Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

2. What recent assessment she has made of the compatibility of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill with the European convention on human rights.

[The Attorney General (Victoria Prentis)]

I would like to assure the House that the Government respect their international obligations. The Law Officers convention prevents me from disclosing outside Government whether I have given advice or even what the context of any such advice might be. The Bill to which the hon. Gentleman refers is currently in the other place, and will, I am sure, be discussed very fully there.

[Chris Stephens]

Just this week, we heard media reports that four Rwandans had been granted refugee status in the UK in the past four months, citing well- founded fears of persecution. At the same time, the Government would like us to accept that Rwanda is a safe country, despite the Home Office accepting that those individuals face a real threat of persecution. Can the Attorney General tell us how we can send asylum seekers to Rwanda under those circumstances?

[The Attorney General]

We are asking Parliament to look at the matter afresh—not just to look at the facts as they were before the Supreme Court, but to look at new circumstances. Evidence was published on 11 January to assist Parliament in those deliberations. We have assurances from the Government of Rwanda that the implementation of all measures within the treaty will be expedited, and we will ratify the treaty when we are ready to do so.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

Journalists and bloggers who criticise the Government are arrested, threatened and put on trial, with allegations of torture, disappearances and suspicious deaths. Those are just some of the issues that Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have reported on in Rwanda. When asking Parliament to disregard established legal principles such as the burden of proof and the need for evidence, is the Attorney General genuinely comfortable in passing the Rwanda Bill?

[The Attorney General]

It is constitutionally proper for Parliament to legislate in response to a decision of the Supreme Court. We do it all the time in the finance and tax space. Lord Reed was careful to point out to the Constitution Committee in the other House that we did it following the Burmah oil case in the War Damage Act 1965. In this case, I urge the hon. Lady to look hard at the evidence that the Government put before the House on 11 January. If the Bill passes, everyone must treat Rwanda as generally safe for the transfer of individuals under the treaty.

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

8. What steps she is taking to help increase prosecution rates for cases relating to violence against women and girls.

[The Attorney General (Victoria Prentis)]

We are steadily increasing the number of rape cases sent to the Crown court. We are preparing to launch a joint justice plan, which will transform how the police and the Crown Prosecution Service investigate and prosecute domestic abuse cases.

I will welcome my friend Andriy Kostin, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General, who is not quite here yet because his plane has not arrived, in my office after questions. The relevance of that is that a team of UK experts is supporting his office to investigate and prosecute cases of conflict-related sexual violence in Ukraine.

[Dr Huq]

Last July, the then Solicitor General, the hon. and learned Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Michael Tomlinson), told the House, in a written answer to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon):

“A new VAWG strategy for 2023-2025 is being developed for publication later this year.”

That year has come and gone, as has that Solicitor General, so can the Attorney General tell us the status of the strategy and its content, who the Government are consulting, and when it will be published?

[The Attorney General]

The hon. Lady takes a long-term interest in these affairs, and she I have discussed them for many years. I reassure her that a great deal of work has been done. The work in the rape sphere, which I referenced earlier, is very commendable. After having a really difficult time in prosecuting rapes for many years, we are back up to 2016 levels, and indeed are exceeding them. The joint justice plan, which will build on the rape work in the domestic abuse sphere, will be ready very shortly—we are saying “in the spring”, but I think she will have to wait only a few weeks.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

The Home Affairs Committee carried out an inquiry into the investigation and prosecution of rape. One of our very clear recommendations was that police forces need to have specialist units to investigate rape for cases to proceed to the CPS, and hopefully to court. We know that we get better decision making and communication with victims and the CPS if we have those specialist officers. Is the Attorney General as surprised as I am that not all police forces have those specialist units to deal with rape and sexual assaults?

[The Attorney General]

The right hon. Lady, who does sterling work on the Home Affairs Committee, knows that the police are not directly under my supervision, but I am proud to talk about the very close co-operation between the police and CPS specialists in this field, which has really helped, together with some great granularity and pushing on the statistics to drive up rape prosecutions. She will be glad to know that in her area of Yorkshire and Humberside the number of suspects charged with rape has increased significantly over the last year.

[Paul Howell (Sedgefield) (Con)]

My Newton Aycliffe constituent Zoey McGill suffered from appalling knife crime when her son Jack Woodley was killed in 2021. She is now suffering again, as one of the perpetrators is using social media from custody to glorify himself. Does the Attorney General agree that such actions should be prosecuted, and that the consequences should be publicised to ensure that they become a deterrent against others glorifying themselves from our prisons?

[The Attorney General]

My hon. Friend highlights a horrific case. That is why it is so important that we crack down on mobile phone use, and indeed mobile phone existence, within prisons. The Government have put in £100 million to ensure that prisons have airport-style security, to ensure that it is much more difficult for phones to get in. Incidents such as he raises are very serious, and I commend him for doing so, as well as his constituent Zoey and The Northern Echo, which I understand has been campaigning on the issue.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

5. How many prosecutions have been brought by the Serious Fraud Office for cases of fraud connected with covid-19 (a) contracts and (b) financial support schemes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

6. What recent discussions she has had with the Director of Public Prosecutions on his priorities for the Crown Prosecution Service.

[The Attorney General (Victoria Prentis)]

I have regular meetings with the Director of Public Prosecutions. His priorities align closely with those of the Government—namely, tackling delays, combating violence against women and girls, enhancing our work with victims and driving improvement across the system.

[Bob Blackman]

It appears that almost every week on our streets we see hate-filled demonstrations with antisemitism rife, yet no action seems to be taken. The end result is that my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) has announced his decision to leave this place because of antisemitism and the threats against his person. Will my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General take up the matter with the CPS, to ensure that that is the last such case and that antisemitism is prosecuted properly in the way it should be?

[The Attorney General]

My hon. Friend raises an important and serious matter. I reassure him that I have been working closely with the CPS, which in turn is extremely close to the police, to deal with these very significant issues. The CPS has been embedded in the control rooms during the most serious of the marches that have taken place.

I also reassure my hon. Friend that a large number of prosecutions have already started. Most of the ones that have come to conclusion are necessarily guilty pleas, because prosecutions take time, but we all saw, sadly, a large uptick in that horrible crime after 7 October last year, and we are just starting to get to the phase when trials are beginning where people have not pleaded guilty. I hope he will take some reassurance from my answer and that he will come and see me so that I can talk him through some of the work we are doing.

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)]

Does the Attorney General agree that a key priority for the CPS must be fixing the flawed way that joint enterprise laws are used, and does she agree that no one should ever be convicted of a crime that they made no significant contribution to?

[The Attorney General]

I know the hon. Lady is a long- time campaigner on joint enterprise, and I also know that the Lord Chancellor, my dear friend in this place, has also considered such matters very carefully.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

7. What recent steps she has taken with Cabinet colleagues to ensure the rule of law is upheld within Government.

[The Attorney General (Victoria Prentis)]

I have always been clear that the rule of law is fundamental to our constitution, and it is the duty of the Law Officers to uphold it. As I emphasised in my speech at the Institute for Government last summer and in my appearance before the House of Lords Constitution Committee, I take that duty very seriously indeed. I engage not only with colleagues across Government but with students and other young people, to ensure that the rule of law is protected not just now but for generations to come.

[Mary Glindon]

The Horizon scandal has raised many important legal questions, ranging from the reliance on flawed evidence to the slow pace of the justice system in correcting miscarriages of justice. Will the Attorney General now address the implications for the power of organisations such as the Post Office to pursue private prosecutions, and in particular what oversight the Crown Prosecution Service can or should have over the use of those powers?

[The Attorney General]

I thank the hon. Lady for her serious question and would like her to rest assured that these matters are being considered very carefully within Government. The immediate priority is to take bold and novel action to right, in so far as we can, the wrongs that have come about through the Horizon scandal, but a slower-timed but nevertheless urgent piece of work is to make sure that private prosecutions are sufficiently scrutinised and inspected in future.

[Sir Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the leaking of Law Officer advice for political or any other purposes is not only a breach of the very important Law Officers’ convention respecting the confidentiality of legal advice, but damaging to the public interest and contrary to the rule of law?

[The Attorney General]

My right hon. and learned Friend makes a characteristically significant intervention. Having served as both Solicitor General and Attorney General, he will know very well the importance of the Law Officers’ convention to the working of Government. Legal professional privilege generally is a very important construct and something on which the client relationship relies. In Government it is, if anything, even more significant, and when Law Officers’ advice is leaked it has a chilling effect on our ability to provide free, frank and honest advice to the rest of Government. That is something I wholeheartedly deplore, and I agree with everything my right hon. and learned Friend said.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Attorney General.

[The Attorney General]

The right hon. Lady is right to call for international humanitarian law to be respected and civilians to be protected in Gaza, and I join her in that call. We are deeply concerned about the impact of what is happening on the civilian population in Gaza; too many have been killed, and we want to see Israel take greater care to limit its operations to military targets. We regularly review Israel’s commitment to IHL, and I believe that we in this House all call for an immediate pause that will allow aid to get in and hostages to come out.