Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Victoria Prentis and Bob Blackman(10 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
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.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Victoria Prentis and Bob Blackman(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Attorney General (Victoria Prentis)
We are committed to increasing the volume of prosecutions and supporting more victims of domestic abuse. For example, we have ensured that victims now have much longer to report offences.
The Attorney General
My hon. Friend is a great champion for her rural area. She will be pleased to know that, in the south-west England CPS area, we consistently see one of the highest conviction rates for rape and domestic abuse. Her area is covered by Operation Soteria, which is testing new ways of working between the police and the CPS.
Bob Blackman
The breakdown of a relationship is a particular stigma for women in families from the Indian subcontinent, many of whom are forced to either remain in coercive relationships or return to their abuser. What measures could my right hon. and learned Friend take to ensure that those women are given full support through the Crown Prosecution Service and assisted to rebuild their lives?
The Attorney General
My hon. Friend is a great campaigner for Harrow East and all the communities that live there. He will be pleased to know that CPS London is also working hard: this week, it is holding an event in his constituency to develop the domestic abuse joint justice plan, where colleagues from across the criminal justice system will come together to increase prosecutions in the cases he has outlined.
Litter and Fly-tipping: England
Debate between Victoria Prentis and Bob Blackman(8 years, 9 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
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Bob Blackman
I have a very good memory. Surely that should not be the case in a Committee Room in the House of Commons. I could take you, Mr Turner, to parts of London where you will see the pavement littered with people’s chewing gum that has been splodged on the ground and it is almost impossible to remove it. It is unsightly and unhealthy, and it causes immense damage to the local street scene.
Almost the only way to remove chewing gum is steam cleaning or an equivalent. That is expensive, because it requires operatives and it is a lot of work, so few local authorities actually do anything about it. There clearly should be a tax on chewing gum and that money should be passed to local authorities for the specific purpose of clearing up the chewing gum deposited on our streets.
I also believe in the importance of educating young people. I strongly support the Clean for the Queen programme, which is an excellent programme, among others—I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) will promote other aspects of taking action in particular areas. That is a great thing to do. We need to educate young people in particular about the importance of not littering on their streets.
Victoria Prentis
Does my hon. Friend agree that a child who is encouraged to pick up litter in a scheme such as Clean for the Queen grows up to be an adult who does not throw litter? That is very much part of the impetus behind our push for such schemes.
Bob Blackman
I thank my hon. Friend for that. Encouraging good habits at a young age is definitely the way forward. One of the problems in my local area is the fast food restaurant near the school: we see from the litter how long it takes young people to eat their food as they walk back to the school. They deposit it where they choose and the consequences are littered streets and concerned residents. Even worse, some young people throw it in someone’s garden. They think, “I’ve finished with this. What do I do with it? I’ll throw it in the garden.”
On numerous occasions I have told my local authority to provide litter bins on the routes between schools and the fast food restaurants. I remember an exchange with some officers who said, “We’re not going to do that, because the consequence is the litter bins will become full and then we’ll have to pay someone to empty them.” We might think, “Hang on a minute, surely it is cheaper to do that than to clear up the litter,” but logic did not prevail in that case. I think there is a semblance of a duty—we took a lot of evidence on this—on fast food restaurants to keep the place clean.