Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Siobhan Baillie and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

1. What steps he is taking to help prisoners develop new skills.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)]

We are delivering a new prison education service. The first prisoner apprentices have now started on highway maintenance for Kier and hospitality for Greene King. We are launching an employability innovation fund to bring more businesses into prisons.

[Siobhan Baillie]

MMC Homebuilding Ltd in Hardwicke is working with inmates from Leyhill Prison to build affordable homes quickly. I have met some of the lads, and they have mastered the skills needed to create thousands of homes for key workers, but there are daft barriers in place, particularly in relation to the acquisition of public land. What is the Ministry of Justice doing, with the Department of Health and Social Care, the Home Office and the Treasury, to unlock those issues so that win-win schemes such as this one can build thousands of key worker homes and allow prisoner rehabilitation at the same time?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend; she is championing a brilliant project in her constituency. Getting more prisoners into work is absolutely vital for them, but also for reducing reoffending. Training prisoners in modern methods of construction is one of the ways we can equip them with the skills to deliver. As a former Housing Minister, I am very conscious of the need to release more surplus land for those purposes and I will speak to my colleagues in the way she asks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Siobhan Baillie and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 22nd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I totally share the hon. Gentleman’s commitment and it is good to be able to address the issue on a cross-party basis. Earlier this year, we ran a call for evidence on SLAPPs reform. I brought that together at very short notice and the Department did an incredible job in providing specific proposals. Our proposals include a new statutory definition, an early dismissal process to strike out SLAPPs claims without merit, and cost protection for defendants in cases. I intend to introduce legislative proposals as soon as possible.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

One issue with family court delays is that lawyers will advise their clients to get a court application in early. That is not the lawyers’ fault; they have to do the best for their clients and they know that delay is not in the best interests of the child. However, once a court application is in, parents go into a defensive crouch. Some parents refuse to negotiate until the first hearing and separated parents information programmes do not kick in until the court hearing has happened. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that Ministers in this House and in the other place are working together for family law reform to reduce court delays?

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I thank her for her continued campaigning on this issue. It is worth saying, first, that around 45% of the private family law case backlog is non-safeguarding, non-domestic abuse cases. It is important that those other cases go to court. In relation to the others, we are using mediation and the roll-out and promotion of a voucher scheme to support mediation. Where a reasonable solution has been the outcome of mediation, it is also important that we use cost shifting in the courts, so people cannot just double-dip or go from one to the other. If we do that, we will have the right balance between carrot and stick and, certainly, far better outcomes for children.

Parole System: Public Protection

Debate between Siobhan Baillie and Dominic Raab

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and continue to be impressed by how he and the Ministry of Justice are gripping so many complex justice matters all at once. This is about not only public safety but the perception of public safety. The public rightly care about law and order. I hear strong words from those on the Opposition Front Bench, but we can see from the lack of turnout among Labour MPs that they prefer to politick on this issue rather than to do the hard graft of scrutiny.

On scrutiny, I really welcome that my right hon. Friend is putting victims at the heart of Parole Board decisions and allowing them input. Will he say a little more about how the Parole Board has taken to those proposals? How can we support victims as they go through that process? Some of them will find those steps distressing even if they want to take them.

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for her tenacity on these issues. She makes the same point as the one my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) made about public confidence. There is no escaping that, particularly if we think of the history of parole and licence conditions and of how we ended up with life terms after the abolition of the death penalty. The public need to have confidence that sentences match the crime and that their safety is of paramount importance.

My hon. Friend asked about how we will help victims through the process; that is critical, because it must be gruelling and traumatic for them. I know from the consideration that I have given the matter and from the evidence I have seen how difficult it will be. We have already made some improvements in the process for victims: in 2018, we introduced written decision summaries to improve transparency for victims; in 2019, we introduced the reconsideration mechanism, which I exercised today; and in 2021, we announced our intention to enable public hearings and for victims to be able to attend them as observers, and we are now giving them a much fuller role, as I explained in my statement. On top of that, of course, is the statutory release test. When the Parole Board considers that test, it will take clear account of victims’ submissions and victims will be able to ask questions through their submissions.

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation

Debate between Siobhan Baillie and Dominic Raab

Thursday 17th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his long-standing interest in this area and the very constructive points he has made. We need to act swiftly, and I said that in my statement. We also need to recognise that we are constantly balancing the right of honourable people to protect their reputation—libel law has a role to play in this country—with not allowing libel law to be hijacked by those with deep pockets to muzzle the very transparency that we want in this country. That is a balance, and we need to be careful to get that balance right. We also remain a global country with a global outlook, and we want investment into this country. That is crucial and is part of our USP. What we do not want is dirty money or the money of those with blood on their hands. We will move swiftly, but the most important thing is that we do not do this in a knee-jerk way, because when this House does things in a knee-jerk way, we get it wrong and we repent at leisure. Let us move swiftly, but firmly. That is why the call for evidence is about how we shape these reforms, not whether we do them.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is right to set out the harm, intimidation and cost bullying that comes even before there is live litigation, as that happens in many libel matters generally. I also welcome him guarding against being anti-lawyer, particularly as he is doing so much work in other areas to undo the historical attacks on lawyers in this country. Thinking about the indispensable free press in this country, it is difficult for us in the UK to comprehend how narrow and limited is the information that Russian people, for example, receive, let alone what they understand can be trusted and impartial. Will he clarify what the Government are doing more widely to promote press freedom?

[Dominic Raab]

As ever, my hon. Friend absolutely nails the point. These reforms are targeted at a specific problem, which is recent and burgeoning, and we do not want to conflate that because it might hit other areas and do ancillary or incidental harm and because that is a displacement of our effort and our energies.

My hon. Friend asked more generally about what we are doing around the world. When I was Foreign Secretary, we ramped up the Media Freedom Coalition, which, in my time, we chaired with the Canadians. I am not sure whether it is them or us who currently hold the chairmanship—I think it is the Canadians. We expanded that coalition. The idea was to help with the legislation that countries have to protect free speech and to ensure that, when journalists come under attack, they get legal support. We raised quite a lot of money and we keep working on it. I know that the current Foreign Secretary is enthusiastic and energetic about it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Siobhan Baillie and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

When we think about the family courts, we must be mindful of the experiences of not only families who desperately need court intervention to work smoothly but the families who should be nowhere near a judge and would not be if they had other support to resolve their differences. I know that the Justice team cares deeply about this complex issue and that welcome changes are coming next year, so what progress has been made on the implementation of the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 ahead of April 2022?

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that a certain category of case, particularly in respect of the private family law courts, needs to go before a court because of safeguarding issues or domestic abuse. Such cases account for 60%, more or less, while the others ought to avoid going to court through the use of mediation or alternative dispute settlement. Not only is that the right thing to do for all those involved, and particularly for children, but it saves the precious resource of the family courts for when they are really needed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Siobhan Baillie and Dominic Raab

Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

Whatever our differences, it is fantastic to see the right hon. Gentleman back in the Chamber, contributing and holding the Government to account.

The agenda for levelling up must involve a team effort, with central Government, local authorities and the many metro Mayors across the country. I support the spirit of what the right hon. Gentleman said, and we will do everything we can to work with him.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

In Stroud the Nailsworth Climate Action Network held a well-attended retrofit fair to help people learn about the benefits of insulating homes and the options available. Will my right hon. Friend congratulate that group on its constructive approach to this difficult issue, provide the House with confidence that the Government are creating even more solutions for energy efficient homes, and let us know when there will be more details of that work?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend and support all the efforts at a local level that she is pursuing. We are backing that up at a national level, by requiring all new build homes by 2025 to have low-carbon heating and world-leading levels of energy efficiency. That is on top of the record investment in wind power, and on top of producing a world-leading hydrogen strategy. This is about bringing the world together, because it will require an international solution at the COP26 global climate summit in November.

Afghanistan: FCDO Update

Debate between Siobhan Baillie and Dominic Raab

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

Of course, we are advising and working very closely with the Home Office on the new resettlement scheme and the eligibility criteria, in the way that the hon. Gentleman described. If we had just made a year 1 commitment, he would probably be saying, “But what about year 2, year 3 and year 4?” I think it is right that we look at both the short term and the medium term, and the Home Secretary will set out full details in due course.

[Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)]

People in Stroud were really distressed to see the footage of a baby being handed over to an American soldier at Kabul airport. We know that there are thousands of orphans stranded in Afghanistan, and they are at risk of radicalisation and abuse. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that children and orphans are a focus of UK support and say a little more about how we are achieving that?

[Dominic Raab]

No one could fail to be moved by the heart-rending scenes at Kabul airport—the one my hon. Friend described and others. We will of course look at what we can do in relation to orphans and unaccompanied minors. The real challenge will be getting verifiable details about their parents—whether they are still alive or whether there are members of the wider family. In the first instance—this has been our experience more generally across the middle east and in war-torn countries—we want to try to see whether it is possible to reunite children with either their parents, if it is safe to do so, or wider members of their family.