be confused with an hon. Lady from the DUP is a first.

My hon. Friend the Minister, perfectly properly and quite rightly, is placing very important obligations on the insurance industry. The FCA has a raft of things of which it has oversight. How is he proposing, alongside the Treasury, to communicate to the FCA that this House has the legitimate expectation that the FCA should be robust in seeking that information from the insurers?

[Rory Stewart]

This is a very good challenge, and we will reinforce that duty on the FCA through both the legislation and the statements within the amendment proposed by the Government. We will also reinforce it through this statement from the Dispatch Box: we will require the insurers to pass this information on and we will require the Treasury and the FCA to request it. The purpose of requesting that information is rigorously to hold the insurance industry to account and ensure that the savings are passed on to customers.

I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the personal injury lawyers. One of the problems in this debate has been the suggestion that it is a black-and-white, sometimes Manichean dispute, with the press and civil society sometimes unfairly implying that the personal injury lawyers are somehow to blame. We must put on the record very clearly our respect for the personal injury lawyers and the work they do.

In addition, we must send a very strong message of respect towards people who are genuine victims of whiplash injuries, or indeed of any other form of personal injury. They are entitled to a fair level of compensation and to an adequate level of representation. We believe very strongly that the measures in the Bill strike a proportionate and reasonable balance between fair compensation, reasonable representation and the costs imposed on the rest of society.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Neill]

I am pleased the Minister is mentioning that, because although we have concentrated on some controversial areas, putting the discount rate on a more modern footing is important and largely welcome, as is of course the prohibition on settlement without medical reports, which again has not been touched on but is very significant and an advance.

I want to use this opportunity to thank the Minister for what he said about the Justice Committee and the way he engaged with us and me personally. We have raised caveats with some of the objectives, and he has met us on a number of issues, if not all of them, which has enabled those of us who want to keep an eye on this and hold the Government and the industry’s feet to the fire to adopt Lord Brown of, um, Eaton, um—

[Simon Hoare]

Eaton-under-Heywood.

[Robert Neill]

That one. I ought to know him, as a fellow bencher of Middle Temple, and to get his title right. The noble Lord Brown has said that with some reluctance—because it is a balancing act—he can accept the Government’s intentions in this regard. The way the Minister has handled this difficult balancing act in the Bill has made it much easier for a number of hon. Members to do the same.

Privately Financed Prisons

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rory Stewart]

The general point the hon. Lady is making is difficult to disagree with. Obviously, we need to look at the viability of particular companies. I cannot comment on Capita, or on what exactly the MOD is doing, but when assessing bids the Ministry of Justice will very much take into account the financial viability of the company bidding.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

To maximise the efficacy of any contract, one needs a devoted and focused contracted business, but one also needs expertise in the management of that contract. Will my hon. Friend assure me that the skill set among his officials monitoring contracts on a daily, in-real-time basis is as sharp, professional and focused as it needs to be?

[Rory Stewart]

That is absolutely right. It has traditionally been a challenge to bring those private sector skills into government and to make sure we have a critical mass of people who really understand how to stay on top of those contracts, as my hon. Friend says, not just annually but day by day. We are very proud of our director, Ian Porée, who focuses on this procurement, particularly in relation to probation, and has those private sector skills. As I said, we also have 25 years of experience here.