Justice

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from Questions to the Secretary of State for Justice on 3 February 2015.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

25. As well as taking prisoners from Merseyside, HMP Altcourse takes prisoners from Cheshire and north Wales. What will be the impact of the new super-prison at Wrexham on prisoner capacity in Cheshire, north Wales and Merseyside?

[Andrew Selous]

We need more adult male capacity so we are taking the right course of action by building the new prison in north Wales. There are currently no prisons in north Wales, and the new prison will enable us to house all Welsh prisoners within Wales, which we have not been able to do before. We will keep prisoners as close to their home areas as far as possible.

[Official Report, 3 February 2015, Vol. 592, c. 115.]

Letter of correction from Andrew Selous:

An error has been identified in the oral answer given to the hon. Member for City of Chester (Stephen Mosley) during Questions to the Secretary of State for Justice.

The correct response should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous]

The Government take this issue extremely seriously, and the Secretary of State was at that prison on Friday. We are taking five actions. First, a new director has been appointed. He was formerly director of Her Majesty’s Prison Rye Hill, and he took up his position on 8 December. There is a new head of security and a new security intelligence manager, and new search and security systems are in place. Two full lock-down searches of the prison were conducted in November and December, and improvements have been made in the operation of the basic regime, which will help with the issues that the hon. Gentleman quite properly raises.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

25. As well as taking prisoners from Merseyside, HMP Altcourse takes prisoners from Cheshire and north Wales. What will be the impact of the new super-prison at Wrexham on prisoner capacity in Cheshire, north Wales and Merseyside? [Official Report, 25 February 2015, Vol. 593, c. 3-4MC.]

[Andrew Selous]

We need more adult male capacity so we are taking the right course of action by building the new prison in north Wales. There are currently no prisons in north Wales, and the new prison will enable us to house all Welsh prisoners within Wales, which we have not been able to do before. We will keep prisoners as close to their home areas as far as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

12. What his strategy is for supporting victims of crime.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

14. What steps he is taking to increase funding for services to support victims.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Penning]

Looking after victims and witnesses is one of the most important things that any Government can do, and I would have thought that there was cross-party agreement on the sort of work we all need to do to ensure that they are looked after. The hon. Gentleman’s question was very detailed, so I will write to him, because that is how we should answer questions when they are that long.

[Stephen Mosley]

Many victims of crime still find the judicial process confusing and intimidating, so what steps is my right hon. Friend taking to make sure that vulnerable victims of crime find the court process less harrowing?

[Mike Penning]

It is important that victims and witnesses have the confidence to go to court and give evidence in a way that they feel comfortable doing. We must amend the way that the court process works, and we must use video much more, particularly with young and vulnerable children. That is the sort of thing we are going to do as we go forward, and I would have thought that that had cross-party support.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

15. What progress he has made on reforming sentencing for people convicted for making threats on social media.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

19. What steps he is taking to protect people who are threatened on social media.

[The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Mike Penning)]

The Government take seriously the offences on the statute book that cover threatening behaviour online, which includes abhorrent imagery that people do not want to see.

[Mike Penning]

We would all agree—and the law agrees—that the offence is the same whether face to face in public or on the internet. That is right and proper. The Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, which is being considered by the other place, will amend the Malicious Communications Act 1988 to provide a maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment. That is the sort of thing we are doing, and people should listen and stop this abhorrent activity.

[Stephen Mosley]

My right hon. Friend will be aware of the growth of revenge porn websites and the recent hacking from iCloud of photos of celebrities. What action are the Government taking to stop intimate photos being posted on the internet without permission?

[Mike Penning]

I am adamant that if we feel we need to change the law, we will do so to protect people so that intimate and personal images are never published. If they are, it will become an offence, as it should be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

If the hon. Gentleman reads the details of that judgment carefully, he will see that it required us to carry out a short further consultation, which we have done. We will introduce our updated proposals very shortly.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend update the House on the latest figures for the numbers of deaths and serious injuries due to accidents caused by drivers using mobile phones while driving?

[Mike Penning]

I do not have the figures to hand, but as an ex-firefighter who used to go to many of these incidents I know the distraction caused by using a mobile phone. It is not only illegal but it kills people—the people using the phone and others—and we should all decry anybody who uses a mobile phone while driving.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

I have not yet had an opportunity to look at the full details of the case the hon. Gentleman refers to, but I know that there is an ongoing investigation to find out how it happened and to ensure that it does not happen again. I can only emphasise, as a human being, that it must have been horrible to hear that being said in the background. We must ensure that it does not happen again. The Secretary of State met the group only last week to discuss the matter.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

9. What steps his Department has taken to prevent insurance fraud.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

I can assure my hon. Friend that the Government are committed to tackling insurance fraud. We are banning lawyers from offering inducements in personal injury claims and are legislating to penalise fundamentally dishonest claimants. We are also consulting on a requirement for lawyers to undertake previous claims checks on whiplash claimants, which will combat fraud at source.

[Stephen Mosley]

It is estimated that insurance fraud and exaggerated claims cost some £2.1 billion last year, with motor insurance alone costing about £811 million. Ultimately, it is not the insurance companies that pay out, but the consumers, who pay for it through higher insurance bills. What further measures is my hon. Friend taking to tackle the compensation culture in this country?

[Mr Vara]

The compensation culture to which my hon. Friend refers means that honest drivers are having to pay higher premiums because of abuses, especially in whiplash claims. That is why the Government have put in place measures to deter unnecessary speculative and exaggerated claims, while ensuring that genuine claimants can come forward and have proper redress. In the first phase of our measures, which will start next month, there will be fixed costs of £180 for medical reports, which in the past had been as high as £700.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

7. What progress he has made on his plans to bring down the level of reoffending.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

9. What progress he has made on his plans to bring down the level of reoffending.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

17. What progress he has made on his plans to bring down the level of reoffending.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

One of the key changes we are pushing through in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, which is currently in the other place, will ensure that repeat cautions are not used in the routine way they have been in the past. My view is that if somebody systematically commits a particular offence they should be brought quickly before the courts. Although a caution might initially be appropriate, it is certainly not a tool that should be used again and again.

[Stephen Mosley]

Has my right hon. Friend made any recent estimates of the cost of reoffending both in financial terms and in terms of the harm it does to society?

[Chris Grayling]

The official National Audit Office estimate is that about £13 billion a year is spent by our nation as a whole on dealing with the consequences of reoffending. Reoffending is now a particularly significant part of our national crime picture. We have seen crime rates and the number of first-time entrants to the criminal justice system fall, so more and more of our problem is with reoffending and that is why it is such a priority for us.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

We shall of course watch what happens. We expect the process to be extended this year to many other forms of appeal in the social security system. The evidence will show whether it informs people and we do not have as many appeals in the future because the decisions will have been got right in the first place. The level of appeals that she highlighted in a question on a previous occasion—nearly 45%—will then disappear. My objective is to get decisions right in the first place. The stress to which she refers should be removed from many people. They should not need to have to go to appeal to get the right decision.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

One of the biggest problems that I face as a constituency Member of Parliament is the time that it takes for ESA appeals to go ahead. It is good news that the delay has been reduced from an average of 23 weeks to 18, but what is the Minister doing to ensure that appeals speed up even more in the future?

[Simon Hughes]

Members on both sides of the House will have shared my hon. Friend’s experience, which is principally a matter for my colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions. It will certainly be helpful if the right decisions are made more often in the first place, but we must ensure that tribunals, particularly the Social Security Appeals Tribunal, have enough resources to be able to deal with cases as soon as possible after receiving the information that they require. Often the problem is collecting the data that will enable an appeal to be heard. The present situation is not acceptable, and we need to reduce the delay between initial decisions and appeals.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The benefit of having a national probation service that sits under the umbrella of the Department is that, were a bidder to fail, it would be possible for the Department to take operational control of that area while we retendered the contract. There are proper mechanisms in place to ensure that coverage would continue.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

Each year, about 600,000 crimes are committed by people who have already committed criminal acts. That is a shocking level of reoffending. What is my right hon. Friend doing to bring that number down?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is right, and this is at the heart of our reforms. Crime in this country is falling, which is good, and the number of first-time entrants into the criminal justice system is falling, which is also good. Crime is increasingly being committed by those who are going round and round the system. My hon. Friend has put his finger on the rationale for our reforms. If we do nothing about this, there will be more and more victims of crime. I do not want to see that happen, although the Opposition are clearly happy to do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

Let us be clear what our proposed probation reforms do. At the moment, and during all the years the previous Government were in power, anyone who goes to jail in this country for less than 12 months walks on to the street with £46 in their pocket, but no help and no supervision whatsoever, and the majority of them reoffend. It is time that changed, and that is what our reforms will do.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

T4. Does my right hon. Friend agree that some offences merit a greater punishment than just a slap on the wrist? What action is he taking to reform the use of cautions?

[The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)]

I completely agree with what my hon. Friend says, and it is why my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor has announced that simple cautions will no longer be available for those cases that must be heard in a Crown Court and for a range of other offences, such as possession of a knife, supplying class A drugs and a range of sexual offences against children. That is exactly the kind of toughening of the system that the public want to see.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vaizey]

That is a capital allocation for the further redevelopment of the South Bank, and obviously some of our major national arts institutions are based in the capital, but something like £174 million is going to arts organisations outside the capital this year, and that level of funding will continue.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

Chester is the north-west’s flag-bearer in the bid to be the city of culture in 2017, and we are trying to build a coalition of local and regional organisations to support our bid. What support is the Department offering in relation to city of culture 2017? Would my hon. Friend care to visit Chester and see the jewel in the crown of the north-west?