Oral Answers to Questions

Suzanne Webb Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I am surprised to hear the SNP talk about extreme members of other parties. At the moment, the UK’s single biggest human rights concern is the trade in misery we see with the small boats and illegal immigration across the country. If the hon. Gentleman is committed to human rights, he should back us in taking every conceivably measure to deal with that problem.

[Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking through the criminal justice system to help young people avoid crime.

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

20. What steps he is taking through the criminal justice system to help young people avoid crime.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)]

The “Beating crime plan” of 2021 highlighted, once again, the importance of early intervention for young people. One such programme is our support for 200 voluntary and community projects to engage children at risk of involvement in crime through mentoring and sports activities.

[Suzanne Webb]

I am keen to see a more preventive approach to crime committed by young adults, particularly knife crime. In 2017, Ryan Passey, aged only 24, lost his life to a perpetrator with a knife, and we are still seeking justice. Will the Minister join me and the Passey family in exploring more ways of reaching out to young adults to ensure that carrying a knife does not become the norm? We all know that people who carry a knife risk becoming either a perpetrator or a victim.

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Obviously I cannot comment on this individual case, but I join her in extending my sympathies to Ryan’s family. We have to do everything we can to bear down on serious violence, and serious violence reduction orders are part of that. The work of youth offending teams is also important in trying to catch people before they turn into more hardened criminals. Even before that, what happens in schools and in our communities is fundamental to helping children and young people stay on the right course.

Solihull Police Station: Proposed Closure

Suzanne Webb Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Julian Knight]

It is an absolute shambles, frankly. The announcement was originally made in a press release and, basically, the same insult has been followed through. We all knew what the result was going to be as soon as the PCC election was decided. Lo and behold, here we are with a PCC in the West Midlands who has been elected through Momentum. If we look around the Chamber, we can see that it is Conservative Members whose local police stations are being closed. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and although my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) cannot speak in tonight’s debate, she is also a fervent defender of her local police station.

We hoped that the money that we agreed to would be adequately spent. Let us have a look at it for a moment. More than £20 million has been spent on Lloyd House, the PCC’s head office—that is a lot of wallpaper, is it not? When the previous PCC’s original decision about the police station was announced, without consultation, there was more than £100 million in the reserves. That would keep my local police station going for more than a century. The £20 million-plus that has been wasted—well, not wasted but spent, or I suppose they would say it has been invested; I would say, “Nice comfortable chairs—£20 million”—would effectively keep my local police station open for 40 years. Despite the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull having contributed £13.7 million in precept allocations in this financial year, we are about to be robbed of our main police station.

[Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I am hearing loud and clear that we have a police and crime commissioner who is failing constituents not just in Solihull but throughout the West Midlands—he is certainly failing the constituents in Stourbridge. Does my hon. Friend agree that the consistent problem with the police and crime commissioner is that he is continually closing police stations and not reopening them, which was the promise? He certainly promised to me to reopen the police station in Stourbridge and that has not yet happened.

[Julian Knight]

It is a familiar story from my hon. Friend. I will come on to the promises that have been broken over this period.

Let me be absolutely clear: I stand against the proposal to permanently close Solihull police station. The plans will leave my constituency without an operational policing base. I know that my constituents stand with me in opposing the plans. Just before the Christmas recess, I launched a petition with my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti), whose constituency is also greatly impacted by the proposals. To date, more than 700 residents from across the borough have signed the petition. That is in addition to the 3,000 who signed the previous time the Labour police and crime commissioner came knocking. I put on record my thanks to my local residents and councillors and to my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden for supporting the petition.

Oral Answers to Questions

Suzanne Webb Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)]

What steps the Government are taking to reform the Mental Health Act 2007.

[Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)]

What steps the Government are taking to reform the Mental Health Act 2007.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Robert Buckland)]

We are determined to work across Government to modernise the Mental Health Act 2007 so that it ensures that patients receive the right care in the right setting at the right time. Prison should be a place for rehabilitation, not a convenient holding pen for those people for whom mental health is the primary driver of their offending.

[Suzanne Webb]

What is the timetable for the Mental Health Act consultation and how can interested parties participate?

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her continuing interest in this important process. We are consulting widely on these proposed reforms, including service users, carers and professionals, to ensure that we get this once-in-a-generation opportunity right. The consultation is now available on the gov.UK website, and will close on 21 April.

Prisons (Substance Testing) Bill

Suzanne Webb Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 16th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)]

I support the Bill. Any measure to drive down drug use in our prisons merits serious discussion and should command cross-party support. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) for the opportunity to speak on the subject.

The Bill will improve drug testing across the prison estate, both state prisons and those operated privately, and will help with the long, hard fight to support prisoners in tackling their drug abuse. It will allow prisons to become proactive both in supporting prisoners and in curbing drug use, as it will eliminate the delay and bureaucracy inherent in the current system. There are no prisons in the Dudley borough, but there are in nearby Wolverhampton and Birmingham, where more drugs have been uncovered in recent years, according to the most recent statistics, which were published only a few months ago. In the west midlands, more than 1,000 searches uncovered drugs in the year up to March, with the worst figures at HMP Featherstone, where 364 searches uncovered drugs—an increase of more than a third on the previous years. Those drugs included psychoactive substances.

Those figures do not necessarily mean that there are more drugs in our prisons. It could reflect—and this is what I believe—the huge investment that the Government have made in prison security. However, more needs to be done. We always need to be one step ahead of the ever-changing drugs landscape. The current system makes it hard to do that. Whenever a new psychoactive substance comes into play, it must be added to existing legislation in what is, as we might expect, an extremely slow process. We cannot afford to be inanimate when fighting drugs. The Bill means that the generic definition of psychoactive substances in the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 could be used by prison authorities. If criminals alter the composition of a drug slightly, we would no longer need to amend the law to detect those drugs effectively.

In conclusion, a similar Bill was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami) in 2018. In the conclusion of his speech on First Reading, he spoke powerfully about reducing reoffending rates and about social mobility:

“If hon. Members are serious about prisons being drug-free, they should support this Bill. If they are serious about rehabilitation of offenders, they should support this Bill. If they are serious about social mobility, by which I mean the ability of men and women to leave prison without the burden of drug addiction, so that they can get on and make the most of their lives, they should support this Bill.”—[Official Report, 17 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 191.]

I echo those words, and I hope that, given that there is Government support, the Bill will eventually make its way on to the statute book.

Oral Answers to Questions

Suzanne Webb Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on supporting victims of domestic abuse.

[Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)]

What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on supporting victims of domestic abuse.

[Imran Ahmad Khan (Wakefield) (Con)]

What discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on supporting victims of domestic abuse.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Buckland]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He will be glad to know that we are promoting access to the family courts via video or telephone, as well as through the 157 priority courts that remained open throughout the pandemic for essential face-to-face hearings. Domestic violence protection orders and non-molestation orders continue to be listed for urgent hearings, despite the current restrictions.

[Suzanne Webb]

On Black Country Day, it is fitting that I pay tribute to Sam Billingham, a constituent of mine who, necessitated by her experience, founded her own domestic violence charity in the west midlands called SODA, which offers support for domestic abuse survivors. What is the Ministry doing to ensure that domestic violence survivors who do not have access to a lawyer can apply for domestic abuse injunctions?

[Robert Buckland]

I readily join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the work of local campaigners such as the ones in her constituency. She will be pleased to know that we are providing £800,000 of funding to the FLOWS—Finding Legal Options for Women Survivors—project run by RCJ Advice, which provides free legal support to victims of domestic abuse who wish to apply for an emergency protective order from the courts. That funding is used to provide a helpline and email service, where victims can be referred to a legal aid solicitor or receive free advice directly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that specific point. It deserves closer scrutiny, and I would be happy to engage directly with her on the issue.

[Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)]

On Black Country Day, what measures is my right hon. Friend taking to reduce the backlog of court hearings that have arisen from covid-19?

[Robert Buckland]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that nudge. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) for not joining in the celebrations for Black Country Day. I will not attempt the accent. Some people think I am not a bad impersonator, but we will move on swiftly.

Recovery continues each week thanks to the hard work of professionals right across the system. More than 150 courts remained fully open throughout the pandemic and we now have over 300 courts and tribunals fully open. As I said in my initial remarks, we are developing and opening new court capacity. I urge providers and interested parties in the Black Country area to come forward and make suggestions to Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service for suitable buildings we can use to ensure that we ramp up court capacity and deal with the caseload.