Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tom Hunt and Damian Hinds

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I think that any such review and analysis would be led by the Government Equalities Office, but I can of course speak with reference to the prison system. On the particular issue of transgender prisoners on the women’s prison estate in England and Wales, our approach is that transgender women can be held on the main women’s estate only if risk-assessed to be safe. That is part of the reason why more than 90% of transgender women in custody in England and Wales have been held on the men's estate, compared with only 50% in Scotland. The further changes in our policy strengthen the position, meaning that no transgender woman convicted of a sexual or violent offence and retaining male genitalia can be assigned to the general women’s estate other than in truly exceptional circumstances, with ministerial sign-off.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

A few weeks ago, I visited Poundland at Sailmakers shopping centre in Ipswich, as well as the Military Unit shop and Essential Vintage. All those businesses are at their wits’ end with repeated thieving in their shops, to the point that one of them has temporarily shut its doors. Does the Lord Chancellor agree that the criminal justice system needs to be far harder on those who are repeatedly caught shoplifting? It is debilitating for a town centre, and we should not let cultural sensitivities get in the way.

Prison Capacity

Debate between Tom Hunt and Damian Hinds

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

The criminal justice system and imprisonment have a number of different objectives, but what they all have in common is public safety. The single most important thing we can do to make people feel safe as they go about their daily business is to reduce reoffending by people who have already been through the system. One aspect of that is making sure that on release people have access in a timely and efficient way to the services they need to get accommodation, to start looking for a job and to receive medical treatment if needed. That is harder when a lot of people are all released at the same time on a Friday. I know that my hon. Friend has a landmark private Member’s Bill coming to the House on Friday to address this specific question and I wish him well with that.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

The answer to the issue of capacity should never be to soften sentences for people who are not safe to have within our community. However, when I was on the Education Committee, I was very concerned to hear that about 30% of those in prison have learning disabilities. The prison education report we published suggested that every prison should have a special educational needs specialist, and that everyone coming into the prison estate should see an educational psychologist. Will my right hon. Friend find time to meet me to discuss the report and how we can work together to try to ensure that more people with learning disabilities do not end up in the criminal justice system because they get the support and diagnoses that they need?

[Damian Hinds]

It is always a pleasure to meet my hon. Friend and discussing that report would be an admirable reason to do so. There is much more awareness of this issue now than in times past. Whether it is SEN or low prior attainment in English and maths, such characteristics are more represented in the prison population than in the general population. We now have neurodiversity specialists in prisons, and we can do much more with educational materials to recognise SEN and the different ways that people learn. As my hon. Friend suggests, ideally we want to do more of that much earlier in the journey, so that people do not become incarceration cases at all. That is a harder nut to crack, but I would be delighted to talk to him about that.

Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Debate between Tom Hunt and Damian Hinds

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and for the support that he indicates for the measure. Our position on Hamas is clear and it is public. Hamas must renounce violence. It must recognise Israel and accept previously signed agreements. Credible moves must be made towards those conditions. They remain the benchmark against which intention should be judged.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

I will take one more intervention and then, Madam Deputy Speaker, I suggest that I make some progress.

[Tom Hunt]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Last weekend, an Israeli tour guide was murdered in Jerusalem. My understanding is that the individual who committed that murder was a member of the political wing of Hamas. Surely that goes to prove that this arbitrary distinction between a military wing and a political wing is not accurate, and that, in its entirety, Hamas is a terrorist organisation and deserves to be labelled as such.

[Damian Hinds]

The incident that my hon. Friend mentions is a timely reminder, and our sympathies are very much with the victims and their families and friends. I will come on, if I may, to the important point that he raises about the distinction, or lack thereof, between the so-called political and military wings.

The threat posed by terrorist organisations varies depending on each group’s ideology, membership and ability to train members. Groups such as Hamas train members in terrorism, as well as preparing and committing terrible acts of violence against innocent members of the public. We have a duty to our allies, as well as to our own people, to tackle groups that inspire and co-ordinate terror on the international stage. Although we can sadly never entirely eliminate the threat from terrorism, we must always do all that we can to act against and mitigate the danger it poses, and to seek to keep the public safe.

Some 78 terrorist organisations are proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000. Thanks to the dedication, courage and skill of counter-terrorism policing, and our security and intelligence services, most of these groups have never carried out a successful attack on British soil. Proscription is a powerful tool for degrading terrorist organisations and I will explain the impact that it can have shortly. We propose to amend the existing listing of “Hamas-Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades”, or Hamas IDQ, in schedule 2 of the Terrorism Act 2000 to cover Hamas in its entirety.

Under section 3 of TACT 2000, the Home Secretary has the power to proscribe an organisation if she believes that it is currently concerned in terrorism. If the statutory test is met, the Home Secretary may then exercise her discretion to proscribe that organisation. The Home Secretary considers a number of factors in considering whether to exercise her discretion. The relevant discretionary factors for Hamas are: the nature and scale of an organisation’s activities; the specific threat posed to British nationals overseas; and the need to support other members of the international community in tackling terrorism.

The effect of proscription is to outlaw a listed organisation and ensure that it is unable to operate in the UK. Proscription is designed to degrade a group’s ability to operate through various means, including: enabling prosecution for the various proscription offences; under- pinning immigration-related disruptions, including the exclusion from the UK of members of groups based overseas; making it possible to seize cash associated with an organisation; and sending a strong signal globally that a group is concerned in terrorism and is without legitimacy.