Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Ministry of Justice

Oral Answers to Questions

William Bain Excerpts
Tuesday 4th February 2014

(10 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Shailesh Vara Portrait The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)
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My hon. Friend is right to say that the Government made a commitment to have a review, and we will do that. We will be starting it soon, and we will have a consultation. We intend to have the results of the review by the end of the year.

William Bain Portrait Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
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T3. The Secretary of State had previously been adamant that no further contracts would be awarded to Serco until it had received a clean bill of health from the Serious Fraud Office. Will he therefore explain why he awarded it a contract for the extension of Thameside prison on 20 December? When is a contract not a contract?

Lord Grayling Portrait Chris Grayling
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I can only assume that the hon. Gentleman was not in the House last June when I made the original statement about the electronic tagging situation and said that I had decided, in the interests of justice in this country, to proceed with two extensions at prisons run by the two organisations involved. I was completely clear about it, I explained why at the time and he clearly was not listening.