Worboys Case and the Parole Board

John Bercow Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Can I just gently say, before the Secretary of State responds, that this is an extremely important matter about which we have just heard in the most learned terms from one of our most learned authorities? However, there are a further 16 hon. and right hon. Members seeking to catch the eye of the Chair. The Chair likes to accommodate interest. I gently point out that there is some danger of us reaching a position where everything will have been said but not yet by everybody.

[Mr Gauke]

Thank you for your guidance, Mr Speaker.

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his remarks. He makes an important point: had I taken a judicial review, it may have brought into question the standing of the victims, as Sir Brian Leveson points out. In terms of the workload, to be fair, the Parole Board had been making progress with the backlog of imprisonment for public protection cases, but it remains significant—there are still something like 3,000 prisoners on an IPP sentence in prison, and they need to be properly assessed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Ah, the good doctor—Dr Julian Lewis.

[Dr Lewis]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Does not the Worboys case illustrate the fact that there is a culture of consideration for rapists and murderers that puts the public gravely at risk? Will the Secretary of State be investigating the case of the two murderers who killed two people in two separate incidents in their own homes and who have just been convicted of the horrific rape, torture, throttling and murder by burning in a car while she was still alive of a young Vietnamese woman—not to mention the imminent release of another criminally insane individual who is being groomed for release in his guise as a woman, having previously been convicted of stabbing to death a young woman in her own home more than 66 times?