Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Gentleman refers to the report on Scottish legal aid. I have looked at the review, which makes some recommendations that my officials will be looking at to improve our legal aid system. It is very interesting to see in the report a number of measures that we are taking—for example, in relation to video links and the online court, which I have already mentioned.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The safety of prison officers in prisons is absolutely pivotal, as my hon. Friend the Minister recognises. May I urge him to give serious consideration to prison officers carrying pepper spray?

[Rory Stewart]

We are in fact already piloting the use of pepper spray. With the correct training—it needs to be used with the correct training—it can be an important part of reducing violence, and we are working on the lessons of those pilots.

Criminal Legal Aid

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 8th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon]

Well, this is not the CBA’s scheme and it does have serious concerns about aspects of this provision. Tonight is an opportunity for the Government to think again and make some sensible concessions on the most controversial aspects. If everyone was happy with the measures, the criminal barristers would not have voted by 90% to take strike action.

We have a responsibility to contribute to resolving this situation by encouraging negotiation and facilitating a solution before there is further escalation. That means that the Government should withdraw these controversial changes, go back to the drawing board and come up with a scheme that attracts widespread support, rather than provoking a backlash.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Given the importance of what the hon. Gentleman said in his opening remarks about the right of representation in court—a very serious procedure indeed—does he not agree that barristers withdrawing their services in strike protest is not serving justice at all, and that there should be another way for them to seek redress? Will he take this opportunity to condemn the strike?

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 14th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I am following the right hon. Gentleman’s argument with close attention. Part of the leave argument was to take back control—not just to the House of Commons, but to the country and Parliament as a whole. Is he now trying to undermine the bicameral system?

[Frank Field]

No, not at all. We will be going late on days such as this, so if the hon. Gentleman would like to read my website, he will see I have outlined my views on House of Lords reform. They are different from those of most others. They are about its being elective, but through electing the great powers in this country—influences such as trade unions and so on—and certainly not through decisions by the party Whips. However, I dare not go down that path because it would take me away from the my new clause.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lee]

The Ministry of Justice does not think it holds any documents with regard to this case. I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to a petition brought by Edward Marnell. I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman wrote to me to set out the issues and I will arrange for my officials to have a meeting with him.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

9. What steps the Government are taking to stop the use of drones over prisons.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

15. What steps the Government are taking to stop the use of drones over prisons.

[Simon Hoare]

My hon. Friend will know that technology moves ever faster, day by day. Can he assure me that HMP Guys Marsh in my constituency will have access to the relevant funds to have the technologies in place to combat the use of drones and mobile telephones?

[Mr Gyimah]

Absolutely. Guys Marsh will benefit from the £2 million pot being used to invest in mobile phone detection technology. An additional £3 million is being invested in a national intelligence team to help to tackle serious and organised crime. This will allow us to deal with serious and organised crime in our prisons and in our communities. We will be working with the Home Office on this project to improve prison security and social reform.

Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill

Simon Hoare Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 20th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Antoinette Sandbach). Let me start, as so many right hon. and hon. Members have—[Interruption.] I have only said three words, and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is asking me to speed up. I mean, I was just clearing my throat, and I was just about to congratulate him on bringing in the Bill—

[Chris Bryant]

Don’t bother.

[Simon Hoare]

Oh, he does not want me to. In that case, it is a great pleasure not to congratulate him on bringing in the Bill. To please him, as a fellow Welshman—that was obviously one of his key criteria for Members taking part in the debate—I will be as quick as I can.

It is important to remember, for the benefit of those the Bill seeks to protect, that there are protections in the law today. I just wanted to make sure that was on the record, because I would hate those who often work in vulnerable and dangerous circumstances to think this was the first time lawmakers had thought about this. As the hon. Gentleman said in his opening remarks, there is legislation already, but the Bill rightly seeks to identify a cohort of people whom we want to recognise for the work they do and for whom we want to provide additional protection.

In supporting the Bill, let me say that I think quite a few things will be teased out in Committee—if the hon. Gentleman is looking for recruits for the Committee, I would be very happy to serve on it. If it is not too late, we may need to think about the title of the Bill, because there are people we would want to be covered by clause 3, on the meaning of “emergency worker”, who would perhaps not be described as emergency workers.

[Chris Bryant]

I have inadvertently misled the House. Earlier, I suggested that I could not change the long title, but I could change it in Committee.

Incidentally, I was trying to say earlier that hon. Members do not have to keep on saying thank you to me and my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch).

[Holly Lynch]

Steady on.

[Simon Hoare]

Inadvertently, the hon. Gentleman—in his usual humble, don’t look at me, I’m pretending not to be here sort of way—has drawn attention to the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch). I know from talking to my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins) and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), when he was the Policing Minister, about the important work the hon. Lady has done on this proposal, and she deserves the thanks of the House.

It is great that the hon. Gentleman has confirmed that the long title can be changed. I just wonder whether it should refer to assaults on “public service workers”. There are a number of categories of people I do not think anybody would seek to demur from including. This is not a full list, but they might include social workers, as several Members have mentioned; psychiatric nurses, particularly when they are on an interaction; those who work for Border Force; people involved with public transport; and our local authority staff. We talk about ambulances, but I am not quite sure whether those who volunteer for St John Ambulance would be covered.

[Chris Bryant]

indicated assent.

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman nods, and I note that, as does the Minister.

I am also tempted to include traffic wardens, who are not always the sort of people we cheer for, but they do good work enforcing parking regulations, and they often suffer a huge amount of abuse from people who are caught.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) made me think about our armed forces. We have all read of instances when people in uniform in our constituencies have come under attack from those who do not hold our military personnel in high regard.

I am particularly pleased to see prison officers included in clause 3(1)(d). I have Guys Marsh prison in my constituency, and my hon. Friend the Minister has visited it with me. He and I heard first hand from some of the prison officers there of the day in, day out degrading behaviour they have to suffer at the hands of some prisoners. It would be good if, as a result of the Bill becoming an Act, which I very much hope it will, those who perpetrate entirely unnecessary attacks on our prison officers could have their tariffs increased somehow.

I close as I opened, by congratulating the hon. Members for Rhondda and for Halifax. I agree that it is a shame that the House will not divide today, because we need to make sure that the people in the country who are interested in this issue know that the Bill has the full, wholehearted and full-throated support of both sides of the House.

Prisons

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I hope that there are no lessons to be learned from the fact that mine is the first speech that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, have reduced to four minutes and that you forgot my name. I shall of course be editing my Christmas card list when I get back to the office.

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins). I agree absolutely with him and with the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) that it should be a requirement of all of us who have prisons either in our constituency or close by to visit them so that we can see things on the ground.

I have Guys Marsh prison in my constituency, which I have visited on a number of occasions—so many in fact that some of the prisoners and I seem to be on first-name terms. I have seen the excellent work done with the prisoners by both the Prison Officers Association and the voluntary sector. I sat in on a training session by Cleansheet, which was delivered by one of my constituents, Jane Gould. It was all about preparing prisoners to get skills and a good CV to equip them for work. Working alongside that charity were a number of national businesses, reflecting on what my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) has just said, which are very keen to take on ex-offenders when they have finished their sentences.

[Andrew Selous]

I am very glad that my hon. Friend mentioned volunteers. Does he agree that we should salute the work of the volunteers who go into our prisons across the country to work alongside prison officers?

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend if for no other reason bar the fact that it says to those prisoners that society has not forgotten them and has not dismissed them out of hand, and that it still sees them as, potentially, a productive part of the community when they come back.

There are two things that I wish to talk about today and to which I hope the Minister will pay attention. The first is in very specific relation to Guys Marsh prison, which the Ministry of Justice team will know was in the media relatively recently and has had problems. I will, if I may, make a brief comment about the robustness of Carillion as the contractor. Contracts have two sides to that particular coin. The first is clearly on the company that is contracted to deliver the service to actually deliver that service. The other side of the coin is for the person who lets the contract to monitor it properly and to enforce what is required from it. I remain to be convinced that Carillion—certainly as far as it has performed in relation to Guys Marsh—is up to the job and that NOMS as the monitor of the contract has actually done the job it is required to do.

I do not take a “private sector good, public sector bad” view, or vice versa, but sometimes I do think that some of these companies that are contracted to do this very important work need to raise their game. I have spoken to the Minister about that, and I know that he and the Lord Chancellor are receptive to the case.

Yesterday, I was called at Justice questions to talk about recruitment—an issue that has dominated the debate today. In response to my question, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice replied that

“Guys Marsh has been made a priority prison, which means that the governor is getting extra resource, in addition to our national campaign effort, to recruit the staff he needs.”—[Official Report, 24 January 2017; Vol. 620, c. 147.]

Of itself, that is excellent news. I thank the Minister for it. I welcome it, as does the governor, Paul Millett. As I pressed in my question—I make no apologies for pressing again today—having a prison in a rural area presents recruitment problems. The cost of our housing is high. Public transport is scarce. Our unemployment rate, luckily, is very low. We only have about 300 people on jobseeker’s allowance in North Dorset. In that recruitment drive, may I urge Ministers to ensure that there is flexibility and scope for innovation? That might be providing help for a new prison officer to buy a vehicle or motorbike so that they can get to and from the prison. It might be help with relocation or housing costs—some form of grant to help to pay a deposit, or a loan. Terms and conditions should be looked at. I appreciate that this is a sensitive matter, but I hope that the POA would support something such as that if the end game were to deliver more prison officers to rural prisons, thus making the regime and atmosphere much safer for staff.

I encourage the Minister to work far more closely with the Ministry of Defence. Blandford Camp is a few miles from the prison, and there are a number of military institutions in Wiltshire, which seems to be a fertile recruiting ground for new prison officers as we meet the challenge of staffing.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

They are the Government. They have been in power for the past seven years, and prisons have been under their control. It is under their watch that 6,000 staff have been cut.

[Simon Hoare]

I will take the hon. Lady’s lead and not be party political, but given the huge crisis that she is outlining to the House—her Front-Bench colleagues clearly share her view—will she explain why, on an Opposition day motion, Labour ran out of speakers and we did not?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

The hon. Gentleman is trying to deflect attention from what the Government should have been doing for the past seven years.

As I was saying, about a quarter of all prisoners are held in overcrowded or unsuitable conditions. In the past 12 months, there have been 6,000 assaults on staff and 24,000 assaults on prisoners. There were also 105 self-inflicted deaths of prisoners, which is a record increase of 13% on the previous year. The levels of poor mental health and distress among prisoners are higher than those for the general public. The number of incidents of self-harm in prisons has increased by more than 25% in 2016 compared with the previous year. When we look at all the statistics provided by the Ministry of Justice, we can see that the number of incidents of self-harm has gone up and the number of assaults has gone up, and that deaths have occurred and suicides have happened. I am afraid to say that that is the responsibility of this Government because they have been in charge of prisons for the past seven years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lee]

My hon. Friend, who has the same profession as me, fully understands the importance of the proper treatment of substance misuse. Having successfully got off the drug, part of that is finding purpose in life, and employment is key to that.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

6. What steps the Government are taking to recruit more prison staff.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

17. What steps the Government are taking to recruit more prison staff.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

We are investing significant financial resources totalling about £100 million to recruit 2,500 additional prison officers. We are investing £4 million in our marketing campaign and effort. In addition to our national recruitment campaign, there are local recruitment schemes in 30 jails where it is hardest to recruit.

[Simon Hoare]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his reply. I urge him, as he begins the recruitment process, to give due consideration to recruiting in rural areas, such as north Dorset, where house prices are high, rural public transport is scarce and unemployment levels are very low. That makes the governor’s job at a prison such as Guys Marsh in my constituency even harder.

[Mr Gyimah]

I am aware that my hon. Friend takes a keen interest in Guys Marsh, his local prison. I assure him that Guys Marsh has been made a priority prison, which means that the governor is getting extra resource, in addition to our national campaign effort, to recruit the staff he needs.

Police Grant Report (England and Wales)

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey]

I will give way to somebody who has not already spoken.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is all well and good bandying numbers around and saying we must have the capability to make a surge in the number of armed officers. However, if the leader of the Labour party is to be believed, what are those officers going to do? Just wave their guns at these people and say, “Oh, please stop what you’re doing.” Will the hon. Gentleman take this opportunity to dissociate himself from his leader’s remarks about what armed policemen can and cannot do?

[Jack Dromey]

The Opposition—all of us—have a very simple view. Perhaps I can draw a parallel with the deeply moving statement I heard one of the Parisian officers make about when he and his colleagues went into the Bataclan club. Innocent men and women, including British citizens, were being terrified by jihadis practising the most appalling form of terrorism. That officer said, “I had to make a split-second judgment. I made it, and as a consequence I saved lives.” That is our very, very clear position.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

May I briefly congratulate the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) on her election as Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee? None of us will miss the tsunami of paper to which we have all been subjected over the past few days, but I am sure we will all miss the poetry of the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner). It may not have been from Palgrave’s “Golden Treasury”, but it was certainly entertaining.

I am grateful to be called to speak in this important debate on the police grant and pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), a former Policing Minister, who is very experienced in these matters, although I do not agree with everything that he says. I am certainly not always right.

[Simon Hoare]

No!

Transitional State Pension Arrangements for Women

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Stringer. This debate is being held in a way somewhat alien to what we are used to in the Chamber. The Public Gallery is full, and rightly so; it is an important issue. I invite you to remind all of us that this is a meeting being held in public, not a public meeting.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Again, that is not a point of order, but you have made your point, Mr Hoare, and I think Mr Graham has heard it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson]

Absolutely. I concur with everything that my hon. Friend has said.

Clearly, and despite the lack of action, the Government know there is a problem. Steve Webb, the Pensions Minister in the coalition Government, has admitted that the period of notice being given to some women was “the key issue”. He further went on to indicate that he recognised that not everyone affected by the 1995 Act had been aware of it. The Government must take responsibility for that. Why did they not act in this matter earlier to ensure that the women affected were fully informed? Why were women left in the dark, blissfully unaware that their retirement plans would lie around them in financial ruins?

The excellent campaign run by Women Against State Pension Inequality calling on the Government to make fair transitional state pension arrangements for 1950s-born women is one that we in the SNP fully support in the interests of natural justice. Fairness is all that is being called for here today. I take exception to what the hon. Member for Gloucester said about the cost being £30 billion. I will challenge anyone who makes that case. Is it more worthwhile to fund weapons of mass destruction or to ensure that our people have dignity as they approach pension age? The Government have not listened to our calls so far. They have avoided and obfuscated.

[Simon Hoare]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Patricia Gibson]

I will not, as I am in my final seconds.

The Government have not listened or responded, despite the huge outpouring of public feeling, not only from the women affected but from a society that knows that this is unjust. I urge them to respond to our calls now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her new post on the Opposition Front Bench. She will appreciate that, given that there is ongoing litigation, I cannot possibly comment on that from the Dispatch Box.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

6. What steps his Department is taking to improve prisons’ engagement with employers; and if he will make a statement.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to improve prisons’ engagement with employers; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Andrew Selous)]

Providing prisoners with vocational skills and employment opportunities is an important factor in preventing reoffending. The Employers Forum for Reducing Reoffending brings together employers who are willing to employ offenders, and we are working with the Department for Work and Pensions to increase the involvement of more businesses. Community rehabilitation companies also have an important role to play in helping ex-offenders find employment.

[Simon Hoare]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that encouraging answer. I am sure he would agree with me that it is beholden on as many employers as possible to offer training in prisons, so that when prisoners leave prison they are ready for employment and equipped with the required skills. I invite him to welcome the work that Cleansheet does in our prison estate, particularly in Guys Marsh in my constituency. I have seen it at first hand and it really gets people ready for work.

[Andrew Selous]

I thank my hon. Friend very much for his interest in this important area and am delighted to praise the work of Cleansheet and so many other organisations that try to get prisoners into work. A number of companies—Timpson, Halfords, the Clink restaurants, the Census Data Group, Aramark and many others I could mention—are rising to the challenge. We want many more to join them.