Speaker’s Statement
Mr Speaker
Before we come to the main business, I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in sending our thanks and best wishes to Colin Lee, who retires today as Clerk of Legislation after 37 years’ service to the House. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
Colin has combined his formidable procedural brain with a modernising flair, such as the work he oversaw in the Select Committee Team to ensure that all colleagues are treated with respect and have access to fruitful career paths. He is a highly valued colleague, and I am very grateful to him for the sage advice he has given to me personally over the years. On behalf of the House, I would like to thank Colin for his long and distinguished service, and wish Colin and Brenda all the best for a long and happy retirement.
I would just share with the House that Colin’s favourite biscuits are Penguins, but he could never get the jokes right.
Oral Answers to Questions
(3 days, 7 hours ago)
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Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)
Liz Twist (Blaydon and Consett) (Lab)
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)
Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)
Tristan Osborne (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab)
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
Peter Lamb (Crawley) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Lammy)
Mr Speaker, it is nice to be back on my old beat.
This Government inherited a record courts backlog. We have taken immediate action by funding a record high allocation of 110,000 Crown court sitting days this year. Fundamental reform is of course necessary, which is why the previous Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), commissioned Sir Brian Leveson to propose bold reforms, which we are now considering.
Josh Newbury
I recently had the chance to visit my local magistrates court in Cannock, and I was told that a major barrier to ramping up the number of sitting days in both magistrates and Crown courts is the lack of legal advisers. I am told that many are leaving the Crown Prosecution Service because the pay is often better elsewhere, but that means having to cut back on sitting times. Will my right hon. Friend outline what steps the Ministry is taking to increase the number of legal advisers in our courts?
Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend will be pleased that we are recruiting more legal advisers and we are increasing capacity in the system. He is right that magistrates courts particularly are the bedrock of the system, which is why I was so appalled that the previous Government cut back our magistrates courts so extensively. It is important that we support our magistrates to do their very important work.
Dr Savage
Crown courtrooms are sitting empty for up to 75% of the time. Judges used to be booking in trials three to six months into the future, but now they are booking well into 2027 or even into 2028, which is to save the cost of bringing in a recorder at £830 a day. However, these cases still need to be tried at some point, so that is not actually saving costs, just deferring them. In the meantime, there is a terrible impact on complainants, and in fact on justice itself. What will the Secretary of State do to clear this backlog and ensure that cases come to trial?
Mr Lammy
The hon. Lady is completely right. Victims must see justice being done in real time. That is why we asked Brian Leveson to do the second part of his review, on efficiencies, which goes to the heart of her question.
Liz Twist
Some cases are now being listed for 2029, which is completely unacceptable. How is the Secretary of State undoing the harm inflicted by the Conservative party not only on the justice system but to trust that justice will be found?
Mr Lammy
The inheritance from the previous Government was shocking, and at the heart of it were victims suffering. What we are doing is increasing the number of sitting days, which is hugely important, and I was very pleased to meet the Lady Chief Justice last week to discuss what more we can do. To ensure that we deal with that terrible inheritance, we will of course get on and implement the Leveson review.
John Glen
I wish the right hon. Gentleman the very best in his new appointment, but he is presiding over a complicated system, in which, today, 74 out of 516 Crown courtrooms are empty. Will he comment on that, and on when the second part of the Leveson report will come into effect so that we know when action will be taken on the greater complexity that is yet to be evaluated?
Mr Lammy
The right hon. Gentleman is right that we have to build the system’s capacity to use courtrooms better. I can tell him that Sir Brian Leveson—I was very grateful to Sir Brian for coming to see me, as Foreign Secretary, while he was completing his review because of my experience in the criminal justice system—is completing his review by the end of the year.
Douglas McAllister
One of the most effective steps taken by this Government to help reduce the Crown court backlog is the record increases to criminal legal aid. Fewer criminal barristers and solicitors will not help to tackle case waiting times. Scotland is experiencing unacceptable delays in solemn cases coming to trial, made worse by the inadequate funding of Scottish legal aid by the Scottish Government. Does the Justice Secretary agree that unless we significantly increase legal aid fees across the UK, the current criminal defence model is unsustainable and we risk the collapse of our court system?
Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend highlights almost two decades of the SNP running Scotland into the ground. Here, we have had a record increase of £92 million. On the day we introduce the Hillsborough law, it is hugely important to record that that is the biggest extension of legal aid for people who have suffered at the hands of the state in over a decade.
Freddie van Mierlo
Rape is a heinous and despicable crime, with lifelong consequences for victims. Some do not survive. According to the House of Commons Library, the average number of days from charge to case completion is 363 days. What time do the Government think is acceptable for delivering justice for rape victims? Do they have a target? What is it and what steps are they taking to reach it?
Mr Lammy
We must have swifter justice for victims of rape. When I was shadow Justice Secretary, I was appalled that under the previous Government we got to a position where we had almost decriminalised the situation because there were so few prosecutions. There must be justice, and that means swifter justice.
Tristan Osborne
In west Kent, an initiative to share the resource of Maidstone Crown court with Woolwich Crown court is spreading cases into areas where there is not such a backlog. Can the Government indicate whether that is being openly considered in other parts of the country so that we can spread the backlog across different areas?
Mr Lammy
It is absolutely the case that where courts are coming together and being proactive, we are seeing progress. I look forward to looking more closely at the example of Maidstone and Woolwich. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that that is the way forward.
Richard Foord
Of 221 people arrested for supporting Palestine Action, 162 were arrested under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000. This prohibits people from carrying articles in public which
“arouse reasonable suspicion that an individual is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation.”
Even the protesters who displayed those sickening pictures of Hamas paragliders in the week after 7 October were each given a conditional discharge. Will the Government please look again at the Terrorism Act to avoid clogging up the criminal justice system with people whose real motive is to support action on Palestine?
Mr Lammy
I am always happy to do anything—I did it in my last role and I will do it in this role—to ensure that anyone terrorising is convicted. That is quite properly a matter for law enforcement and prosecutors, but I will examine the detail of what the hon. Gentleman says.
Peter Lamb
I have met constituents who have been victims of some of the most serious offences and were waiting for years before the general election to have access to justice. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how I can ensure that my constituents have timely access to justice?
Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend is right. We have to ensure that the system works for victims. Under the previous Government, half of all magistrates courts closed, and in December 2023, the Crown court backlog had increased by 77%. We are dealing with that—we have to do so as swiftly as possible. I will of course ensure that he meets with the appropriate Minister.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
With your permission, Mr Speaker, I pay tribute to my predecessor, who is mentioned on the face of the Order Paper, who was killed in 1940.
The Justice Secretary keeps referring to the previous Government, and I sort of get that, but I remind him that the new Government have been in post for some 14 or 15 months—over a year—and at some point, that particular argument is going to wear very thin. Is he aware of the extraordinary length of time that victims of serious sexual assault and crimes must wait in the Shropshire courts, particularly Shrewsbury Crown court? It is double the 363 days that we have just heard from the Lib Dem Benches. What will the Justice Secretary do to help those victims, as well as the defendants who may, on occasion, be innocent?
Mr Lammy
The right hon. Gentleman and I are friends across this House. However, I have to say to him—and he should say this to his constituents—that under the previous Government, we saw devastating cuts to the police, with a reduction of 20,000 officers; we saw no building of prisons at all, effectively—only 500 places; we saw the decimation of the Probation Service, which we are rebuilding; and we saw a reduction in sitting days. We have had to get on with all that. Yes, we have made some strides in 14 months, but the devastation was big, and it will take a bit longer.
Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)
Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Lammy)
We are determined to back our hard-working probation staff by investing up to £700 million by the final year of the spending review, and an initial £8 million in technology to reduce administrative burdens. We will also recruit 1,300 trainee probation officers in the next year.
Ms Billington
The probation officers I have spoken to are supportive of the early release scheme inasmuch as it was necessary to deal with the chronic overcrowding in our prisons—a legacy of the previous Government’s dereliction of duty. Many offenders on the fixed recall scheme with a determinate sentence, however, are not being risk-assessed before rerelease, which concerns probation officers. In that context, can the Secretary of State indicate what measures he is putting in place to ensure that probation officers are able to do their job with offenders being released early?
Mr Lammy
I was with probation officers last week, in my first visit as Secretary of State—it was important that probation was the first place I went to because the work and dedication of those officers and the staff is immense. We are working with the Home Office to ensure that those risk assessments are done.
Marie Goldman
My constituency of Chelmsford is an important hub for the justice system in Essex; it is home to several courts, including a Crown court. The independent sentencing review led by David Gauke found that the reoffending rate for those who were homeless or rough sleeping was double that of those who had accommodation to go to upon release. Indeed, I have heard examples from charities of those on probation being recalled to prison simply because they have no fixed address. At a time when prison places are so limited, what steps is the Justice Secretary taking to ensure that such frustrating examples of recall stop, and how does he intend to work with the inter-ministerial group for homelessness and rough sleeping to ensure that the Probation Service’s work is not undermined by a lack of accommodation upon release from prison?
Mr Lammy
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question—no doubt she will be contributing to the debate a little later on our Sentencing Bill. That issue was raised with me by probation workers last week. It remains a big issue in our system, made worse by the previous Government. I commit to working closely with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that that housing is available.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
I welcome my right hon. Friend back to his rightful place. I remember being a junior shadow Minister under him—I will try to be less deferential in my current role.
My right hon. Friend rightly says that the Government are recruiting new probation officers to fulfil the new responsibilities under the Sentencing Bill and to deal with early release. The BBC recently reported, however, a shortage of 10,000 probation officers. How are we going to fill that gap? The Probation Service is absolutely essential to the strategy that he is rightly following now.
Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend and I did a lot of work together while the Probation Service was decimated by a badly botched privatisation that ruined such an incredible service. He is right that we will need to recruit more officers. The £700 million that we found is essential, and I will be looking closely at the allocations over the coming months.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I wish to pay tribute to the probation officers in Northern Ireland, who do an excellent job. I have met them many times, and they are magnificent. On many occasions they have to deal with young people who, due to peer pressure, find themselves influenced to do things that they normally would not do. Restorative justice is one way to try to make things better. Is there a direct strategy within Government to ensure that restorative justice is used to rehabilitate young people and give them the chance of a better life?
Mr Lammy
The hon. Gentleman brings a lot of experience to these issues. What he reflects on is an issue faced in constituencies like mine. I hope he will contribute to the debate on the Sentencing Bill later today.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
I welcome the new Justice Secretary and the Minister responsible for sentencing to their places. The Probation Service relies on an effective tagging system in order to keep our communities safe, but the £300 million contract that the last Government awarded to Serco has resulted in lots of failures. I saw some of them close up when I shadowed Serco over the summer, including, for example, wrong addresses being provided, which means multiple failed visits and a failure to tag the offenders who need to be tagged. Will the Secretary of State tell us how much Serco has been fined in its contract, and will he commit to strengthening penalties so that we ensure that private contractors are not rewarded for failure?
Mr Lammy
The hon. Gentleman is right that Serco’s record was poor and unacceptable. We stepped in, and have fined it. I cannot say by how much, because it is commercially sensitive, but I can tell him that I intend to hold Serco to account. The job that it does is immensely important for public confidence.
Becky Gittins (Clwyd East) (Lab)
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Wyre) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Sarah Sackman)
For years, our court buildings under the last Government were left to crumble and decay. This Government have boosted capital funding from £120 million last year to over £148 million for this year. From Reading to Blackpool, we are building new courts and restoring old ones.
Becky Gittins
Prestatyn justice centre and its hard-working staff provide a vital service to my constituents, but on a recent visit it was clear that the building needs investment. Can the Minister update the House on what the Government are doing to repair and modernise our court estate, and will she look at what can be done to support our facility in Prestatyn?
Sarah Sackman
My hon. Friend is right that the Prestatyn justice centre is a valuable facility for her community. We have a number of projects in the pipeline for Wales. Obviously we must prioritise those court buildings that are most in need and where there is most disrepair so that we can bring them back into use, but I am happy for her to write to me about that particular case.
Cat Smith
Since 2019 my constituents in Lancaster have had to look at a ring of steel fencing around the Lancaster courthouse in our city centre as it awaits maintenance work to make it more sightly. The fencing has been there since 2019, so how much longer will my constituents have to wait for this maintenance work?
Sarah Sackman
I understand that people in Lancaster have been using the Crown court in nearby Preston, which is a more modern and accessible facility. We are undertaking a consultation about the future of Lancaster Crown court, but I am happy to write to my hon. Friend in more detail about the timeline.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Does the Minister agree that access to justice is very important, particularly in rural areas, where sometimes witnesses or those offering family support have to travel to court appearances? Is it not vital to maximise accessibility for such people?
Sarah Sackman
The hon. Member is absolutely right. When we talk about access to justice, that must mean access to justice in every single respect, and there is no more obvious demonstration of that than accessibility to the door of the court. That is why we undertake continuous review of our court estate to ensure that it is physically accessible to all users.
Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Lammy)
The safety of our prison staff is a No. 1 priority for me. That is why we are investing £40 million to stop the contraband that puts our hard-working staff particularly at risk. We are also rolling out protective body armour for use in the highest security units and trialling the use of Tasers for specialised staff.
Jack Rankin
Thousands of drones are being used to smuggle contraband such as weapons and drugs into prisons. Locally, I have met leading security company Preventive Concepts Security. The shadow Lord Chancellor was good enough to visit it in France to see its technology in action, detecting and disabling drones. What specific steps is the Department taking to roll out drone detection capabilities across the prison estate? Is it currently engaging directly with private stakeholders such as Preventive Concepts Security?
Mr Lammy
I did see that the shadow Lord Chancellor had visited France. I looked seriously and closely at what he was proposing, and I propose to make some announcements in that area over the coming weeks.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Last week in Brighton, the TUC unanimously backed the “Safe Inside” campaign promoted by the Joint Unions in Prisons Alliance calling for urgent action against record-high levels of prison violence and second-hand exposure to psychoactive substances. Does the Secretary of State agree that current conditions are quite intolerable for prison staff and that the Prison Service needs to be held directly accountable for the health and safety of everyone who works in prisons, all of whom deserve to be safe inside?
Mr Lammy
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. We are talking to the unions. I hope that the £40 million we have put in will be able to alleviate some of the problems, but he is right that the assaults on our staff are entirely unacceptable. That is why I am committing from the Dispatch Box to making further announcements in the coming days.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I am sure that the whole House will join me in paying tribute to the murdered prison officer Lenny Scott, whose killer was found guilty and sentenced over the recess. It is hard to overstate the seriousness of the case: this was a prison officer murdered simply for doing his job. Like police officers, we ask prison officers every day to stand up to some of the most violent people in our society. Does the new Lord Chancellor agree that prison officers deserve the same legal protections as police officers?
Mr Lammy
The work that our prison officers do is incredible. The work that our prison governors do is incredible. Over the course of both my career in law and my career in the House, I have visited very many prisons, and I pay tribute to their work. I will certainly be looking closely at this issue. I hope to come forward with more announcements in the coming days.
Dr Mullan
I am sure that prison officers will welcome any future announcements that the Lord Chancellor makes. We have talked this morning about preventive measures we can take to ensure prison officer safety, but police officers benefit from legal protections in terms of the consequences for murdering them, with mandatory whole-life orders imposed on people who do that. The Opposition will table an amendment to the Sentencing Bill that would give the same protection to prison officers. I think they deserve it, and I would welcome his support for that measure.
Mr Lammy
It is a serious issue and I will certainly consider it. I know that the Law Commission is looking at similar provisions.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jake Richards)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
This Government are committed to tackling the root causes of reoffending. That means investing in services that turn offenders away from a life of crime and instead back on the straight and narrow. That includes services in employment, accommodation and substance misuse treatment.
Steff Aquarone
I thank the Minister for his response and welcome him to his place. We have a prison population crisis, but rather than building or releasing our way out of it, we have to reduce reoffending. I recently visited HMP Bure in my constituency and saw the excellent work it has been doing internally to support prisoners in learning new skills and equipping them for life after release. Will the Minister assure me that the Government will support and provide funding for such programmes? Will he meet me to hear more about the fantastic work of the staff at HMP Bure?
Jake Richards
The Government are committed to tackling reoffending, and that includes investment in services exactly like those that the hon. Member visited. We are building more prison places, because we need to. In 14 years the Conservatives added just 500 additional prison places, and in 14 months we have added 2,500. Alongside that, we have to tackle reoffending, and I hope the hon. Member will support the Sentencing Bill later this afternoon, which will do that.
Dr Beccy Cooper (Worthing West) (Lab)
Rehabilitation is a vital part of prison health programmes, but when prisoners develop infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, they can be isolated from organised programmes such as rehab. Given the risk that interrupted TB treatment can fuel antimicrobial resistance, what steps is the Department taking to ensure that prisoners receive both uninterrupted medical care and continued access to rehabilitation?
Jake Richards
I will be talking with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care on exactly that issue and on tackling reoffending, making sure that there is treatment in prisons so that prisoners are rehabilitated. The sole focus of this Government is on stopping reoffending and cutting crime, and that means working with prisoners. There is also the Sentencing Bill, and I hope that my hon. Friend will contribute to the debate on that today.
Kirith Entwistle (Bolton North East) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)
It is vital that victims feel supported at court. The Ministry of Justice funds the national witness service, which provides support on the day of trial, and independent sexual violence advocates can accompany victims while they are in the courtroom. Pre-trial, victims can receive support from victim liaison officers or from the MOJ-funded victim support services, and that is available throughout their criminal justice journey.
Kirith Entwistle
May I welcome our new Minister and Justice Secretary to their places? I have heard far too many stories from constituents who have endured sexual violence and rape. They tell me how isolating and intimidating the court system can feel and how difficult it can be to get the support they need. Will the Minister reassure me and those constituents that this Government are doing everything they can to ensure that victims and survivors of rape and sexual violence are supported in a timely manner?
Alex Davies-Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for that important question. She is a tireless advocate for all victims of violence against women and girls. She will know that this Government are committed to supporting those victims in court through measures such as section 28, the witness service and our victim liaison officers. To further support victims, the Ministry of Justice also funds support services such as independent sexual violence advocates and independent domestic violence advocates. We are also committed to introducing free, independent legal advisers for victims of adult rape across England and Wales, and I hope to announce more on that measure soon.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
My constituent Louise reported her sexual assault to the police back in 2021. She has had court dates pushed back twice and the trial is now expected in December 2026, nearly six years after reporting it to the police. What assessment has the Minister made of the impact of such delays on victim-survivors, who are also witnesses, and of the impact on the quality of the eventual court case?
Alex Davies-Jones
I thank the hon. Member for that really important question. All my thoughts are with Louise and, sadly, so many like her who are waiting for justice. We know that justice delayed is justice denied. That is why we asked Sir Brian Leveson to conduct the once-in-a-generation reform of our criminal courts system: to ensure that we have a criminal justice system fit for the future, which breaks down the backlog on our court cases so that victims such as Louise are no longer waiting for justice.
Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)
Last week the Justice Committee heard evidence about the use of special measures to support vulnerable or intimidated witnesses to give their best evidence. That is obviously so important in rape and sexual assault cases. Will the Minister reaffirm her support for the continuing use of those measures, despite some debate about the evidence of their effectiveness?
Alex Davies-Jones
I was pleased to attend the Justice Committee to discuss how important section 28 is to vulnerable witnesses and victims, and the difference that it makes by allowing victims of rape and sexual offence crimes specifically to be maintained within the justice system, allowing them to give their evidence in a safe manner that is more accessible to them. In a justice system where currently 60% of rape victims are withdrawing from the process because of the backlog, the waits and how traumatic it is, anything that helps them to be maintained in the criminal justice system is worth championing.
Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)
My constituent waited 18 months to face her abuser in court, only to be told the day before the trial was supposed to begin that it had been postponed until May 2026. How are victims of domestic abuse supposed to get redress and closure when they face such intolerable delays?
Alex Davies-Jones
It is unacceptable that this is being allowed to carry on in our courts, which is why we are taking that fundamental reform, because without victims we would not have a criminal justice system and it is important that we put them at the heart of this. We are funding independent domestic abuse advocates to support victims, to get them through the system quicker. We are also committed to rolling out more specialist domestic abuse courts. That was one of the clear recommendations of the Leveson review, and it is something that the Courts Minister, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman), and I are working closely on to support victims, but I will happily discuss this further with the hon. Member to ensure that we get this right for victims of domestic abuse.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
Child sex offenders destroy the lives of their victims, so why did the Justice Secretary, as Foreign Secretary, appoint the “best pal” and known business partner of one of the world’s most notorious paedophiles as our ambassador to Washington? What message does the Minister think this sends to the victims of rape and child sex abuse here in the UK?
Alex Davies-Jones
Child sexual abuse is one of the most abhorrent crimes in our society. That is why it is this Government who are enacting the recommendations of the grooming gangs inquiry. That is why we have kicked off the review into ensuring that victims get the justice they so deserve. It is why we are today introducing a Hillsborough law—a groundbreaking law to ensure that victims and survivors never again have to wait decades for truth and justice.
Robert Jenrick
The Minister could not answer, because it is simply indefensible and she knows it. Everyone in this House knows it. Everyone knows it. On Sunday, the family of one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, said that Mandelson should never have been appointed. I agree; almost every person in this country agrees. Did the Justice Secretary not read the papers that detailed Mandelson’s extensive connections to Epstein after he had been convicted? Or did he read them and flippantly disregard the crimes and pain he caused so many? Will the Minister take this opportunity, in her role, to apologise on behalf of the Justice Secretary to Epstein’s victims?
Mr Speaker
I understand the point being raised, and it is a very important one, but we are a long distance from the original question—
Mr Speaker
I am well aware of that and certainly do not need to be told. We have a three-hour debate coming up on that subject, so hopefully the Minister can respond.
Alex Davies-Jones
Thank you, Mr Speaker. The shadow Justice Secretary says from a seated position that this is about justice for victims. If this was really about justice for victims, in the 14 years of his Government he would have carried out reforms to ensure that victims got swift justice. Instead, he presided over a criminal justice system that is at breaking point, where victims are waiting years for their day in court, and where prisons are overflowing and we are unable to ensure that there is always a space available. It is this Government that are ensuring there will always be a prison place available. It is this Government that are getting on with carrying out the recommendations of the national grooming inquiry. It is this Government that take victims and justice seriously.
Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)
On 15 July, the Fuller inquiry recommended introducing statutory regulation for funeral directors. The Government recognise the urgency of the concerns raised and we are carefully considering all the recommendations. The Government have committed to responding to the inquiry with an interim update on progress this year, and a final response will be given by summer 2026.
Mark Sewards
The Minister will be aware of the plight of Zoe Ward and Cody Townend, two mums from Leeds who tragically lost babies in different circumstances but who both went to the same funeral director, who did not treat their babies’ bodies with the dignity, care or respect that they deserved. Despite the shocking details of these cases, the police found nothing actionable because the funeral sector is not regulated in any way. Will the Minister commit to meeting Zoe, Cody and me to discuss these horrific cases, but also to talk about how quickly we can regulate the law in this area to ensure that what happened to them never happens to anyone ever again?
Alex Davies-Jones
The whole House will be utterly horrified at the cases of Zoe and Cody and what they have had to go through. Dignity for our deceased should be upheld by all as something of fundamental importance. My colleagues and I are committed to ensuring that we get funeral regulation right, and I am working on that with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department of Health and Social Care, and the Department for Business and Trade. I would be honoured to meet my hon. Friend, Zoe and Cody to discuss this further.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)
Supporting victims and witnesses is key to ensuring that offenders are brought to justice. Measures are in place to support victims. We have already discussed those measures, such as section 28 and the Ministry of Justice-funded victim and witness services. The witness service provides emotional and practical on-the-day support to help prosecution and defence witnesses in criminal courts across England and Wales, because we need them to be able to give the best evidence possible.
Caroline Voaden
I recently met a constituent who had served as a juror in a very distressing child sexual abuse case. She highlighted the profound impact that such trials can have not just on the witnesses themselves, but on the jurors, who may experience trauma and even post-traumatic stress disorder. Although the appointment of the new Victims’ Commissioner is welcome, could the Minister outline what support is available for jurors who have to cope with the impact of the evidence they see and hear in such distressing cases?
Alex Davies-Jones
The hon. Member makes an important point. I would like to take this opportunity to put on the record my thanks to everyone who does their civic duty by taking part in jury service. Juries are a cornerstone of our justice system and carry out an important function. There is support available for jurors, and I am so sorry to hear of her constituent’s situation. If the hon. Member wants to write to me, I will happily look into this more and work with her on what more we can do to support jurors, who do such a brilliant job.
Emma Lewell (South Shields) (Lab)
My constituent Billy Boyack saw his wife Angela and son Stephen killed in a head-on collision. The driver responsible initially showed no remorse and was already banned from the area under bail conditions. He received only a 13-year sentence. How does the Minister intend to redress the unfairness in our sentencing laws, with victims like Billy suffering such injustice?
Alex Davies-Jones
All my thoughts are with Billy and the family for the horrific tragedy they have suffered. My hon. Friend will know that we are debating the Sentencing Bill later today, looking at how we redress the balance here. The Law Commission is also doing a special piece of work looking at homicide law, and I would happily discuss that with her and Billy and discuss how best we can support them.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jake Richards)
Although there is a long-term downward trend in the rate of proven reoffending, this country remains an outlier in that regard. That is why the Government are taking action to reduce reoffending, especially among prolific offenders. That includes measures in the Sentencing Bill on short-term sentencing, community punishment, investment in regional employment councils to bring local partners together to help offenders into work, and the rolling out of intensive supervision courts, which have had incredibly encouraging results so far.
Marsha De Cordova
I, too, welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice and his new ministerial team to their roles. The Clink Charity has delivered life-changing rehabilitation at HMP Brixton for over a decade, significantly reducing reoffending rates. Indeed, its graduates are 64% less likely to reoffend. However, the charity has recently been told that it must compete in a commercial procurement process alongside large corporations to continue operating at Brixton. That risks disadvantaging an award-winning charity with a proven track record that is having a positive impact. Does the Minister agree that this is unfair, and can he reassure me that he will review the situation to ensure that procurement processes consider the excellent work already being achieved by organisations such as the Clink?
Jake Richards
Yes, I am aware of the great work that the Clink does, as are the Justice Secretary and the Prisons Minister in the other place. We will be reviewing what has happened and is happening there in due course.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
One of the keys ways to reduce reoffending is to ensure that ex-offenders leaving prison have secure places to live and are not tempted to go back to a life of crime. However, it can be a consequence of early release that that is not prepared in advance. What action will the Minister take so that prison governors and those involved in the prison service ensure that ex-offenders go into secure accommodation once they leave prison?
Jake Richards
The hon. Member raises an important point and challenge for the Probation Service as the Sentencing Bill comes to fruition. I was with the Justice Secretary just last week meeting probation staff. Housing is a big challenge. I will work with colleagues from across Government to ensure that we are up to that challenge. The hon. Member makes a good point, and I will update the House in due course.
Becky Gittins (Clwyd East) (Lab)
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Lammy)
It is my honour to take my first oral questions as Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary.
Today, the Government will introduce the Public Office (Accountability) Bill—better known as the Hillsborough law. It will create a new professional and legal duty of candour, placing public servants under a duty to act with honesty and integrity at all times. It will be backed by a new offence for misleading the public, and two new offences for misconduct in public office.
This is an historic moment, but the credit belongs not to the Government but to the families of the 97, whose courage never faltered, and to all who fought for justice after Grenfell, after Windrush, after the infected blood and Horizon scandals. This law will be their legacy. We cannot rewrite history, but with the Hillsborough law, we can ensure that it never repeats itself again.
Becky Gittins
I associate myself with the Secretary of State’s passionate remarks. Some 71% of people in the youth justice system have a speech and language need that may impact on their ability to access justice, but only a tiny fraction of those young people have received any speech and language support. How is he working across Government—particularly with the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Education—to prevent those vulnerable young people from being disproportionately drawn into the youth justice system?
Mr Lammy
I remain very concerned, particularly about neurodiversity in young people and how they fare in the criminal justice system. I will look closely at the youth justice system, working closely with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care and of course the Department for Education.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
I welcome the Justice Secretary to his place. The only one in, one out deal that is working in the Government is the one for Deputy Prime Ministers.
Just last month, the country was crying out that the Justice Secretary must face justice after his scandalous failure to register a licence for fish. Well, he thought he was off the hook, but finally it is justice for Lammy. I know that he has a previous and rather traumatic experience with one John Humphrys on “Mastermind”, so I hope that he is sitting comfortably. How many foreign nationals are clogging up our prisons, and does he stand by the letter he signed that opposed the removal of 50 foreign criminals, one of whom went on to murder?
Mr Lammy
I will look forward to this. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is so good that my predecessor was promoted, and that he is auditioning for another job. Let me be clear: returns under this Government have gone up 14%. I took a keen interest as Foreign Secretary. They will be going up further.
Robert Jenrick
I will give it to the Justice Secretary; that was a better reply than the one he gave when he was asked which monarch succeeded Henry VIII and he said Henry VII, but it was not the answer that I was asking for. In fact, there are 10,772 foreign nationals in our prisons, and that figure has gone up under Labour. The obstacle to so many of their removals is the European convention on human rights, which has morphed into a charter for criminals. The previous Justice Secretary pretended that we could reform the ECHR, but the Attorney General, Lord Hermer, has stated that that position is a “political trick”. Is it a trick that this Justice Secretary intends to play on the British public?
Mr Lammy
I know the right hon. Gentleman was a corporate lawyer, but he really needs to get into the detail. We are reforming through the Sentencing Bill so that we can get people out of the country by deporting them on sentencing. He needs to get into the weeds and look at the Bill—he can do better.
Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Sarah Sackman)
I am deeply troubled by this case, and of course, I am happy to meet my hon. Friend. It is hard to think of a more graphic illustration of what we mean when we say that justice delayed is justice denied, and it is exactly why this Government are gripping the backlog in our courts, with record sitting days, increased sentencing powers for magistrates and by proposing once-in-a-generation, bold reform of our criminal courts.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
I would like to associate myself with the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments on the bravery of the Hillsborough families and pay tribute to them for the success that has been landed today.
Many of us across the House are deeply concerned that domestic abusers are weaponising the family court to perpetrate their abuse. Efforts to reform it have not yet been forthcoming from this Government, and we need change. Will the Deputy Prime Minister commit to legislating in the next King’s Speech for reform of the family court, so that it supports survivors and does not sabotage them any longer?
Mr Lammy
We are determined to look at this lacuna for victims of domestic violence, and if necessary, we will come forward with further amendments or, indeed, legislation.
Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jake Richards)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her really important question. I worked with the amazing charity Children Heard and Seen prior to getting this role. I am determined to ensure that we do more to protect the children of prisoners. The Prisons Minister in the other place is already working with the Women’s Justice Board to look at better ways we can treat women prisoners to ensure that they are rehabilitated.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
Sarah Sackman
The hon. Member raises a very important point. We know that the success rate of appeals is high and the delays are severe in the SEND tribunal, which has a huge impact on children and families. We are close to the maximum number of sitting days across all our jurisdictions, to bear down on those delays, but I will certainly take his point on board as we look to reform the SEND system.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
Jake Richards
My hon. Friend raises a really important point. The Sentencing Bill, which we will debate later today, has really important measures that will protect victims of domestic abuse and ensure that victims are at the heart of our criminal justice policy, as well as probation services.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
Sarah Sackman
The sorts of delays that the hon. Gentleman’s constituent is experiencing are unacceptable. The consensus is that the delays are unacceptable and that we have to do something big and bold about them. This is a complex system, which is why we have asked Sir Brian Leveson, with his expertise, to tell us how best we go about that, but we will have to get behind once-in-a-generation reform. We are gripping the issue now—we are making record investment in criminal legal aid and sitting days—but we will need reform as well.
Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)
I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his announcement on the Hillsborough law. For decades, the families have carried the weight of injustice, and Governments have failed to act. Today, the Hillsborough law will be laid before this House, but it must not be another false start. Will the Deputy Prime Minister promise me that this Bill will be the Hillsborough law, and that it will emerge stronger and not weaker from Parliament and, finally, deliver justice for the 97?
Mr Lammy
I was pleased to sign the 2017 Bill and to put my name, along with that of the Prime Minister, to the 2019 amendment. I pay tribute to the families. I made a pledge to them yesterday: we will see no watering down of the Bill. I call to mind Khadija Saye, who died in Grenfell Tower, and that is why it is such a privilege to steer through the House this important law on behalf of not only the 97, but many, many others.
Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)
Sarah Sackman
I was pleased to meet Andrew Turner and the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) on this important issue. We have to get the balance right between protecting vulnerable adults from financial abuse while at the same time ensuring that they can access assets that are theirs. It is complicated and requires cross-Government work, but I assure the hon. Lady that the impetus is there.
Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)
Further to Ministers’ earlier answers about waiting lists in Crown and magistrates courts, coroners courts also have a large backlog. I have a constituent who has been waiting nearly three years for an inquest to be completed. What can be done to relieve the pressure on grieving families who have been bereaved and to speed up the process?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)
I have had several productive conversations with the chief coroner, looking at how we can make the inquest process as quick as possible to ensure that the bereaved are supported and not left traumatised waiting for their inquest. The Bill we are laying before Parliament today, the Hillsborough law, has many parts looking at how to improve the inquest process and it gives more powers to coroners. We are looking at what more we can do on the reform of inquests. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend and others on how to improve the coronial process.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
Mr Lammy
I know the hon. Lady’s constituency well, so I will take a close look at the issue.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
Victims of sexual crimes are understandably often traumatised. What steps are the Government taking to ensure the long-term sustainability of specialist support for those victims—such as the Calderdale WomenCentre, which provides supports for victims in Calder Valley—in particular given the long waits for justice and the high demand for trauma-informed support?
Alex Davies-Jones
May I put on the record my sincere gratitude to the WomenCentre for doing all it can to support the victims of these crimes? Support services are a vital element of ensuring that victims and witnesses engage with the criminal justice system, and are kept informed about the uptake of their trial. We have ringfenced funding to protect these special support services. We are currently going through the allocations process to ensure that we have support services at the front of our minds, and I will be happy to keep my hon. Friend updated as that comes forward.
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
In July this year, alongside a cross-party group of parliamentarians and others, I wrote to the then Lord Chancellor seeking a meeting regarding improving gatekeeping and alternative dispute resolution in family court matters. I have not received a response. Can the Lord Chancellor give me the reassurance that such a meeting will take place?
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
Barlinnie prison is operating at 30% above capacity, and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons is strongly urging Scottish Government action before the £1 billion replacement is finally built in 2028. What steps are Ministers taking to avoid the costly mistakes of the SNP Scottish Government in tackling the prison capacity crisis?
Mr Lammy
The SNP is running down Scotland and wasting taxpayers’ money on the new Barlinnie prison—more than double the original estimated cost. We are doing much better on this side of the border, and we are working with colleagues to see what we can do about that situation.
Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)
Does the new Secretary of State for Justice recognise sharia law and sharia courts in the United Kingdom—yes or no?
Sarah Sackman
Sharia law forms no part of the law of England and Wales, but where people choose to put themselves before those councils—in common with Christian, Jewish and other courts of faith—that is part of religious tolerance which is an important British value.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State join me in paying tribute to officers at Harlow police station? During recess, I went on a ride-along and saw their professionalism and dedication at first hand.
Mr Lammy
I agree with my hon. Friend 100%—and not just because a lot of those officers are Spurs supporters.
Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Prison officers at Whitemoor prison in my constituency have raised concerns that the recruitment process for staff is not working effectively and is unduly bureaucratic. Will the Secretary of State write to me with his assessment and look at what changes could be made?
Mr Lammy
Yes, of course, and I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
I am sure the Lord Chancellor has read Baroness Harman’s independent review of bullying, harassment and sexual harassment at the Bar and on the bench, which was published last week. Its troubling findings are primarily for the Bar itself and for the judiciary to address, but do the Government support the report’s recommendations and what can they do to ensure that they are implemented?
Sarah Sackman
In typical fashion, Baroness Harman has conducted a thorough review into our professions and the judiciary. The judiciary and the Bar are one of the prides of this country, but where there are unacceptable practices and behaviours, it is right that we shine a light on them and demand that we do much better.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
As Ministers will know, some rogue builders take thousands of pounds from people, wreck their homes and leave them while they go on to do the same to other victims, yet victims are told that no crime has been committed. Will the ministerial team look at the notion of fraud when a pattern of such behaviour can be evidenced?
Alex Davies-Jones
We will be consulting on a new victims code in due course to make sure that all these crimes are captured, so that we can support all victims. I would be happy to discuss this matter further with the right hon. Gentleman.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Wyre) (Lab)
For six years, Lancaster courthouse has been surrounded by temporary fencing as it awaits maintenance. How much longer will my constituents have to wait?
Sarah Sackman
I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to address her point and to give her the details that she requires.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
The new Minister stated earlier that the Government have created 2,405 new prison places, but 1,468 of those are at HMP Millsike, which is part of the new prisons programme that was announced by the previous Conservative Government. The 10,000 additional prison places estate expansion programme—including the houseblocks and refurbishments programme, and the category D programme—has been downgraded from amber to red in the delivery confidence assessment, due to the programme’s key supplier entering administration. What steps is the Justice Secretary taking to put prison construction back on track?
Jake Richards
The hon. Member seems to be the last person defending the last Conservative Government on prisons and law and order. The truth is that over 14 years, they built 500 prison places; in 14 months, this Labour Government have built 2,500 places. We are fixing the mess that they left behind.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Voices—a domestic abuse charity in Bath—has created a guide to family court proceedings to support survivors to navigate the family courts without legal representation. The pilot was rolled out in the south-west and in Yorkshire. Will the Government work with Voices to roll it out nationally?
Alex Davies-Jones
I am happy to meet Voices to discuss that guidance. We have been working with organisations like the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service and CAFCASS Cymru to ensure that victims and survivors have the best support available when they are navigating the family court process.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
Under current law, most instances of the sexual abuse of animals are not offences. Not only are those acts despicable in themselves, but given the proven link between animal abuse and child abuse, does the Minister agree that this dangerous gap is a missed opportunity to identify abusers before they go on to harm children?
Points of Order
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On 16 June, I asked a written question to the Department of Health and Social Care, seeking an update on plans for a new dental school at the University of East Anglia. This is a hugely important issue for people in Norfolk and has been raised by MPs across the House. I have been left with a holding answer by the Department for three months, with no updates in sight, and today we break for another month of recess. This is not an acceptable way for the Government to handle scrutiny. I seek your guidance on what avenues are available to me to secure answers from the Government on this issue of deep concern to my constituents.
Mr Speaker
It is totally unacceptable to treat any Member of any party in this House that way. To be left with a holding answer for three months is not acceptable. I am sure those on the Treasury Bench are now busily answering that question; if not, please let me know, and I am sure we can do something more about it.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last week, the House debated the incursion into Polish airspace by Russian drones, and there was clear cross-party unity on the need for the UK robustly to support our NATO allies. It is therefore deeply disappointing that the Secretary of State for Defence chose to announce the deployment of Typhoons to Poland outside this House. There is nothing more important than the defence of the realm, and the decision to deploy service personnel is of the highest significance. Ministers have offered a written statement today, but this action after the fact does not live up to the severity and importance of the decision that the Government have made to deploy our planes and personnel. Can you advise on how we can ensure that future statements of this magnitude are brought properly before this House?
Mr Speaker
I will be quite honest: this House should be treated with respect. The fact is that I am not quite sure whether the Secretary of State could have come to the House before the Typhoons were needed—and I never want to put the House in that position. I can assure the hon. Gentleman, however, that I have had no indication that a Minister intends to come to the House to make a statement on this matter. Quite rightly, he has put his point on the record. I take defence matters seriously, and I am sure that he will have been heard.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Thank you for allowing me to raise a point of order, of which I have sent given you notice. Have you had an indication from the Foreign Secretary that the Government will either come to this House today, or that they will make a statement concerning the UN independent international commission of inquiry report on the Occupied Palestinian Territories? That report has confirmed in horrifying detail the acts of genocide now being committed by Israeli forces against the Palestinian people—against children: destroying hospitals, destroying schools and destroying life itself. This is a serious matter. If we are to continue normal relations with Israel, I think the Foreign Office needs to explain why we are having those relations with a country that is committing acts of genocide against the Palestinian people.
Mr Speaker
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I have had no indication that Ministers intend to come to the House to make a statement on this matter, but he has certainly put the point on the record. I know that many other Members are concerned. I will look to the Government to bring forward a statement on our immediate return to the House. If not, I am quite sure that others will, on our return, look to place before me a request for an urgent question.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. The UN independent international commission of inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories has concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Despite welcoming the Israeli President last week, the Government have failed to make a statement, as we have heard. As the House is about to go into recess, can you advise me and the House how we are to seek accountability on this important matter?
Mr Speaker
I cannot add any more to what I have already said. Once again, I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench have listened to the right hon. Member. I know that we have three hours for the next debate, but, quite rightly, this message has gone across. I could not be clearer: I expect the Government to come forward with a statement. If not, I am sure I can work with Members who may wish to place an urgent question before the House.
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. On 1 September, the hon. Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), now Minister of State in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, issued a written statement on the contingent liabilities from the funded decommissioning programme and Government support package for Sizewell C, which is due to be undertaken on 1 October. It is a liability to Government and taxpayers that could reach up to the tune of £12 billion. That is a significant contingent liability for the public purse, and due parliamentary scrutiny is necessary. Although the Minister stated reasons for not providing the required 14 days for scrutiny and withholding of approval, which is normally required for any contingent liability above £300,000, surely Parliament should have been presented with the results of the ongoing review of the liabilities during whatever time was available, and parliamentary time should have been scheduled to allow parliamentarians to scrutinise—
Mr Speaker
Order. I think I got the message in the first five minutes.
I am very grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of her point of order. As she says, a contingent liability of this size would normally involve the laying of a memorandum for a period of 14 sitting days before the guarantee is approved. The written statement made by the Minister for Energy on 1 September, when the House returned from the summer recess, sets out the reasons why the usual process could not be followed in this case. I suggest that the hon. Member might want to raise this matter privately with the Public Accounts Committee and the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee. I know that she is a doughty Member who will ensure that those concerns are raised in many other areas.
Bill Presented
Public Office (Accountability) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Secretary David Lammy, supported by the Prime Minister, Secretary Pat McFadden, Secretary Bridget Phillipson, Secretary Peter Kyle, Secretary Lisa Nandy, James Murray, Nick Thomas-Symonds, Alex Davies-Jones, Josh Simons, Anna Turley and Chris Ward, presented a Bill to impose a duty on public authorities and public officials to act with candour, transparency and frankness; to make provision for the enforcement of that duty in their dealings with inquiries and investigations; to require public authorities to promote and take steps to maintain ethical conduct within all parts of the authority; to create an offence in relation to public authorities and public officials who mislead the public; to create further offences in relation to the misconduct of persons who hold public office and to abolish the common law offence of misconduct in public office; to make provision enabling persons to participate at inquiries and investigations where the conduct of public authorities may be in issue; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Monday 13 October, and to be printed (Bill 306) with explanatory notes (Bill 306-EN).
Ambassador to the United States
(3 days, 7 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the appointment process and the circumstances leading to the dismissal of the former United Kingdom Ambassador to the United States, Lord Mandelson.
Sometimes exquisite coincidences happen in this place. We have just seen a Bill presented on the topic of public office accountability by the immediate past Foreign Secretary, the now Justice Secretary. I will just read to the House the first line of its description:
“a Bill to impose a duty on public authorities and public officials to act with candour, transparency and frankness”.
I think I might return to those issues in the course of what I have to say.
As I have said, this is a matter of utmost concern across the House. It is an issue that does not just concern the Conservative party, the Scottish National party or the DUP; Members from all parts of the House are worried about it, as we have seen in the newspapers. The Government have key questions to answer, and as I said yesterday, the central question is: who knew what, and when? Let us be clear, though. There are many questions on many levels in this matter, and the Government must answer them all; so far, they have singularly failed to do so.
The questions fall naturally into four categories. First, was Peter Mandelson ever an appropriate character to appoint as our ambassador? [Hon. Members: “No.”] Well, we will get to that later. Secondly, what was the procedure for vetting, was it properly followed, and why has it gone so horribly wrong? Thirdly, what has happened in the last couple of weeks to lead to the demise of the former ambassador—who made the critical decisions and why? Fourthly, what do we do now? How do we make this Government tell the House and the nation the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth—which in itself would be a novelty for Lord Mandelson?
Let us begin with whether Lord Mandelson was ever an appropriate selection. As I said yesterday, our ambassador in Washington stands at the nexus of our most important bilateral relationship. For those who have not served in government, it is the one bilateral relationship run by No. 10, not the Foreign Office. That is because it is so important, and it is a role of exceptional sensitivity. More classified information crosses the ambassador’s desk than gets to most Cabinet Ministers. Indeed, in British embassies, the agencies report to the ambassador. It is not the same in American embassies, where the CIA does what it wants. Our agencies report to the ambassador, so it is a sensitive post.
Today, Peter Kyle—I have forgotten his new post—said that global circumstances dictate that the position of this particular ambassador is more important than it has ever been, and it could easily go terribly wrong. The failure to appoint the right person has already had a serious and deleterious impact on the national interest.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The Prime Minister staked his special relationship with the US President on the diplomatic skills of an ambassador who had a special relationship with the world’s most notorious child sex offender. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that the Prime Minister’s judgment and the UK’s presence on the world stage have been diminished by this affair.
David Davis
There is no doubt that the right hon. Lady is correct. Frankly, I am going to try not to make this ad hominem about the Ministers who made decisions; we need to make that decision later, as it were. She is right that it has diminished the standing of our Prime Minister, and I regret that. Although we are the Opposition, I want this Government to succeed in the national interest, and this is doing the opposite of that. The ambassador’s conduct, both prior to appointment and during, must reflect the highest standards of integrity—that is fundamental, and it is true for any ambassador.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. It unites the House with its purpose. It is clear within the rules that MPs are accountable for their staff and their conduct and that there will be repercussions. Does he agree that the Prime Minister is accountable for his appointment of the UK ambassador to the United States of America, and the same rules should apply?
David Davis
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. When we look at the mechanisms engaged, as I hope we will in the course of this debate, we will see why the Prime Minister made the wrong decision. There is no doubt in my mind that he did.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman talks about decisions by the Prime Minister. He talks about the duty on Members of this place and of the other place to conduct themselves appropriately. Does it surprise him, as it surprises me, that we have a situation where my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) has been unfairly suspended from the Labour Whip, along with others, for opposing disability benefit cuts and the Mother of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), remains suspended from the Labour party, yet Lord Mandelson retains the Labour Whip in the House of Lords? Are all of those things not decisions by the Prime Minister? People outside here, including Labour members, think it is completely unfair.
David Davis
I understand all too well the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. Many have made it in the newspapers, although generally anonymously. A double standard applies to the top of the Labour party—Labour royalty, if you like—as opposed to other people who have been punished for doing their job, representing their people and so on. He has got a point.
Jeremy Corbyn
Does the right hon. Gentleman not think it slightly odd that sufficient due diligence was not done prior to the appointment of Lord Mandelson? On the day before Lord Mandelson was dismissed, apparently there were a lot of emails available to the Prime Minister that he either was not given or did not read. We find ourselves in this odd situation where the British ambassador to the USA has to be dismissed in the full glare of international publicity because of his past behaviour, which was apparently well known to a very large number of people who should not have supported his appointment in the first place.
David Davis
The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right. We will come to a number of circumstances in which information was available and should have been, but was not, acted upon. This was not as hard as some may try to portray it as being: after all, the appointment did not come as a surprise. Lord Mandelson himself was clearly campaigning to become the ambassador after failing to win the chancellorship of Oxford University. Indeed, someone told me that he was actually campaigning for the ambassadorship while also campaigning for the chancellorship, so he was after two jobs, not one. It was clear at an early stage that he was going to attempt to do this, and there was widespread discussion at the time about his suitability for the role, so there was plenty of time for a preliminary investigative or vetting process. There was, and is, a vast amount of data in the public domain. Most of what I will speak of today is public domain material—I will explain when it is not.
What would those conducting that vetting process be looking for? A number of us on these Benches and, I would imagine, on most Benches have been through such processes ourselves. Traditionally they would review the history and personality of the candidate, assessing risks, such as the risk of the candidate being susceptible to undue influence, or, in extreme examples, blackmail—the Russians and the Chinese collect kompromat all the time; the risk of the candidate abusing or misusing the role; the risk of the candidate doing something that would cause reputational damage; or the risk, with which some on the Labour Front Bench may have difficulties and which they may find rather old-fashioned, that the candidate is too morally flawed to be given a major role in any case and fails a simple ethical test, which is where we may arrive in a moment. I am afraid that I am old-fashioned. I view ethical tests as an absolute, which cannot be traded off against some benefit or other.
In the history that I am about to detail, we see a Peter Mandelson who is easily dazzled by wealth and glamour and is willing to use his public position to pursue those things for himself. This was visible very early in his career, even to his friends. In 1998, he was sacked as Trade and Industry Secretary for failing to declare a pretty enormous interest-free loan that he had received from Geoffrey Robinson. At that time Mr Robinson’s businesses were being investigated by Mandelson’s Department, so there was a clear clash of interests, and Mandelson did not even declare the loan. That was the first occasion on which we saw so publicly the abiding flaws in his character, which would generally disqualify any normal person for a job as important as this. Even his friends saw that. One of his flaws was described plainly by one of his friends back then, who said:
“Peter was living beyond his means, pretending to be something he’s not, and therefore he was beholden to people.”
The important bit is that last phrase: he was beholden to people. It was a characteristic that was displayed time and again as he sought to use his position to curry favour with very wealthy and very powerful people who were either current or future benefactors.
This was repeated in 2001, when Lord Mandelson was again sacked after attempting to broker a British passport for Mr Hinduja, a wealthy donor to the Millennium Dome project, with which he was involved. Mandelson attempted to influence the Home Office to give Mr Hinduja a passport when Mr Hinduja and his brother were under investigation in the Bofors weapons contract scandal—again, a dubious reason. Incidentally, it was at about that time that his association with Epstein started, and the infamous birthday book entries date from then.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern about the possibility that the Prime Minister will discuss this issue with President Trump later in the week? The Prime Minister has to have influence over President Trump for very good reasons, but if the issue of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein comes up—we understand that President Trump also contributed to that birthday book, with an infamous poem—what is the Prime Minister going to say?
David Davis
I am very glad to say that I am not the Prime Minister’s speechwriter, but all I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that I hope the issue does not come up, because it would undoubtedly be embarrassing and diplomatically problematic for the Prime Minister.
Astonishingly, after being sacked twice for misdemeanours, in 2004 Lord Mandelson was appointed by Tony Blair to be the European trade commissioner. He was, as it were, given a third chance. As the trade commissioner, he was criticised on numerous occasions for accepting lavish hospitality from companies on whose commercial interests he was in the process of ruling—whether the company concerned was Microsoft, an Italian shoe producer or whatever—which, for some reason, often involved free luxury cruises. He saw nothing wrong with such apparently compromising behaviour, and in that category, indeed rather at the top of it, was his association with the Russian oligarch and gangster capitalist Oleg Deripaska.
Let us be clear who we are talking about here, because most Members probably do not know much about him. Mr Deripaska was the winner of the battle for control of the Russian aluminium industry, a battle in which roughly 100 people were murdered. In court reports, Interpol documents and American Government publications, Deripaska has faced serious allegations of murder, bribery, extortion, and involvement in organised crime. This is a truly bad man.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and for the case that he is making. I wonder whether, while he is dealing with the influence of Russian oligarchs in British politics, he will opine on the suitability of British political parties accepting donations from Russians, and the impact that that might have on their policies and their positions.
David Davis
Had the hon. Gentleman been here before the last election, he would have sat in this Chamber, I hope, and heard me opine on all those subjects and raise prospective laws to deal with those oligarchs, laws that, sadly, this Government have failed to carry through.
That, then, is the backdrop. Mr Deripaska’s visa was revoked by the Americans in 2006, so Mandelson had no excuse for not knowing about his activities, yet as European trade commissioner he saw fit to accept hospitality from Deripaska on multiple occasions over several years, which included visiting him in Moscow and being flown by his private jet to stay at his dacha in Siberia and on his private yacht in the Mediterranean—all while considering whether to give Russian aluminium access to the European market. Deripaska’s activities were known to the British security services, and briefings were available to Mandelson, so, again, there is no excuse. He did this in the full knowledge of who he was dealing with. It was in this position that Mandelson promoted and signed off concessions to Russian aluminium companies, which ultimately benefited Mr Deripaska, or his companies, to the tune of $200 million a year. Although it did not actually happen, one company was due to be the subject of an initial public offering—due to be floated—shortly thereafter. A $200 million change in profits tends to mean a multibillion-dollar change in value, and that will have gone into the pocket of Mr Deripaska. As we all know, Deripaska is a nominee of Putin, so we can assume that a large chunk of it went to Putin as well.
In 2008 Mandelson was, very controversially, raised to the peerage by Gordon Brown and appointed Business Secretary. His contact with Epstein did not end. As Epstein was pleading guilty to child sex offences, Mandelson emailed him:
“I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened... Your friends stay with you and love you.”
Little remorse there, shall we say, and little pity for the victims.
After Lord Mandelson left office when Labour lost the election in 2010, he founded a lobbying firm, Global Counsel. Controversially, he did not name his clients. The House of Lords has rather slack rules about this, so somebody can create a company and just declare that they get however much money from the company, but they do not declare who the customers really are. I do not have documentary records on this, so I am not going to name the companies I am talking about, but there are Russian companies—extremely dubious Russian companies—and Chinese companies. I am looking at my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), who would recognise a number of the Chinese companies because he has campaigned about them, but I will leave it there.
In the context of Lord Mandelson’s appointment to Washington—and bear in mind that this is all to do with a judgment made about his being the ambassador in Washington—it is his close association with the organs of the Chinese state that should have raised most red flags, if the House will forgive the pun. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China presented a dossier to US Senators, which provoked enough concern that they passed it to the FBI. This may have been a reason—and here I am surmising—for the purported concerns about whether the Trump Administration would allow Mandelson’s accreditation back in January.
Chris Curtis (Milton Keynes North) (Lab)
I appreciate some of the points the right hon. Member is making, but I would just note that one of the Conservative candidates running in a Milton Keynes constituency at the last general election worked for Global Counsel. It is interesting that the Conservatives have such complaints about this organisation when they were willing to support a candidate who worked for it.
David Davis
I am going to be very gentle. Let me just say that we are talking about a very serious issue, in which the national interest is engaged, and about somebody who in my view has used his public position to his own advantage and to the disadvantage of the state. That is not true of some candidate working in a junior role for the company, but it is true of the man who created that company and used it to promote his own interests.
To come back to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, from my point of view—and this is personal rather than political—even more worrying were the attitudes struck by Mandelson in February 2021 when, during a lobbying meeting on behalf of his rich clients, he told Chinese Premier Li Keqiang that the critics of Beijing’s human rights record would be “proved wrong”. That astonishing statement was followed later in 2021 by Mandelson being the only Labour peer to vote—against a three-line Whip—against a genocide amendment that would have meant this country had to reconsider any trade deal with a country found by the High Court to be committing genocide, and most specifically China was in the crosshairs. Frankly, it would appear that Lord Mandelson has subcontracted his conscience for money.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has mentioned the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. In case the House thinks it is a Conservative organisation, can I explain that it has Members of Parliament from all parties in this House, that 53 countries are involved and that it has co-chairs from both the left and the right? It is wholly above party politics, but is all about the threat from China.
David Davis
My right hon. Friend is exactly right, and the Senators to whom these documents were sent are very responsible ones. They would not frivolously pass on such documents to the FBI, and the FBI would not frivolously accept them and investigate.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend recall that on 21 November last, the Prime Minister was challenged to rule out appointing Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the United States on the grounds that he had said Ukraine would have to give up all the land Russia had occupied and that it must give up any hope of ever joining NATO in return for some unspecified security guarantees? The Prime Minister said he would not be tempted to comment on the possibility of his being appointed ambassador, and as he said it he had a very noticeable little smirk on his face. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister is not smirking about this matter any more?
David Davis
I say to my right hon. Friend that the Prime Minister gave what was clearly—what can I say?—a lawyer’s answer to that question, which as we all know is not a proper answer at all.
No. 10 was well aware that Mandelson had continued his relationship with Epstein after he was convicted as a paedophile. How the Prime Minister could possibly have thought it was wise to appoint a man who was on record consorting with alleged murderers and convicted paedophiles to a position of privilege and power is, to me, utterly unfathomable.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The right hon. Member has rightly pointed out Lord Mandelson’s murky attitude towards money, but does this not also shine a terrible light on his attitude towards women, which, by contrast, does not look good for the Government?
David Davis
I agree—the hon. Member is right. Lord Mandelson’s continued support of Epstein shows an attitude that I find completely reprehensible in exactly that respect, because Epstein’s victims were women—young women, girls, children. So, yes, I do agree.
It has long been clear that Mandelson was not suitable to be our ambassador, so the question is: what changed last week? The Bloomberg emails revealing further details of Epstein’s relationship with him and the birthday book in which he referred to Epstein as his “best pal” were with Mandelson by Monday evening and with the Foreign Office overnight or by Tuesday morning at the latest. The Prime Minister is said to have known of the investigation by Tuesday afternoon, but not of the content of the emails. Why, when our most important diplomat in our most important international relationship is under question or under investigation, would the Prime Minister not want to know the details of the investigation immediately?
We understand that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, was talking to Mandelson all day on Tuesday, so what was Mandelson saying to McSweeney and was this passed to the Prime Minister? One of the things I would ask the Minister is if, later on, he can give the House an undertaking that we can have a record of that conversation, because we need to know. Mandelson gave an immediate interview on Wednesday morning—hours before Prime Minister’s questions—admitting that more embarrassing revelations would come out. Mandelson’s past scandals and his links to Epstein were crystal clear by the time the Prime Minister rose to speak in PMQs last Wednesday.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend aware that James Matthews, the Sky News reporter, cornered Lord Mandelson on 27 May to ask him specifically about staying in Epstein’s flat? Mandelson did not deny it, but simply said that he regretted having any connection with him. These are the kinds of questions that should have been asked, and were being asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) and many other Members back in May, about the suitability of the ambassador. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister should have looked into this further at that point?
David Davis
Exactly, and in fact earlier than that point. I will come back to that when I talk briefly about the vetting process.
What precisely did the Prime Minister learn from reading the Bloomberg emails that was not already known about Lord Mandelson from public information and vetting done before the appointment? Each day that goes by, we see more shocking revelations not only about his misconduct and his links to Jeffrey Epstein, but about the failures of both the vetting process and the political judgment of those at the top of Government. I say to the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) that that relates not just to their political judgment, but to their moral standards and the equity in how they apply those moral standards across the board.
That brings us to the question: what happened to the vetting process? Most of what I have described was in the public domain. It does not take James Bond; Google could do this. What was not in the public domain was in the official records, or known to the intelligence agencies—in other words, it was all available to the Government. We know there was a two-page propriety and ethics briefing, which should have flagged concerns, but it merely triggered an unpenetrating email inquiry. That goes straight to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), which is: where were the questions? Someone does not just send a three-line email and forget about it; they pursue the questions and cross-question the person under suspicion.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. He will know that members of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament are subject to extremely deep vetting. There is also a double check, which is that Parliament has to give its agreement to the appointments to the Committee, once nominated by the Prime Minister. Does the Mandelson case not strengthen the argument for pre-confirmation hearings by the relevant parliamentary Committees of this House in order that candidates can be cross-questioned? At the moment, the Cabinet Office advises on only about 1,000 regulated public appointments for this House, ahead of appointment. None of them is a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office appointment. Is it not now time to make that change, whether they are political appointments or senior civil servants?
David Davis
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. I certainly think that that would be the right way to go for political appointments. It would probably be the right way to go for the top dozen embassies. I would not worry about all of them, without being rude to—well, I won’t pick a country. That would just be meaningless, but the top dozen are well worth doing.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team produced a report that was presumably handed to the Prime Minister, and that was certainly done prior to the announcement. Does he agree that the Minister must tell us whether the Prime Minister read that report, and whether it contained anything that Parliament should have been aware of before he made the appointment?
David Davis
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. He is right and I will reiterate the point. In addition to what my right hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) said, there should have been a fully developed vetting process and that appears not to have happened. There is a vetting unit in the Foreign Office and a vetting unit in the Cabinet Office, and normally one of them would have been engaged on this. There have been claims that developed vetting happens after an appointment. No, it does not. For existing ambassadors who are on a five-year vetting cycle, sure. For ambassadors or officers who are being read into a new class of material, sure. But for this—an outsider coming into the most sensitive job in Government—certainly not.
Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
David Davis
I am being frowned at by Mr Speaker for taking so much time. I will give way for the last time.
Joe Robertson
My right hon. Friend is being very generous. At the weekend, the Secretary of State for Business and Trade appeared to say that the Government believed it was “worth the risk” of appointing Lord Mandelson from the outset. As I heard it, what the Business Secretary was saying was that for the positive qualities Lord Mandelson had—as they saw it—it was worth the risk that he might be more involved with a convicted paedophile than they thought from the outset. If that is the risk the Government were judging him by, is that not shameful?
David Davis
I have already said that my view is that ethical standards are absolute, so there should not be a trade-off.
Let us take this, for a second, as a practical decision and take Mandelson at his own measure. He loves being called the dark lord and all the rest of it. He preens himself on being a master of the dark arts: spin, message management, political tactics and manipulation of the truth—a repertoire of things that most people would not be proud of. If the Government think that those skills actually make up for his sins, well no. First, he is not as good as he is cracked up to be, frankly. He is being measured—remember this—against Karen Pierce, the officer in place who was probably the best ambassador in Washington and certainly the most revered, and, after her, Tim Barrow, who was our ambassador to the European Union during Brexit and the National Security Adviser. He knows all these things to the tips of fingers. Was Lord Mandelson better than them? Pull the other one.
I am coming to the end, Mr Speaker, before you frown any more. No. 10 claims that Mandelson was economical with the truth. Mandelson claims he told the whole truth. Both statements cannot be true. The questions I pose to the Minister are these. Will the Government rule out Mandelson being brought back into Government? No. 10 refused to rule out giving him another job last week. If Mandelson withheld information during the vetting process, will he lose the Labour Whip? I am looking at Mr Burgon when I say that. Is he going to have to resign from the House of Lords? Will Lord Mandelson be receiving compensation? Some reports in the media suggest we will pay £100,000 of taxpayers’ money. Will the Prime Minister, his chief of staff, his Cabinet Secretary and the permanent secretary to the FCDO appear before the Select Committees of the House to give evidence? Will the Minister provide the House with the documents—the propriety and ethics team report and the developed vetting report, if it exists—required to answer our questions as to who knew what and when? There are many quotes in the newspapers from those in the Minister’s own party about their horror regarding the Prime Minister’s decisions and processes.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Ind)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
David Davis
No, I really am coming to an end.
I will quote just one of them. This is a long-standing senior Labour Member:
“I care that this culture of turning a blind eye to horrendous behaviour is endemic at the top of society”.
I agree with him. When individuals with such associations are ushered back into the heart of Government, are we not right to ask what standards now govern appointments to public life? Impunity is not a right. Impropriety is not a technicality. And survivors of crime should not have to do the heavy lifting of holding the powerful to account.
I mentioned at the beginning of my speech that a Bill has today been presented to the House imposing a duty of candour on public authorities and public officials. My last and single question to the Minister is this: will his Government now live up to the words in that Bill?
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman, as he is a senior Member, that though he has taken the time he felt was required, it has been longer than 15 minutes.
May I just say that when we refer to other Members, it should be by constituency, not by name. I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
My Committee first asked for the opportunity to question Lord Mandelson at the end of last year, when rumours first surfaced about his appointment as ambassador to the United States. We continued to ask after his appointment was confirmed. Indeed, the Minister may remember our exchange, on 14 January in this Chamber, when I asked him to
“allow Lord Mandelson the time to come before my Committee before he leaves for the United States”
to
“allow my colleagues to hear directly why the Prime Minister has appointed him”.—[Official Report, 14 January 2025; Vol. 760, c. 143.]
Requests were made more often, and privately, after that, and in the eight months since. They have been turned down. I understand that there have been some Chinese whispers going on. It has been claimed that the FCDO has been telling journalists that the Committee had the opportunity to meet and question Lord Mandelson when we were in Washington. Obviously, there has been a break in the chain, because the reality is that we had a 15-minute interaction over breakfast while receiving a formal briefing from diplomatic staff about other meetings that day, which is quite materially different from the type of formal evidence session required to conduct meaningful scrutiny.
I want to make it clear that we have not sought to question Lord Mandelson out of a desire to frustrate the Government or their diplomatic agenda. In fact, quite the opposite. It is our responsibility to scrutinise the FCDO to prevent exactly this sort of mistake from damaging Britain’s reputation on the international stage. We want to make the Foreign Office the best it can be and in so many ways it is doing an absolutely excellent job. It is fantastic to see the way in which Britain’s reputation has been so enhanced. However, mistakes can be, and obviously have been, made.
The shocking revelations of the last week were not in the public domain in December, but Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was very widely known. Had my Committee had the opportunity to question Lord Mandelson, I am confident that our members would have raised a range of questions, along with these ones, as journalists, particularly those at the Financial Times, have tried to do. It is quite possible that those questions may have provoked evasive answers, possibly not true answers, or even the same sort of response met by journalists, particularly those from the Financial Times, but that would all have been in the public sphere. It would have been on the record, and Lord Mandelson would have had the opportunity to tell the truth before the House.
Having failed to convince the Government to permit my Committee to question Lord Mandelson, I wrote to the Foreign Secretary on Friday, posing a number of questions about the apparent failures in the due diligence and vetting processes conducted before and after the announcement of Lord Mandelson’s appointment. Those questions included whether there were any concerns raised by agencies undertaking security clearance ahead of Lord Mandelson’s appointment and whether a decision was taken to dismiss any such security concerns, and, if so, whether such a decision was taken by the FCDO or by No. 10. I also asked whether any decision was taken to suspend or alter the usual vetting requirements or the usual timeframe for vetting procedures.
I thank the Foreign Secretary for her prompt response to that letter, which I received this morning. In her reply, she informs me that the initial due diligence process had been carried out by the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team before the announcement of Lord Mandelson’s appointment, as has been widely reported. She assures me that the Foreign Office did not contribute to that process, and that no issues were raised by the FCDO as a result.
Emily Thornberry
I think this is quite important, and I would like to have the opportunity to inform the House with clarity so that we all know where we stand. I believe that this contribution to the debate is an important one. It is not a party political point; it is just trying to ensure that we learn from what we have heard.
The Foreign Secretary assures me that the Foreign Office did not contribute to that Cabinet Office process, and that no issues were raised by the FCDO as a result. The question is this: did the Cabinet Office miss the glaring red flag of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein, or did it fail to pass those concerns on? If so, why?
Several hon. Members rose—
Emily Thornberry
Genuinely guys, just give me a chance to put this before you. The Foreign Secretary’s letter states that—[Interruption.] I hope that the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) will give me an opportunity to put this before the House. I apologise for calling hon. Members “guys”.
The Foreign Secretary’s letter states that the Cabinet Office due diligence process was followed by the usual developed vetting process, or DV, which was carried out by national security vetting on behalf of the FCDO, after the announcement of Lord Mandelson’s appointment. According to the Foreign Secretary, this was conducted to the
“usual standard set for Developed Vetting.”
Career civil servants are regularly subjected to such tests, and many have stories of their appointments being delayed or even prohibited because they have studied abroad, married an Iranian, or simply because they were born in Belfast. The question is this: does having significant information in the public domain about a relationship with an internationally prolific child sex offender not raise more red flags than simply being born in Belfast? Is a civil servant a greater risk to this country because they are married to somebody who was born in the middle east or because they were close friends with Jeffrey Epstein? Did the Foreign Office vetting process miss a glaring national security and reputational risk, or was it told to overlook it?
My Committee’s duty is to scrutinise the Foreign Office to make it the best that it can be, and neither the Foreign Office nor the Cabinet Office has shown itself to be the best it can be in the process surrounding this appointment.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Emily Thornberry
I will get to the end of this paragraph, and then I will give way.
That is why yesterday my Committee asked the Foreign Office permanent under-secretary and the Cabinet Office head of propriety and ethics to appear before us and explain what went wrong. We have been told that no one is available before the recess, but we will continue to push for prompt and public answers.
Richard Tice
The right hon. Lady is speaking powerfully. Does she think that if her Committee had been allowed to interview Lord Mandelson, it would have come up with a recommendation not to approve his appointment, and, in such a situation, does she think that her recommendation would have been listened to?
Emily Thornberry
I think it is slightly more subtle than that. The point is that if Lord Mandelson had appeared before the Committee, he would have faced a range of questions that would have highlighted issues that needed to be considered properly and that could not, in the rush to appoint him, be overlooked in the way they seem to have been. It is about putting a brake on it. We would not, as a Committee, have the power to say that the Government cannot appoint someone, but we would shed light on the nature of the appointment and, through our questions, be able to examine whether or not it was the wisest thing to do.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Does the right hon. Lady agree that if we are to salvage anything positive from this whole sorry episode, it must be that in the future, Parliament, through the Select Committees, has a role in this process? Does not her experience illustrate that the question of who is in charge of that must remain with the Select Committee and not with the Executive?
Emily Thornberry
I would not quite put it like that; I think that the Executive do, in the end, make the decision—they are the Executive. However, I think that we should, as a Select Committee, have a role in this process, particularly when it comes to political appointments. It has happened before, as the right hon. Gentleman may remember, when there were political appointments to the ambassador to South Africa and to Paris—it has happened in the past. I do think, particularly when there are political appointments, that the Select Committee should have a role in that process, and we can make better decisions as a result.
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
I am a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr Speaker. Our Committee has a proposal that we should have a greater role in scrutinising the appointment of the US ambassador, given that they are one of the highest ranking members of the diplomatic service, and to help the Government to avoid this situation in the future. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government should consider our proposal seriously?
Emily Thornberry
My hon. Friend may be surprised to hear that I agree with her completely. I think that would be very wise.
Mark Pritchard
I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee for giving way. I made my own comments earlier about pre-confirmation hearings. Adding on to that, does the right hon. Lady agree that when senior civil servants—whether from the Foreign Office or elsewhere—are asked to come to Select Committees on important matters and they find some excuse not to attend, the Select Committee should at least have the power of summons in order that somebody gives an account? In addition to that, if security or classification is used either truthfully or—shall we say—exaggeratingly as an excuse not to give evidence to a Committee, does the right hon. Lady agree that when Select Committees have Privy Counsellors, as in her case, a briefing could at least be heard on Privy Council terms?
Emily Thornberry
The right hon. Gentleman raises some important points. The power of Select Committees to summon witnesses has been an ongoing debate, and I suspect we have not resolved it yet. He also raises the matter of Privy Counsellors; our Committee has myself and another Privy Council member. The difficulty is that if we were offered Privy Council briefings, as we are sometimes, it is quite difficult, because we want to be able to do those things in public and inform the public of the work of the Foreign Office to ensure that when difficult decisions are being made, they understand why those decisions are being made, with all the factors involved in that. That is fine; I think we need to trust the public more than we sometimes do. We certainly need to trust Back Benchers more than we sometimes do.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
The Chairman of the Select Committee is being very generous. She is elegantly describing due process and is implying—at least I think she is—that due process may have been set aside for other purposes in this case. However, we know that due process was done because the Prime Minister stood at that Dispatch Box last Wednesday and said that it had been done—unless he is using the Bill Clinton defence, and it turns out that due process was done, but set aside. Where does that leave the Prime Minister?
Emily Thornberry
I think it is difficult to have answers to all the right hon. Gentleman’s questions at the moment. I think the most important thing is that lessons are learned, and even if all due process was followed and the inquiries were proceeded with to the letter, they clearly are not good enough and we need to change them. Either due process was not followed or it was and we need to change it. Either way, we need to work together to ensure that this never happens again, because something went very wrong.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
Will the right hon. Member give way?
Dr Spencer
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, who is very generous. As MPs, we put the interests of the country above all else. What does she make of the decision to appoint an individual to represent our country in difficult negotiations in the knowledge that the other country had compromising information on the individual?
Emily Thornberry
Clearly, we all think that it was a mistake. The question is how the mistake occurred and how we can ensure that this sort of thing does not happen again, because something went very wrong. When Lord Mandelson was appointed, red flags were obviously missed or ignored. On the day that the American President lands in Britain for a state visit, the Government are materially worse off because we do not have an ambassador to the United States.
Several hon. Members rose—
Emily Thornberry
I really am finishing. If we do not have the opportunity to scrutinise this failure, how can we ensure that we stop it from happening again? We need to improve our scrutiny and our decision making.
Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this important emergency debate, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) on securing it.
My right hon. Friend made a series of excellent points, as did the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). I agree with all those points. It is extraordinary that, on the eve of the President’s state visit, we are talking about the US ambassador who has been sacked in scandal.
There are many unanswered questions, and I will be asking many of them, but today the Prime Minister needs to do three things. The Prime Minister needs to come clean about what he knew and when he knew it—not send his junior Ministers to cover for him. The Prime Minister needs to publish the Mandelson-Epstein files in full. The Prime Minister needs to take responsibility for the appointment of Lord Mandelson as ambassador to Washington. But the Prime Minister is not here, because he is hiding from Parliament and hiding from questions. I know that he is a busy man, but confidence in him and in his Government rests on him being able to account for what happened, and so far no one is taking any responsibility.
We have had our ambassador in the US sacked over his relationship with a man convicted of child sex offences. What is more—this tells us everything we need to know—this was an appointment apparently forced through by the Prime Minister and/or his chief of staff. We have seen a political ally pushed ahead of qualified candidates because the Prime Minister and Morgan McSweeney admired his talent for mixing with the rich and powerful, despite his known links to a man who was publicly known as a convicted paedophile and a convicted sex trafficker.
Given the speeches we have heard and everything that is in the public domain, it is now very clear that Peter Mandelson should never have been appointed. It is now also clear that the Prime Minister knew that there were major concerns when he came to this House just last Wednesday. Instead of taking action, the Prime Minister expressed confidence in him. Why on earth did he do so? Was he poorly advised, or was it just his own poor judgment?
In every single one of his Government’s scandals to date, far from being the decisive man of conscience he promised to be, the Prime Minister has shrivelled from leadership, he has dodged responsibility, and he has hidden behind others, just as he is doing today, and he has come to this House and hidden behind process and lawyerly phrases. The Prime Minister has shown no courage, no judgment, no backbone. If he cannot see it and Government Members cannot see it, I can assure them that the British public can. The Prime Minister has turned out to be everything he claimed to abhor. This is a Government of sleaze and scandal, and Labour MPs know it. I will be interested to see how many of them stand up to defend their Government.
The British public and, especially, the victims of Jeffrey Epstein deserve the Prime Minister, for once, to be straight and honest with us. He must immediately do three things. First, he must apologise to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein for ever having appointed Peter Mandelson as ambassador. How is it that this has still not happened? There has been no apology. Secondly, as I said, he must publish the Mandelson-Epstein files in full—all the information he had at his disposal, both when he made the appointment and when he came to the House last week to express full confidence in Mandelson. Thirdly, he must make sure that someone takes responsibility.
Everyone now agrees that Peter Mandelson should not have been appointed. We have heard so much from my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington about endless scandal and conflicts of interest with China and Russia, so why was he appointed? Was it a failure of vetting? Was it that advisers hid information from the Prime Minister? Or was it that the Prime Minister knew and made the decision anyway? Someone needs to take responsibility.
Sir Julian Lewis
Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have seen a rapid transformation from the Prince of Darkness into a grovelling Lord Yum Yum? One has to ask, why was the British Prime Minister surprised? Had he never heard the tale of the turtle and the scorpion that meet at the side of the river? Should the Prime Minister not have realised that the poor old scorpion simply cannot help what is in its nature?
Mrs Badenoch
I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. The story is that of the frog and the scorpion, and it is one of my favourite childhood stories. Everyone knew what Lord Mandelson had been up to. It is simply not tenable for any Member on the Government Benches to hold the line on this one, burying their heads in the sand and hoping that it goes away, least of all the Prime Minister.
We now know that the Prime Minister was aware of the compromising emails last Wednesday at Prime Minister’s questions, yet he came to the House and said that he had confidence in his ambassador. Many on the Labour Benches cheered, but now they are all looking at their phones, and most of them do not have the courage to look me in the eye. They were cheering last week, and now they are full of shame. [Interruption.] Sorry, are they proud? No, they are not. I will continue.
Why on earth did the Prime Minister do that? At any point did he ask his staff what more information might surface? That morning Lord Mandelson was saying that more information would surface. Did the Prime Minister receive a briefing about that ahead of Prime Minister’s questions? It is inconceivable that he did not. Ministers are now claiming that new information subsequently came to light—new information that they did not have. The story is all mixed and messed up, and they know it. What information appeared that was not in the original vetting? We would like to hear that when the Minister responds.
There are still more questions to answer. When did the Prime Minister’s chief of staff speak with Peter Mandelson last week, and what did they discuss? Do the Government have the courage to tell us that? We are told that Morgan McSweeney spent hours on the phone to the ambassador at the same time that Lord Mandelson was dodging calls from the Foreign Office. What were they talking about?
Those are questions about what happened just last week, but how did all this come to happen last year? The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee has asked some excellent questions. But I ask the Minister this: what led to Lord Mandelson’s appointment in the first place? How was it that a man with known links to a child sex offender came to be appointed?
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
An additional question is whether there was any external influence. Did Tony Blair or any of Mandelson’s friends have anything to do with the appointment?
Mrs Badenoch
The hon. Gentleman asks a very good question, and I hope the Minister can provide an answer, because all of us across the House want to know.
We want to know how Lord Mandelson’s appointment happened in the first place. As I see it, there are only three possibilities. The first is that it was a failure of vetting, but are we really supposed to believe that this is the fault of the security services? I do not think so. Did they not drag up the intimate relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, which was discussed last week? The second possibility—a bit more likely—is that the Prime Minister’s advisers kept information from him. If that happened, it would be incredibly serious.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
Does my right hon. Friend agree that no matter what happened or did not happen, a Prime Minister—a leader—has to shoulder the responsibility? It is absolutely appalling that they would then blame the staff around them. It is their responsibility, and they answer to the House—no excuse.
Mrs Badenoch
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This is a Prime Minister who hides behind everybody else; whether his advisers, his junior Ministers or his Back Benchers, that is what he does. If he wants to blame advisers, which one was it? Who kept it from him? Why have they not apologised and resigned? No one is taking responsibility.
Thirdly, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington alluded to, the most likely but most worrying reason of all is that the Prime Minister had plenty of information to suggest that Lord Mandelson should not be appointed but chose to appoint him anyway. Even at the time, eyebrows were raised about this appointment and there were many critics; I remember it from the time. Now we read in the papers that the Prime Minister overruled security advice not to appoint Lord Mandelson. Is that true? The Minister should tell us.
It is time for the Prime Minister to come clean. He needs to come out of hiding. This issue will not go away. The Government cannot play for time as we will be back here again and again until all these documents are published. We will be back until someone takes responsibility.
This is a political crisis on top of an economic crisis all of the Government’s own making. They are distracted now, but they came into office with no plan for the country, no idea what they stood for and no vision for what they wanted to achieve. Because of that, they have been lurching from disaster to disaster, with winter fuel, tax rises, welfare chaos, scandal, and the Prime Minister’s failing leadership rebooted after just one year. The only plan they came into office with was a promise they made again and again to the British public: that they would restore honesty and integrity to Government. That was their defining mission, that was their grand plan, and it is in tatters.
So far, in one year, we have had an anti-corruption Minister sacked for corruption, a homelessness Minister sacked for evicting tenants, a Housing Secretary sacked for dodging housing tax, a Transport Secretary sacked for fraud and a director of strategy—apparently the speechwriter—lost only yesterday in scandal.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Ward)
indicated dissent.
Mrs Badenoch
The Minister shakes his head—he should be shaking it in shame. I have not said anything that is not true.
Now, finally, we have a US ambassador sacked for his links with a known child sex offender. The Government claim to care about violence against women and girls, until they actually have to do something about it. Where is the apology to those victims?
I know the Prime Minister does not like difficult questions, but it is his judgment that is being called into question. He owes it to the country to come clean.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)
First and foremost, I want to acknowledge the many victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s appalling abuse. For many of them, this story is not a political one; it is a personal one. No one could fail to be moved by listening to the brother and sister on the news this Sunday in their first interview in the UK, with the void that family will now feel from their loss. Let us not detract from them and probably the many more victims who still have not come forward but are caught up in this scandalous and horrific abuse.
I will keep my remarks short. I have recently returned from a trade envoy visit to Nigeria. What struck me on that visit was the hard work and dedication of our civil servants. I met the British deputy high commissioner. All our diplomats working across many missions in many countries do not make the headlines, but they are representing the UK with distinction week in, week out. I know that is replicated across many countries, including the deputy ambassador in Washington, who has taken over from Lord Mandelson. He has been described as a “highly regarded diplomat”, so we wish him well in his temporary role.
The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), rightly highlighted a number of important questions. I hope that the Government will be listening.
Apsana Begum
My hon. Friend will be aware that I am listed in the House as an independent, not for matters relating to conduct or duty of candour, but for voting with my conscience to scrap the two-child limit—a policy also supported by the former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Children’s Commissioner. My suspension from the Labour Whip was applied over a year ago, within minutes of my vote. Does she agree that while I and other Members, including the Mother of the House, appear to be held to one standard, Lord Mandelson appears to be held to another?
Florence Eshalomi
I thank my hon. Friend for making her point. I think about the amount of abuse that many parliamentarians in this Chamber sadly face—particularly black and minority ethnic Members—just for their mere existence. I know about the horrific domestic abuse that my hon. Friend has faced, and I hope that, with time, the Labour leadership will look at some of the issues around suspension. She will know that I am not privy to that, but I know that many of us continue to raise these issues with the leadership.
I will finish by highlighting some of the many questions that I hope the Minister will respond to. The key question that many people are asking, including many of my constituents, is about the recruitment process going forward. Will the Minister—the Foreign Secretary is not here—assure the House that the recruitment process will be strengthened so that in future our ambassadors will bolster the standing of our civil servants on the global stage?
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
This debate finds the House at its best, holding the Government and the Prime Minister properly to account. As the Leader of the Opposition said, we may be rising for the recess, but this issue will not go away. I pay tribute to the right hon. and gallant Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) for securing the debate and for laying out the series of questions that needs to be answered so that we can properly hold the Government to account. I will not repeat all his many questions. He made a long speech, which we will no doubt be rereading over the next few weeks.
I also pay tribute to the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). Her speech, in which she said that her Committee had tried to bring Lord Mandelson before the Committee to be scrutinised but were prevented from doing so, raised some serious questions about how Select Committees are being ignored by the Government.
We need to get serious about confirmatory hearings. The House and the public need to know what a Select Committee that specialises in a subject thinks about such an important public appointment before that appointment is confirmed. I hope that we will reform the processes of the House to build on what the right hon. Lady rightly said.
The Leader of the Opposition made some important points about the need for disclosure from the Government. We need those documents to be published if we are to have a transparent process where we can properly hold the Government to account. If they have answers, let us hear them, and then we can do that analysis.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)
Much has been said about the process, but does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it was clearly never worth the risk to appoint Peter Mandelson? Will he go further than that on the professionalism of the role? We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) about the reputation of our ambassadorial officials across the world. Would we be better served if in the future we looked to professionals to fill those roles rather than politicians?
Ed Davey
The hon. Gentleman makes a strong point. The previous ambassador to the United States was held in high regard, and many people think she should be appointed to the vacancy.
I want to mention what was said by the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi). Yes, we have all these questions to be answered, and there are disclosures to be made, but we must remember the victims in all this. I want to focus on the victims, because they deserve answers.
When we read those sickening messages, we think of Epstein’s victims and their families—girls as young as 14 groomed by Epstein, sexually abused by him, trafficked by him and sexually abused by other powerful men. I have been thinking about the trauma not only that they went through then, but have been through since, as they saw the man responsible for such horrific crimes escape justice for so long. They saw him convicted in 2008, but spend just 13 months in jail thanks to his powerful connections.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
We know that the trauma of sexual violence and sexual abuse can last a lifetime and, for many people, it can be too much to bear, as we have seen with Virginia Giuffre. Victims of sexual violence are often silenced, often ignored and always let down by a system that sometimes—often—sees powerful men protecting each other to diminish the crimes. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister should never have appointed somebody who had known links with a convicted paedophile?
Ed Davey
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I pay tribute to her for the work she has done to protect vulnerable women during her career. We salute her for that work.
As we remember the victims, how must it have felt for them to see Donald Trump, one of Epstein’s closest friends and a man found liable for sexual abuse himself, become President of the United States? How must it have felt for the victims to see another of Epstein’s closest friends made British ambassador to the United States? How must it have felt for the victims to hear the Prime Minister defend Lord Mandelson last week, even after he had seen those appalling messages? How must it have felt for them to hear Ministers say, even after Mandelson was sacked, that his appointment was a risk worth taking? I think that is quite shocking.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
My right hon. Friend has turned down the opportunity to dine with Donald Trump in the next couple of days, and he has been roundly criticised for that by some people who may well still attend. Does he agree that it is an ample opportunity for those people to ask President Trump about his entry in that horrific book of birthday wishes for Mr Epstein? Will my right hon. Friend ask them to report back to us about what President Trump said?
Ed Davey
The truth is that at such state banquets very few people get to speak to the visiting Head of State. However, the Prime Minister does, so I wonder if he will ask the President about his friendship with Epstein. I think he should and I think this House thinks he should.
For decades, the victims and their families have seen powerful men escape responsibility for what they did and what they knew. It should be a source of deep shame to Ministers that the British Government are now part of that story.
Alex Brewer (North East Hampshire) (LD)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the reasons that Epstein escaped justice for so long was that he was protected by other powerful men, and that if we are truly to protect young people from predators, we need to ensure that the protectors of paedophiles have absolutely no place in public life?
Ed Davey
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. I know that she has worked for victims of domestic violence and abuse as well. I can do no better than quote the words of Sky Roberts, the brother of Virginia Giuffre. He said about Lord Mandelson:
“He should not have been given the position in the first place. It speaks to how deep the corruption is in our systems.”
Not only must we hold the Government to account for this, but we need to fix our systems, whether through Select Committee hearings or by holding the powerful to account. Our constituents lose trust in our institutions when they fail to hold people to account. I am proud that my party, and I am sure others in this House, wish to see those reforms. Not least for the survivors, for the victims and for their families, we must hold the powerful to account.
In that regard, will the Minister, when he gets to his feet, apologise to all of Epstein’s victims and their families? We need an apology from the Minister today. Beyond that, will he say whether he agrees that the Prime Minister himself owes them a personal apology too?
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. We have a substantial speaking list and this debate is time-limited to three hours, so Back Benchers are on a six-minute speaking limit. I call John Slinger.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
I wish to express my sympathy with all the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and put on record my respect for the family of Virginia Giuffre who spoke so movingly about her on the BBC at the weekend.
In listening to the debate here and in the media over recent days, I am struck by the similarities with the one that took place over many years concerning the appointment of Mr Andy Coulson as the director of communications in Downing Street, from the point of his resignation in 2011 to his conviction for phone hacking in 2014. It was an appointment that David Cameron consistently said he would not have made if he had known at the time the information that subsequently came to light. For that reason, the question was constantly asked in this House and beyond: why did the security processes Mr Coulson went through prior to his appointment not uncover his past involvement in phone hacking?
Some people pointed to the fact that, unlike previous occupants of his role, Mr Coulson had not gone through developed vetting until long after his appointment and, indeed, had to resign before completing that process. Yet when the issue was directly discussed at the Leveson inquiry, this was the exchange between Lord Justice Leveson and the former Cabinet Secretary, Lord O’Donnell, which is important to recall. Lord O’Donnell said of developed vetting:
“I think some people have different understandings of what DV’ing would reveal. It wouldn’t have gone into enormous detail about phone hacking, for example.”
Lord Justice Leveson replied:
“No. It’s concerned with whether you’re likely to be a risk.”
Lord O’Donnell then said:
“Whether you’re blackmailable, basically, yes”.
David Cameron relied on that exchange in this House after Andy Coulson’s conviction on 25 June 2014, when he said, first—and I think, correctly—that Coulson’s security clearance was a matter for the civil service and not for the Prime Minister, and secondly, that even if Coulson had been fully DV-ed, it would not have uncovered evidence of his involvement in phone hacking.
I mention this now not to reopen the issue over Andy Coulson’s security clearance, or that of Dominic Cummings for that matter, but simply to remind Opposition Members that it is not new to have these kind of questions raised around the vetting of senior appointees. It is certainly not an issue that is specific to this Government or the particular appointment of Lord Mandelson. They would do well to remember that before they get too high on their horse in today’s debate.
Monica Harding
This really is not hard. Is it not enough to know that Lord Mandelson enjoyed the patronage of a convicted child sex offender by staying in his houses? Was that not enough to prevent his appointment as our most senior ambassador?
John Slinger
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am setting out for the House very useful context within which this debate—[Interruption.] It is useful. Hon. Members can chunter from a sedentary position, but it is useful context.
Several hon. Members rose—
John Slinger
I will not give way. I am coming to the conclusion of my remarks.
The right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) spoke somewhat mockingly of the strange coincidences of politics, given the presentation of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill earlier today. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is a man of integrity. He has shown that he believes in accountability and he acts on it. The Leader of the Opposition can reel off a list of Ministers who have been sacked, but that rather proves my point. Frankly, this is a welcome change and no matter how uncomfortable recent events have been, we are seeing, under this Prime Minister, that public officials, Ministers and yes, ambassadors are being held to higher standards than previously, and I welcome that.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Father of the House, Sir Edward Leigh.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The speech that we have just heard was absolutely risible, frankly. I will just give the hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger) some advice: do not do the Whips Office’s dirty work for them—
John Slinger
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, but I would like to give him some advice: please do not patronise me.
Sir Edward Leigh
I was just trying to give the hon. Gentleman some helpful advice, but there we are.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
I have some advice for the hon. Member for Rugby: those that lick the feet of the unworthy gain for themselves nothing but a dirty tongue. [Laughter.]
Sir Edward Leigh
Joking apart, this is a very serious moment for our country and for Parliament. Whether you like him or not, President Trump is of incredible importance to our country. He is just about to arrive here and he must think that we in this country are complete plonkers, frankly, for the way that we have handled all this. First of all, he had a very good relationship with the previous ambassador, but she was just swept aside. Then a man was appointed who had traduced him in the past. All right, that man is a skilled operator and has built up a relationship. President Trump himself is probably rather embarrassed about his relationship with Epstein, and then he finds this being dragged up all over the media a day before one of his most important visits, which is of great importance to his country and to ours. He knows that there are going to be difficult questions at the press conference. The President of the United States must be absolutely furious about what is going on, so this is a very serious moment for us and we have to take it extremely seriously. I hope—I am sure—that the Government do so.
I will repeat what I said in the urgent question on Thursday. I have seen so many of these scandals, and it is usually not the original scandal or alleged scandal that is the problem; it is the cover up. I shall try to be helpful to the Government. We have already heard from the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and it is an absurd part of our processes that if there is a monumental scandal, we have a public inquiry—where officials, Ministers, everybody must be dragged in and every document produced—but Governments can just brush aside a Select Committee. I am genuinely trying to be helpful now. Obviously a bad mistake was made, but an even worse mistake is being made if the Government are not honest with Parliament and they do not release every single document.
There are so many questions that need to be asked and that could be answered if the Government—the Foreign Office—were honest in response. Why was Mandelson chosen, given his known past associations with Epstein and his previous sackings? Were the risks merely misjudged, or did the existing vetting process fail to assess them properly? The Prime Minister claimed he did not know the full extent of the emails. We have no reason not to take him at his word. Obviously he tells the truth, but this raises serious questions about what assurances or information he received, from whom, and whether that constituted adequate due diligence. What exact checks were carried out at the appointment stage?
What was known by whom and when? If some of the unsavoury aspects of the former ambassador’s friendship with Mr Epstein were known but deemed “worth the risk”, what criteria were used to make that decision? Was the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team sufficiently rigorous? Was any personal, institutional or political bias exhibited in how risks were weighed?
The Government have stated commitments on transparency, integrity and protecting the victims of abuse or sexual violence. Having a senior representative such as an ambassador whose past communications appear to mitigate, defend or minimise a convicted child sex offender must run counter to those values. Was that considered at that stage of the vetting process? How do the Government reconcile this incident with their stated positions? Why was the appointment made knowing that there were links, but without understanding their full extent? Why was the Prime Minister publicly defending Lord Mandelson up until the revelations emerged, only to sack him in less than a day when the media pressure rose? Was he sacked for the content of what was revealed, or merely because the situation became embarrassing?
Lord Mandelson was appointed to arguably the most important diplomatic role in His Majesty’s diplomatic service. This is a time of intense international pressure, and President Trump is operating the levers of power in a way that we have rarely seen in the post-war world. What assessment have the Government made of the damage done to Britain’s diplomatic standing by having such an important ambassador removed abruptly under scandal? Light is the best disinfectant, and the public—and this House, through the Select Committee—have a right to be informed. Ministers must assure us that the full record of Lord Mandelson’s communications with Epstein will be disclosed, and soon.
We must also be told whether any of the information the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary or any other Minister provided to the public has turned out to be inaccurate, whether intentionally or in good faith. The ambassador has been sacked, but this incident is far from over. Too many questions remain unanswered. It is the obligation and the responsibility of Government to ensure that Parliament and the public are given a full and frank exposition of this matter.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
I often think it is a grave pity that the cameras in this House tend to be trained just on the individual speaking, because it means that the public did not get the opportunity that we did earlier to look at the faces of the Labour MPs as this debate began—to see the glum, serious look on their faces as they recognised the significance of the situation that faces their Prime Minister here and now. And I am sure that that glum, angry, serious look is shared not just by those here on the Treasury Bench today but by those who have been flogged in the public domain across broadcasting stations throughout the course of the last week.
The Chief Whip is no longer in his place, but I like to think that Sunday was the first occasion when he was happy to be in his new role, because he did not have to appear on the Sunday media rounds as Business Secretary to defend the indefensible and to tell us all, in the public domain, that Peter Mandelson has singular qualities that nobody else on these isles—nobody else on the planet—could possibly have that made him fitting to be the ambassador to the United States of America. What a pitiful state to find ourselves in. What a pitiful state for the Prime Minister to find himself in.
I hate to say it, but this is mired in politics, because this was a political decision by the Prime Minister. He chose to stand at the Dispatch Box last week and tell not just us but the public that there was nothing to see here—that he had absolute confidence in Lord Mandelson. It is the Prime Minister who chose to ignore the facts that were plainly in front of him, not for weeks, hours or days, but for months. He was the man who appointed Peter Mandelson to be the ambassador to the United States. Peter Mandelson told a Financial Times journalist earlier this year to “fuck off”—his quote, not mine—when he was asked about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. That was what Lord Mandelson said. He also said it was “an FT obsession”. Well, guess what? It is our obsession now, and we are going to make sure that we get to the bottom of this.
The Prime Minister is not above the scrutiny of the House of Commons; neither is he above the scrutiny of the public at home. The greatest scandal of all is the fact that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom appointed a man to that role, knowing that that man had maintained a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein despite the fact that Epstein had been convicted in 2008, in Florida, of having 14-year-old girls masturbate him. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom thought it was fitting for the best friend of that individual to hold the highest diplomatic office in the United States of America on behalf of the people of these isles. What a complete disgrace.
The only thing that seems to have caused any consternation for the Prime Minister in any of this is not that that happened, but the fact that for a short period, Peter Mandelson appeared to think Jeffrey Epstein was innocent. That draws us to the conclusion that if Peter Mandelson had maintained the friendship with Jeffrey Epstein but thought he was guilty, he would still be in post. What has happened to the moral compass of this place, and of the office of the Prime Minister, where we can simply accept a rationale such as that?
How can any victim of child sex abuse in these isles or elsewhere have confidence in the structures that we put in place when the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom—[Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven (Chris Ward), shakes his head. Does he want to intervene? Is there something he disagrees with in my assessment of those facts, or does he want to present the additional detail to this House that makes any of that untrue whatsoever? No. I notice he is not shaking his head now, but I can tell him who is shaking their head: the public—at him and his Prime Minister for the decisions they have taken.
We are going into recess. All of us are mindful of the fact that this House is shutting down. But when we come back, we expect answers. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom hopes that this is going to go away, but I and every other Member sitting in this House right now can assure him that it is not.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Colleagues—there are children in the Gallery. Let us keep our language tempered and ensure that we are being moderate in everything we say.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn). My right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) was able to outline so clearly what today is about, and what today is about is an exceptionally serious matter. We are talking about the appointment of somebody who would have to have the highest security clearance—higher than a lot of Ministers—and who would have sensitive information going across his desk. Yet, at the same time, it was known in the public domain that this individual was severely compromised. That should raise a question for everybody.
Government Back Benchers have been following today’s debate in a state of despair. I admire them for that, because they understand the gravity of the situation. As the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South mentioned, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven (Chris Ward), has done nothing but treat the debate so far with contempt. He was smirking at the Leader of the Opposition and he has been shaking his head at some of the allegations made that are in the public domain. That speaks to the apparent attitude at the heart of this Government.
I have a huge amount of respect for the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who is going to have to respond to the debate. We work closely together and he is a good man, but he has been sent to the slaughter today. This is a decision that was made around the Cabinet table. The Minister had to come to this House last week and announce that the Prime Minister had instructed the Foreign Secretary to withdraw the ambassador. Where is the Foreign Secretary? This is one of the most serious issues this House has debated in this Parliament, and once again the Government have the Minister to answer these questions.
To be fair to the Minister, many questions will be put, and he is not going to be able to answer them. That is why he has been sent here today: because he can push it off into the distance. I have nothing but respect for the Minister; we work closely together on international affairs and on NATO, and he has always been honest and up front. I know he must be dreading responding today. Maybe he can tell us when he actually knew that the ambassador had been withdrawn, because on Thursday he certainly looked like a man who was slightly worried about what he had to come into this House to do.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I have talked to my constituents, and it is a fact that in the last few days they have talked about little else. Like the leader of the SNP in this place, the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), said, this issue is not going to go away. I hope politicians realise that. It will get bigger and bigger as time goes on. To take up the point made by the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke), these questions will have to be answered—there’s no two ways about it. When the general public speak so firmly to me in that way, and to all of us, we know they speak the truth.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
Let us not shy away from what this is about: this is about a man who defended a convicted paedophile, which most people know would lead to any vetting process being failed because the person could be compromised when they have defended someone of those serious criminal offences. We know from what is in the public domain how much he was in hock to this convicted paedophile, and yet processes were overridden.
The hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger) raked up the past and, quite frankly, the resignation of a director of communications is very different from the withdrawal of an ambassador with top secret access. When the Conservatives were in government, we didn’t exactly not have our scandals and heartaches that we had to go through. I remind the House that what did for Boris Johnson as the Prime Minister was not the allegations thrown from the Labour side of the House; it was when he said to this House that he was not aware of any of the allegations made against Chris Pincher, and then it turned out that he had evidence that he was aware.
We know that this Prime Minister stood at that Dispatch Box last Wednesday and said he had not been made aware and did not have any documents, when we now know that his office had them. The question has to be answered: when did he know and how can it be shown that he did not know beforehand? The Conservatives moved against Boris Johnson as Prime Minister when it became apparent that he did know. I say to those Labour Back Benchers and those giving opinions in the press, “Do you have the courage now to move against a Prime Minister who has done exactly what the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson did in this country?” This party moved against him it became clear that that was not correct. It is said that “the buck stops here”. Well, the buck really needs to stop here.
John Slinger
The right hon. Gentleman refers to the previous Prime Minister as having conducted himself in certain ways. One of those ways was not actually having an independent ethics adviser for a period of time, whereas this Prime Minister has an independent ethics adviser and acts on their advice.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
I took that intervention because I knew the hon. Gentleman would not be able to help himself. The reality is the Prime Minister made all this thing about, “I’ve appointed an ethics adviser, I’ve done this—” and yet, when asked the very straightforward question by the BBC, “Would you sack a Minister who has broken the ethics code?” he could not answer. He obfuscated, as he always does. This is smoke and mirrors, and this is exactly the situation we find ourselves in today.
It is not good enough to say, “We didn’t know.” I come back to the fact that people who were subject to a paedophile had to watch somebody who defended that paedophile get put in one of the highest offices in the world, carrying some of the greatest secrets of state—and yet this Prime Minister said, “That’s all fine; we’ll override it.”
I do not want to go beyond the six minutes I was allowed, Madam Deputy Speaker, so I will just ask these questions of the Minister—some of them have been implied.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the right hon. Member give way?
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
I am afraid I will not. I do not want to test the patience of the House—a lot of people want to speak.
The question the Minister has to answer decisively today is, “Who knew what and when?” He has to answer who made the decision to award the ambassadorship to Peter Mandelson and what lobbying took place. Any of us who have been to America working in international affairs know from meeting Karen Pierce that she is one of the most respected and capable ambassadors. It cannot be true to say that such a distinguished ambassador as Dame Karen would not have been able to carry out the task—a task for which members sitting around the Cabinet table today felt that man was worth the risk.
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
There have been some powerful speeches from both sides of the House, and it is apparent that everybody is agreed that Peter Mandelson should never have been appointed as ambassador to Washington. It matters because ambassadors are critically important to our nation. They are the leaders in projecting our soft power. They are viewed as embodiments of the United Kingdom, and it is them who influence very largely how the UK is perceived.
As has been said, we have had some really good ambassadors to the United States, going back to the late Sir Christopher Meyer, who I knew well and who did a terrific job, Lord Kim Darroch, and Dame Karen Pierce. Sometimes there have even been good political appointments. There was a certain amount of controversy when Peter Jay was appointed US ambassador—he was the son-in-law of the Prime Minister—but he did a reasonable job. Ed Llewellyn became our ambassador to Paris, and now to Rome, and has done a terrific job.
As the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), pointed out, because Ed Llewellyn’s appointment was a political one, he was interrogated by the Select Committee. As she said, the Committee, on which I serve, has attempted numerous times to have Peter Mandelson appear. We were told, in the Foreign Office’s most recent letter to the Chair, that the Committee would have the opportunity to talk to him on a visit to Washington. I was at both meetings, so I can say that the first was a briefing about the state of American politics when we first arrived, and the second was a breakfast at which he hosted opinion-formers to discuss with us what was happening in the US Capitol. At no stage did we have any opportunity to cross-examine or ask Peter Mandelson the questions that we would have asked had he appeared before the Committee. It is ridiculous to suggest that those meetings somehow compensated for his failure to appear.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
I was with the right hon. Gentleman at those Foreign Affairs Committee meetings. We should also say that there was no opportunity for us to quiz Lord Mandelson in a public setting.
Sir John Whittingdale
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It was important that we had that opportunity. Had we done so, the questions being asked now could have been asked then, and we could have explored rather more why the decision to appoint Lord Mandelson was taken—it is still causing bewilderment to a large number of people. As has been said, it is now apparent that he should never have been appointed. I will not recap what my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) and many others have said about his record, his previous resignations and his unsavoury links, all of which should have rung every alarm bell.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
My right hon. Friend is making an important contribution. Does he not agree that although there is a tendency to say that it is about what we can do in the future, this debate is about what has gone wrong in the past, about the Government’s role in it, and about the Prime Minister shouldering responsibility and taking us through what he knew?
Sir John Whittingdale
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Actually, the two are related, because we can determine the lessons learned and decide what to do in the future only if we know what went wrong this time. In order to know, we must obtain the answers to our questions.
The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee set out and ran through a number of important questions in her contribution, and we have now had an answer from the Foreign Office. She referred to the letter that was sent to her. What we know from the letter—it does not tell us much—is, first, that the Foreign Office had nothing really to do with this. It says that the appointment was carried out following the propriety and ethics committee investigation, which was carried out in the Cabinet Office. The Foreign Office was then told of that and instructed to appoint Lord Mandelson as ambassador. After his appointment was announced, the FCDO started the ambassadorial appointment process, including national security vetting.
National security vetting—deep vetting—has been referred to. We need to know what that says, but we are told by the Foreign Office that national security vetting is independent of Ministers, who are not informed of any findings other than the final outcome. Essentially, the Foreign Office appears to be saying, “Well, we were told about his past, but we were not told anything about what was uncovered, about the questions that were asked or about his answers.” Yet this is someone who already had very serious offences against him, which had caused him to resign twice, and real question marks about his record as European Commissioner and about some of his friendships. All of those questions must, one assumes, have been asked during deep vetting, yet he passed. The final outcome was, “Fine, he can be appointed.” The Foreign Office was told that but was not given any other detail.
Frankly, I find that completely astonishing. It raises even more serious questions about the deep vetting process and what it showed, and why, if Ministers were not given any detail about what the process uncovered, they did not ask any questions about it. I look forward to the Minister addressing that in his response.
Sir John Whittingdale
I give way to another fellow member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Edward Morello
The right hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the Committee’s repeated requests to meet Lord Mandelson before his appointment. He also raises the various responses that we got from the Foreign Secretary. The important fact that there were questions about the suitability of the appointment means that there must also be questions about the Prime Minister’s judgment. Did he ask to read the propriety and ethics and security vetting reports before making the appointment, and did he go ahead despite their content?
Sir John Whittingdale
The hon. Gentleman asks valid questions. We need to have the answers to them all. I know that he will join me in urging the Foreign Affairs Committee to continue pressing this case. It may well be that another body—perhaps the Liaison Committee, which has the opportunity to interrogate the Prime Minister—will also pursue these matters. As has been said several times, this will not go away. There is real anger across this House and across the country, and people will demand answers.
The Committee attempted today to try to put those questions by summoning two members of the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office, but we were told that neither was available. I can tell the House that I have some experience in summoning people who do not wish to appear before Select Committees—there is a procedure—and I hope that, when we return after recess, the Committee will pursue these matters and will require Ministers to appear, and that if they refuse, we will see what other actions can be taken.
These are very serious matters. The questions have been asked, but the answers have not been forthcoming so far. We will go on pursuing this until they are.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I assume that everyone who is bobbing wishes to contribute—there seems to be a lot of movement in the Chamber.
Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) on securing this debate. Like everyone in the Chamber, my thoughts are first and foremost with the victims of that dreadful man whose name I refuse to mention.
A week is a long time in politics. Last week, we saw the Prime Minister stand at the Dispatch Box to back, and then sack, the now former ambassador to the US. At Prime Minister’s questions last week, my party leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), questioned the Prime Minister on Lord Mandelson’s appointment. The Prime Minister stood by it, confirming that rigorous background checks had taken place.
This entire situation has left a nasty taste in the mouth, to put it mildly. The fact that the ambassador to the US—the most coveted ambassadorial position in the United Kingdom by many metrics—was seemingly okay with the moral turpitude of the man whose name I will not mention, even after his conviction, casts a long shadow on Britain’s place in the world. The timing and nature of this episode—not that it could ever be anything other than terrible—is catastrophically bad. The optics are dreadful. While we should be demonstrating moral leadership in an increasingly volatile international climate, our emissary to our closest ally has been discredited by scandal.
The President of the United States lands in this country today for his unprecedented second state visit. When the Prime Minister wines and dines him, will he take a principled stand on the matters of great importance to the people of this country? Will he press on Gaza? Will he make progress on our long awaited bespoke trade deal to insulate ourselves from Trump’s tariffs? Will he be supporting our NATO allies in making the case for better US engagement in the defence of Ukraine and shoring up Europe’s eastern flank to Russian incursions into Poland and Romania?
As if not already bad enough, this murky affair has been thickened by the fact that a source from MI6 has reportedly claimed that they failed to clear Mandelson and warned that his links to the man I refuse to name “would compromise him”. Downing Street pressed ahead with the appointment anyway. It is vital that the Civil Service Commission investigates whether the ambassador broke the diplomatic service code by failing to come clean over these revelations sooner.
If it is true, it raises wider questions about what other advice from the security services was neglected. Why did Downing Street officials fail this most basic duty? Why did the team in No. 10 send the Prime Minister out to bat sticking to the line of confidence in Mandelson, only to defenestrate the ambassador a few hours later? Why was the Prime Minister not on top of his brief? If it is the case that key details and information were withheld from the Prime Minister, why has no one been outed and swiftly given the boot?
In the late 1920s, a German philosopher called Karl Popper famously said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. It is my sincere hope that that is not the case for this Government, for whom I usually have a degree of respect. There are so many questions. We on these Benches and my constituents in Tiverton and Minehead demand answers.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
When I heard that this debate had been granted, I thought long and hard about what I could add and whether I should even take part. Many of the questions that spring to mind about the process—where, when, why, how and so on—have already been asked far more eloquently and in more detail than I could. In essence, it comes down to the fact that this was a political appointment, so the PM is the person who should carry the risk—that is the job. If it is someone else’s, we need to know who that is. Stepping back a bit, I thought, “What would the man and woman on Hinckley high street say if I talked to them about it?” They do talk about it, and it hits hard. They have many of the process questions that we have.
This seems a bit of a pyrrhic victory. I am acutely aware that the sword of hypocrisy has a blade on both sides, and swung heavily in this House, it can hit both sides equally, but it is not the wound that can kill; it is the subsequent infection. That is the problem we are seeing today. The hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger) pointed to the past and talked about context. He is right: context is important to the public in this debate, and we on the Conservative Benches are paying the price for some of the decisions that were taken before. It was not the fact that a previous Prime Minister ate cake. It was the fact that it was then covered up, and we had to come to this House following the report to say that we felt the Prime Minister had lied.
The new Prime Minister came in saying, “There will be change. There will be something different.” Those were his words. It was even on the lectern: “Plan for change”. Herein lies the problem. When the Transport Secretary was found to have committed fraud, when the anti-corruption Minister was investigated for corruption, when the homelessness Minister had to resign for making people homeless, and when the Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary was found not to have paid her tax, it was not because the Prime Minister pushed them out there—it was because the media and this place did their job in holding them to account. That is the difference I am looking for today.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
Does my hon. Friend agree it is a vital point that if our right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition had not taken down the Prime Minister step by step last week, we may have gone into a recess with this scrutiny still not happening?
Dr Evans
My right hon. Friend is spot on. Respect should be given to the many people who have raised concerns, including the Leader of the Opposition, many in the media and many Back Benchers on both sides of the House.
This is my primary point: the Prime Minister said he wanted to do something different. Well, what could he do differently? He could come to this House, tell people the truth and answer the questions. There is nothing stopping him from delivering a statement, putting himself up for scrutiny and answering these questions. He could convene a Committee of the House—I am sure many would be happy to attend—to answer the questions put to him.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
The point keeps being raised about the three-week gap that is coming, but the reality is that key Select Committees can continue to investigate this issue through the recess, which they should, and could call the Prime Minister to give evidence, so that we do not wait three weeks, with the Government hoping that it dies. That is the key.
Dr Evans
My right hon. Friend is spot on.
The Prime Minister said he would do things differently. If he wants to show leadership, he could come to the Dispatch Box himself. I have a huge amount of respect for the Minister who will have to defend this situation, but he is not the decision maker—he is not the risk holder when it comes to this decision. Therein lies the point. I am sad today, because the public will look on and see that a new Prime Minister came in on a landslide majority saying he would do things differently, by his own standards that he set, and he has chosen not to. He has ignored the questions. He has answered the media, saying in his one outing, “I wouldn’t have made the decision if I knew the information.” That is not good enough to allow the public to understand.
I finish where I started: today is a pyrrhic victory—a hollow victory—but I live in hope. On the day that the Government have introduced the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, I am hopeful that the Prime Minister could still lead the change that he set out. He could still live by his own standards that he set for himself and his Government, and he could still clear up once and for all exactly what happened. I live in hope that that might be the case.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
The reality is that the Prime Minister personally decided to appoint Lord Mandelson as the ambassador to the United States, and in so doing, he has humiliated and embarrassed this nation on the international stage, because Lord Mandelson is someone who described himself as the “best pal” of a paedophile and advised that paedophile to use his time in prison as “an opportunity”—truly shocking.
There are two separate issues that require proper examination: first, the judgment of the Prime Minister, and secondly, whether he inadvertently misled the House last Wednesday in responding to the Leader of the Opposition. Let us look at the judgment of the Prime Minister. We know now that as he made the personal decision to appoint Lord Mandelson, he received a two-page document outlining some of his links to the paedophile, and yet he carried on with that decision to appoint him. He made the appointment in that knowledge. That is woefully incompetent judgment.
Last week, in the knowledge that there was a cache of emails about Lord Mandelson’s links to this paedophile, the Prime Minister made the judgment—as a lawyer who supposedly is forensic—not to ask the questions about what was in the emails. That seems to me an absolute failure of judgment. He then made the judgment to come to this House and say he had confidence in the man about whom he knew there was a cache of emails that he thought it inappropriate to ask the detail of. The whole point of lawyers and barristers is that they do due diligence, but no—not our Prime Minister.
That brings me to the critical issue of whether the Prime Minister inadvertently misled the House. He said two things to the Leader of the Opposition. First, he said twice that he had “confidence in” Lord Mandelson, and yet he knew the day before about a cache of emails, which he did not want to know the detail of, on Lord Mandelson’s links to Epstein. The day after, the Prime Minister fired Lord Mandelson. Is it credible to believe that one can have confidence in a man, given those two facts that came about within a 24-hour period?
Secondly, even more significantly, the Prime Minister said that “full due process” had been “followed during this appointment”. We now learn that that is not the case, because the due process was carried out after the decision by the Prime Minister to appoint Lord Mandelson and after it had been announced to the world at large. Those two things cannot be true. Either full due process was carried out before the decision to appoint, or it was carried out afterwards—it was not carried out “during”.
For that reason, regrettably, I conclude personally that the Prime Minister inadvertently misled the House of Commons and the British people. Therefore, the Prime Minister needs to come to the House and give absolute clarity on what he knew and when, why he made those decisions, and why he chose not to ask for detailed forensic investigations at the appropriate time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I remind Members to temper their speeches. We do not, at any point, accuse other Members of dishonesty. I know that the next Member to speak will get that right.
Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
On rare moments, Members on both sides of the House come to the Chamber with the same question on their minds: how did it get to this? The Prime Minister is proud of his record as Director of Public Prosecutions and of his skill to prosecute, interrogate and investigate—skills that are absent here. He will also be more than familiar with the basic legal principle of caveat emptor—buyer beware. That can be translated across the board to many scenarios and, in essence, means that we have to do our research and ask pointed questions.
On that point, the Prime Minister exposed himself in interviews yesterday. He claimed that he did not know the content of the Bloomberg emails, yet he knew that they existed—where was the inquiry? He knew that an investigation had been launched by the Foreign Office, but not the content—where was the inquiry? He was waiting for answers from the disgraced ambassador, even though we understand that his chief of staff was in contact with him for much of the previous day—where was the inquiry? Given the knowledge that such outstanding questions remained unanswered, anyone—not just a lawyer—would have drawn breath and paused before giving such a vote of confidence in the ambassador during PMQs. It was wilful ignorance at best, or political belligerence at worst.
The Prime Minister now says:
“Had I known then what I know now, I’d have never appointed him”.
The former Foreign Secretary said:
“The truth is all the issues were weighed and in that time it was known that Peter Mandelson had a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, but the scale and extent of that was only known last Wednesday evening when the prime minister surveyed those emails.”
We understand, however, that the Foreign Office contacted No. 10 on Tuesday and that an investigation was opened. Something does not add up.
There is such a lack of clarity on this matter, and where there is a lack of clarity, we need transparency. A proper due diligence exercise relies on the disclosure given, as the Prime Minister will be well aware from his practice. It is time to disclose. I am therefore sure that the Government will oblige the request of the Leader of the Opposition to provide the House with all correspondence and documents in the Mandelson files.
The matter, however, goes beyond judgment calls made by the Prime Minister and the previous Foreign Secretary, given that both are involved in the appointment of ambassadors; it is also a matter of ethics. What is deemed acceptable behaviour for those in positions of power? The Nolan principles are integral to all of us who serve the public: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. Those principles apply as much to the former ambassador as to the Prime Minister. Under “Leadership”, the principles state:
“Holders of public office should…actively promote and robustly support the principles and challenge poor behaviour wherever it occurs.”
Given the known record of Peter Mandelson, even before the details of the Bloomberg emails came to light, does the Prime Minister believe that that principle has been met? On that basis, will the Prime Minister be referring himself and others involved in the appointment process to the independent ethics adviser?
The role of ambassador in Washington is a crucial one, entrusted with the most sensitive information and shaping our reputation on the world stage. It is not too much to ask that its appointee embodies the highest standards.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
Let us be crystal clear: this emergency debate is about honesty, integrity and the credibility of this Labour Government. It is about what the Prime Minister knew about Lord Mandelson’s links to Jeffrey Epstein, and when he knew it. The public deserve the truth, but instead they have been treated to evasion, delay and, as my constituents have been clear, a cover-up.
The decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to the US was extraordinary. The links between Mandelson and Epstein were well known, as we have heard this afternoon. The vetting process surely should have raised red flags, yet the Prime Minister—yes, the Prime Minister—oversaw the appointment. Where is he today? He is perhaps happier to talk to the BBC than at the Dispatch Box.
The Prime Minister told us himself that he had “confidence in” Lord Mandelson, even as the questions mounted and the damning Bloomberg emails were about to surface. That surely was not an accident; it was a choice, and one that goes to the heart of the Prime Minister’s judgment.
Let us remind ourselves what the emails revealed: Mandelson offering words of support to a convicted paedophile. Those were not casual contacts but sustained and deeply troubling links. Yet when the Prime Minister was pressed on what he knew, his story shifted: first, perhaps ignorance; then an awareness of media inquiries; and then the claim that he had not seen the contents of the emails until the last moment. All the while, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff was in touch with Lord Mandelson for “much of the day” before PMQs. Which is it? The House deserves answers to the most basic questions about a scandal engulfing the Prime Minister and his former ambassador.
The lapse is not isolated, however. Two of the Prime Minister’s most senior appointments have unravelled in recent weeks. It seems to me that Labour likes to lecture us all about integrity, but in little more than a year in office it is mired in scandal, putting loyalty to insiders ahead of the basic decency that the public rightly expect.
While the Government tie themselves in knots, our country faces grave challenges. Last week, Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace, testing NATO’s resolve. Bond rates here at home have hit their highest level in 30 years. Illegal migrant boat crossings reached record numbers in 2025. In the west midlands, bin strikes roll into their sixth month, while Labour MPs from that city and region sit silent. In my constituency, swathes of our precious green belt are under siege because of Labour’s planning reforms. Those are the issues that my constituents expect this place to be focused on. Instead, the Prime Minister is distracted by a scandal of his own making.
To get back to the central question, what must happen now? I think the answer is simple. The Mandelson-Epstein files must be released in full, urgently and without caveats. That means the two-page vetting document and the evidence behind it; all correspondence between the chief of staff and Lord Mandelson; the communications between the Foreign Office, No.10 and our embassy in Washington about the Bloomberg files; and any other documents presented to the Prime Minister in making the appointment. This House and the public we serve have a right to see them.
Recess will be upon us within hours, but this scandal cannot and must not be sent into recess in the hope that this failing Government can sweep it under the carpet. The longer that Labour refuses to publish the files, the more damning the conclusion becomes, and the more damaging it is to democracy in our country and to the trust of the public.
The Labour party went into last year’s election on a slogan of change, but every day it is demonstrating that it is change for the worse. At a moment when we should be projecting clarity, strength and integrity on the world stage, we are instead led by a Prime Minister who is distracted by scandal and paralysed by poor judgment. It is time to end the rumour, publish the files and finally put the country before narrow party interests—nothing less will do.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
I want to use the few minutes that I have to focus on how it could be that, just last Wednesday, the Prime Minister of this country came to tell this House that he had “confidence” in Lord Mandelson, the friend of the paedophile, in his role as a key ambassador for the Government. The Prime Minister said that not once but twice, when the Leader of the Opposition rightly asked him, declaring:
“I have confidence in him”,
and
“I have confidence in the ambassador”.—[Official Report, 10 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 860.]
Those were his ringing endorsements of Lord Mandelson.
I want to examine the circumstances that then prevailed when he said that he had confidence in Lord Mandelson. What is confidence? Confidence is having trust, faith and belief in someone. That is what the Prime Minister was telling this House in respect of Lord Mandelson last Wednesday, yet by Monday it was a matter of public knowledge that the Bloomberg emails had been published.
The Prime Minister has since made some startling claims. He said that when he was answering Prime Minister’s questions he knew that questions were being asked, but he knew only about media inquiries about the emails and that questions were being put to Lord Mandelson. Our Prime Minister is a King’s Counsel. The natural instinct of a lawyer is to interrogate, and the training of a lawyer is to equip them to interrogate. However, this House is being told that when the Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box and said “I have confidence” in Lord Mandelson, even though he knew that questions were being asked, he did not interrogate them for himself or ask about what was being asked. When he told the House that he knew that there were media inquiries about emails, we are being asked to believe that he did not ask, “What emails? What did they say?”
Dr Luke Evans
The hon. and learned Gentleman is making a fantastic speech. The Prime Minister said that he had “confidence in the ambassador”. He did not say “pending investigation or a suspension”, “I’ll look into it” or “I’ll follow process”, but “I have confidence.” Why does the hon. and learned Gentleman think that the Prime Minister did not say that he would look into the situation seriously, and instead said from the Dispatch Box specifically that he had “confidence”?
Jim Allister
That is the most troubling thing about this. Equipped with the knowledge that he inevitably had—Monday night’s publication, and the knowledge that questions had been asked and that there were media inquiries about the emails—the credibility of the House is stretched to be asked to believe that the Prime Minister, a trained lawyer, never interrogated any of that and never asked, “What emails? What did they say? What questions have we asked?” We are asked to believe that he came to the House blind to all of that.
Not only in the appointment of Lord Mandelson do we see serious flaws in the judgment of the Prime Minister. If it is truly the situation, that he came to the House with a limited but uninterrogated knowledge of these matters, then that raises further questions about his judgment. I fear that this House has many answers yet to receive. It is a matter of regret to me, as it is to other hon. Members, that the Prime Minister is not here today to answer those demanding, alarming yet simple questions: they are questions that go not only to the heart of the Prime Minister’s confidence in Lord Mandelson, but to the question of whether this House, and this people, can have confidence in the Prime Minister.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
The UK has a proud tradition of appointing career civil servants as ambassadors. Our senior diplomatic service is respected worldwide and, while travelling with the Foreign Affairs Committee this year, I have heard high praise for our “Rolls-Royce civil service”. It is professional, reliable and globally respected.
One strength of the British civil service lies in the clear separation between politicians and officials. Since the Northcote and Trevelyan report of 1854, civil service impartiality has been a sine qua non of a permanent civil service, and the reputation of the British Government depends upon it. That rigid distinction has served us well across the decades and applies in the staffing of our most senior diplomatic posts.
There have been occasional exceptions. For example, Baron Llewellyn of Steep, the former chief of staff to Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton when he was Prime Minister, was appointed ambassador to France in 2016 and now serves now as His Majesty’s ambassador to Italy. He gained experience with Chris Patten in Hong Kong—later Baron Patten—and then with Lord Ashdown when he was high representative for Bosnia, so he plainly has enormous international experience. Crucially, shortly after the political appointment of Baron Llewellyn was made, he was called to the Foreign Affairs Committee in 2017 to give evidence.
Let us contrast the British way with how the United States makes its ambassadorial appointments. It is common for American Presidents to reward political donors or allies with ambassadorial posts. Donald Trump’s choice for new ambassador to London is a case in point: he is an investment banker and a donor to the Republican party, not a career diplomat. By 3 September, Donald Trump had appointed 67 ambassadors in his second term, 61 of whom—more than 90%—are political appointees.
In the United States, such appointments are subject to public scrutiny. Every US ambassador must first appear before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, submitting detailed disclosures on their background, finances and potential conflicts of interest, before facing direct questioning in a public hearing. In the United States, only after that confirmation hearing does the nomination proceed to the full Senate, where a confirmation vote is required. That ensures a level of transparency and accountability that is absent from the UK system.
Our system is set up for the appointment of senior civil servants, who receive vetting on a rolling basis. The Foreign Affairs Committee was not afforded the opportunity to question Lord Mandelson, either in public before his appointment or subsequentially. With the appointment of Lord Mandelson, we saw neither the professionalism of the appointment of a British civil servant nor the scrutiny associated with political appointees in the US system.
We should also look hard at what has happened in US-UK relations since Lord Mandelson took up his post last December. On Ukraine, Lord Mandelson’s line was arguably closer to the US than to the UK, prior to his appointment as ambassador. He spoke frivolously on the Kuenssberg programme about
“whatever happens to the fringes of Ukraine territory”.
That was not the British Government’s position. In March this year, after his appointment, Mandelson said that President Zelensky should be
“more supportive of US peace efforts”.
Those remarks were so out of step that Ministers were forced to clarify that the comments did not reflect British Government policy.
On the middle east, we know that the UK and US Governments have taken different approaches to the conflict, which leaves us wondering in what circumstances the UK position has not been portrayed correctly in Washington DC.
Trade is another area of concern. On 1 April, I gave the First Reading of the UK-USA Trade Agreements (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Bill, a ten-minute rule Bill arguing for stronger parliamentary scrutiny of any trade deal. While parliamentary scrutiny of any transatlantic partnership with the United States is essential, it is also essential with appointments to the role of ambassador. My instinct is that the UK ambassador to the US should be a professional British civil servant or an official.
David Davis
The hon. Member has made a theoretical argument and a general argument, but the actual argument is that Karen Pierce was a brilliant campaigner who would never have made the mistakes made by Lord Mandelson, which he alludes to, and she should not have been replaced.
Richard Foord
I agree wholeheartedly. I commend the right hon. Gentleman on calling this debate in the first place, and he is right. It was rumoured that Karen Pierce wanted to or was at least willing to stay on in post for another year, and she would have represented us in an excellent manner, which we know was characteristic of her.
The Prime Minister has extensive powers to appoint senior officials. Usually the civil service commissioners lead this process to ensure that the selection is on the basis of merit. The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, or CRaG, allows the Prime Minister to bypass that check on his power, and in this case it has had disastrous consequences.
As I conclude, I have two questions for the Minister. Will the Government give a commitment that in future any political appointment to a senior diplomatic role will go before the Foreign Affairs Committee for scrutiny before the appointment is confirmed? Will the Government amend section 10(2) of CRaG to ensure that diplomats, like senior civil servants, are appointed on the basis of merit and “fair and open competition”?
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
I thank and congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) on securing this emergency debate.
The focus of the debate thus far has been primarily on three areas: the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s appalling crimes, the conduct of Lord Mandelson prior to his being appointed and the judgment of the Prime Minister in both appointing and firing Lord Mandelson as the British ambassador to Washington. Quite rightly, in this debate the House has focused on those three areas, but I will add a fourth area that I find as chilling as the other three. Since December last year, our ambassador in Washington has been potentially subject to leverage and blackmail, because someone—we do not know who—had politically fatal kompromat on Lord Mandelson throughout his whole time in office.
I am amazed that the Foreign Office has not gone into full lockdown and damage limitation mode, having found out that potentially Lord Mandelson could have been blackmailed this entire time. If it had turned out that he had been an agent of a foreign state, the Foreign Office would have done that. All it knows now is that someone—we do not know who—had politically fatal kompromat on him that whole time.
The hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) talked about some of the behaviours of Lord Mandelson in office, and that is the bit I am concerned about. I do not know whether the Minister is aware that Sir Ben Wallace gave an interview to Times Radio recently in which he said that Lord Mandelson had been lobbying No. 10 Downing Street on behalf of a single defence manufacturer for Britain to buy an unmanned military set of equipment—a major buy—without a competition, bypassing UK small and medium-sized enterprises and expertise. I will not put two and two together, but it seems extraordinary that someone who was meant to be promoting British interests overseas was instead promoting US defence capability to No. 10. We buy a lot of good kit from America, of course, but the absence of a competition skews the pitch and is odd behaviour.
I hope that when the Minister gets an opportunity to speak, he will talk about what measures No. 10 and the Foreign Office are taking to examine every single thing that Lord Mandelson did when he was our ambassador, in order to establish the extent to which the politically fatal kompromat had skewed his judgment and driven his behaviour.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
The now former ambassador to the United States has been sacked due to the nature of his relationship with a convicted paedophile—a relationship that has come as no surprise to anybody except the Prime Minister, it would appear. The Prime Minister and the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), knew of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein, yet his appointment was felt to be worth the risk. That is despite warnings from President Trump’s co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita, who criticised the replacement of the former ambassador, Dame Karen Pierce, as replacing a
“professional universally respected ambo with an absolute moron”.
Even the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), who was effusive in her praise for Lord Mandelson, asked for him to come before her Committee to
“allow my colleagues to hear directly why the Prime Minister has appointed him”.—[Official Report, 14 January 2025; Vol. 760, c. 143.]
With her face pressed up against the Cabinet Room window like Tiny Tim out in the cold, I am surprised that she could be heard, but the Minister for the Overseas Territories, who is looking sheepish in his place on the Front Bench, was emphatic. He stated:
“We are absolutely convinced that Lord Mandelson will do an excellent job as our representative in Washington”.—[Official Report, 14 January 2025; Vol. 760, c. 143.]
Yet that whole time, the Government were aware of the security warnings that Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein crossed the line of what is acceptable and failed to meet the standard expected of what is arguably our most critical ambassadorial appointment.
The President of the United States arrives for his second state visit tomorrow, yet we now suffer the embarrassment and indignity of having had to sack our ambassador for his proximity to a man found guilty of soliciting prostitution from a child—a man whose girlfriend was convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking, conspiracy and transportation of a minor for illegal sexual activity. Indeed, an aspect of this matter that remains unclear is the nature of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell. The New York Times has described this issue as “a stinging embarrassment” that
“casts a shadow over the planned state visit”.
How has the Prime Minister allowed this to happen, ignoring the advice from his security assessment to appoint him anyway, embracing the risk then having it blow up in his face?
Prior to entering Parliament, I worked for Barclays bank. In 2021, the bank’s CEO Jes Staley resigned amid a regulatory probe into whether he mischaracterised his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. I actually raised a complaint with my managers, which was roundly ignored and never advanced beyond managing director level, such was the squeamishness that surrounded the story. I was furious that Barclays still paid Staley his £2.4 million salary and £120,000 pension contribution while being defenestrated for his relationship with Epstein. That is not privileged information—it was widely reported—yet while the financial world saw fit to wash its hands of Staley, this Labour Government welcomed Lord Mandelson with open arms.
Those linked to Jeffrey Epstein who maintained a relationship with him after his conviction and who many times visited his island, where the crimes took place, have long since been deplatformed and deemed too toxic to hold positions of power, yet the hubris of the Prime Minister saw him ride roughshod over such glaringly obvious concerns. Being the Prime Minister is to take the mantle of the UK’s decision-maker-in-chief; it is to own the responsibility of making not just difficult decisions, but the most difficult decisions. Appointing an ambassador to the United States is not the political banana skin that should bring down the Government, yet here we are. The Government are teetering on the brink.
Yesterday the Prime Minister gingerly began climbing down over his handling of the Mandelson sacking. When he came to the Chamber last Wednesday, he robustly defended Lord Mandelson and played to the baying crowd. He even had the chutzpah to claim that the Conservative party has a leadership contest going on—was it not interesting to see him in the Smoking Room last night between votes? [Laughter.] Last Wednesday, the Prime Minister stated that
“full due process was followed during this appointment”.—[Official Report, 10 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 859.]
He said that twice. If that is true, the Prime Minister knew the full scope of Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. If he did not know and new information subsequently came to light, either the vetting standards of the Government are incompetent or the claim of “full due process” is inaccurate. The Prime Minister also said that
“I have confidence in the ambassador”.—[Official Report, 10 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 860.]
He said that twice, too.
The Prime Minister’s explanation yesterday stated that there were three reasons for his tergiversation:
“The nature and extent of the relationship being far different to what I’d understood to be the position at the point of appointment, the questioning and challenging of the conviction, which…goes to the heart and cuts across what this government is doing on violence against women and girls and the unsatisfactory nature of responses from Peter Mandelson last week to the inquiries made of him by government officials – I took the decision to remove him.”
Can the Government lay out precisely what was the full due process that was followed? The Prime Minister claims that he did not learn the content of the Bloomberg emails until after his robust defence at PMQs, so did Lord Mandelson fail to disclose that information during his vetting interview? Was there even a vetting interview, or did Lord Mandelson disclose everything and the Prime Minister is displaying wilful ignorance?
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
The hon. Member’s speech reminds me of an earlier episode in UK-US relations, when Donald Rumsfeld referred to known knowns, unknown unknowns and known unknowns. While the Government might be forgiven for not holding Peter Mandelson to account for unknown unknowns, does he agree that it is unforgivable that they have staked Britain’s diplomatic relationship with the US on known unknowns?
Ben Obese-Jecty
I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member. It is incredible that the Government have engaged in such lax vetting regarding such an obvious conflict of interest.
On the nature and extent of the relationship, we knew about Mandelson’s closeness to Jeffrey Epstein when the notorious birthday book was published, in which Lord Mandelson described the convicted paedophile as his “best pal” and signed off his many pages of unctuous praise with the line “yum yum”. What else did the Prime Minister learn beyond that? He claims that he knew only of Mandelson’s “association” with Jeffrey Epstein—that would appear to be questionable.
Turning to Lord Mandelson’s questioning and challenging of the conviction, was he asked his opinion of the conviction of his “best pal” during his vetting interview? Did Lord Mandelson disclose that he felt, or had ever felt, that the conviction was unjustified? Either he was not asked, in which case the vetting was incompetent; he did not disclose it, in which case he was not a suitable appointment; or he did disclose it, and it was ignored by the Prime Minister. Which is it?
The unsatisfactory nature of the responses is the only aspect of the investigation we are yet to learn about. The Prime Minister must publish the new information, so that this House can fully understand. If Lord Mandelson’s answers are unsatisfying now, but were not before, that suggests that full due process was not followed, in contradiction to what the Prime Minister claimed last week.
This whole sorry episode looks set to derail the visit of the President of the United States tomorrow. We are a long way from the chummy bonhomie of the Prime Minister feeling that he had stuck the landing with his perfectly stage-managed hand delivery of an invitation letter to President Trump. I wonder how he is going to explain all this to the President tomorrow. The Prime Minister knows that his days are numbered; those in his new Cabinet know his days are numbered; his Back Benchers know his days are numbered—perhaps he should try talking to them on a regular basis, not just greasing up to them in the Smoking Room when he needs their support. If the Prime Minister cannot exercise the judgment required of his office, he must resign.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
That is the end of the Back-Bench contributions. Colleagues who have spoken should be making their way back to the Chamber.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
On Thursday, I came to this House to announce that the Prime Minister had asked the Foreign Secretary to withdraw Lord Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the United States. At the outset, may I say—there were many comments to this effect from across the House—that all of us are appalled by Epstein’s crimes, and all those who have suffered as a result need to be at the forefront of our minds today.
I also thank a number of right hon. and hon. Members for what I think were genuine suggestions about scrutiny of processes in relation to ambassadorial appointments. In particular, the Government have listened to the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), on this matter, and we will consider all options to support the Committee in its work in future.
Stephen Doughty
I will not give way at first. I need to respond to many of the points that have been made in the debate, after which I will happily take some interventions.
The Prime Minister took this decision after new information showed that the nature and extent of Lord Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was materially different from what was known at the time of his appointment. In particular, Lord Mandelson suggested that Epstein’s conviction was wrongful, encouraged him to fight for early release, and said that Epstein had been through “years of torture”. We know that the only people tortured were the women and girls whose lives were destroyed by Epstein’s heinous crimes. I associate myself with the remarks that a number of right hon. and hon. Members made on that point, both about the crimes and the victims.
Stephen Flynn
Is the Minister effectively telling the House that Lord Mandelson retaining his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein despite him being a paedophile was fine, and that the only problem was that Lord Mandelson thought that Jeffrey Epstein was innocent? Is the Minister conveying the message to the public that if Lord Mandelson had not sent those emails and had said to the Prime Minister that Jeffrey Epstein was guilty, that would not have been a problem?
Stephen Doughty
The Prime Minister has been explicitly clear that the new information was not compatible with the duty that we owe to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s horrendous crimes against women and girls, and with this Government’s clear commitment to tackling that kind of violence and abuse. As such, the Prime Minister took decisive action to withdraw Lord Mandelson as ambassador. He has also been clear—he undertook a number of media interviews yesterday—that Lord Mandelson would not have been appointed if all the information we now have was available at the time. I point the House to what the Prime Minister had to say yesterday:
“Had I known then what I know now, I’d have never appointed him.”
Following Lord Mandelson’s departure and in line with standard diplomatic practice, the deputy head of mission, James Roscoe—an experienced and capable diplomat—has been put in place as the chargé d’affaires.
Dr Evans
The Minister is doing a fair job, but I have one simple question for him: why is he, not the Prime Minister, in the Chamber answering the House’s questions? The Minister clearly cannot answer them—no disrespect to him. The Prime Minister said that he did not know something, but now he knows something. Where is the Prime Minister, and why is he not at the Dispatch Box?
Stephen Doughty
I am in the Chamber responding for the Government as the Minister for North America. The hon. Gentleman will understand that there are very important matters taking place today that the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary are involved with. We have also seen the new Hillsborough law launched today, which has been referenced during the debate.
Stephen Doughty
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman in short order, but first I want to say something about our excellent diplomats and officials across the world.
We have an excellent team at the British embassy in Washington—indeed, we have had many excellent ambassadors, and we have a wide network across the United States, not just in Washington—and in King Charles Street. I pay tribute to them and all the work they are doing, particularly in supporting the outcomes of this week’s important and historic state visit. I associate myself totally with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi) about their professionalism, which I know has been experienced by many Members across the House. It is important that we put that on the record. This is a crucial moment for UK-US relations; together, we are focused on delivering on jobs, growth and security for people on both sides of the Atlantic.
I said that I would give way to the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), so I will.
Sir Julian Lewis
Given that the Minister is such a decent Minister, who enjoys respect on both sides of the House, I am tempted to repeat the advice that Lloyd George gave to Churchill during the Norway debate of 1940, which is not to make himself an air raid shelter to protect his colleagues—in this case, the Prime Minister—from the splinters. If the Prime Minister’s case is as strong as the Minister makes out, can he explain why, if I remember correctly, only a single Labour Back Bencher has made a speech in the Prime Minister’s favour?
Stephen Doughty
With respect, this is an emergency debate that was secured by the Opposition. I am in the Chamber setting out the case very clearly, and we have had a number of contributions from Labour Members. The right hon. Member knows that I and Members from across the House have affection for him and the work he does, including his previous roles chairing many important Committees of this House.
Many right hon. and hon. Members have asked a number of specific questions, including about the vetting process and security clearances that applied in this particular case. I fully understand the interest in those questions, and undoubtedly other questions will be raised over the course of discussions in this place. As you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is the practice of successive Administrations—including precedents from the last Government—not to comment on which officials have access to confidential information. That remains the case today.
I want to pay particular attention to this matter, because it is important and because Members present have asked very sensible questions. The national security vetting process is confidential, and the UK Government’s vetting charter includes an undertaking to protect personal data and other information in the strictest confidence. I am not going to depart from that approach in this Chamber today and release personal information about an individual’s confidential vetting. However, while I will not talk about the confidential details relating to this case, I can provide details of the overall processes that a number of people have asked about, including the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis), who opened the debate.
Prior to the announcement of Lord Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador, the propriety and ethics team in the Cabinet Office undertook a due diligence process, and after his appointment was announced on 20 December 2024, the FCDO started the ambassadorial appointment process, including national security vetting. That vetting process was undertaken by UK Security Vetting on behalf of the FCDO, and concluded with clearance being granted by the FCDO in advance of Lord Mandelson taking up his post in February.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke
I accept that private data cannot be disclosed, but is there a mechanism by which the Minister can ask the Intelligence and Security Committee to look into the question of whether somebody—a civil servant, for example—who was known to have had a close association with a convicted paedophile would have passed the vetting process to hold such a sensitive position? That could be something that the Minister passes on to the ISC to look at, because it goes to the heart of the situation. I very much doubt that a person with that sort of association would be given the highest security clearance.
Stephen Doughty
I know the right hon. Gentleman makes that point with sincerity, but I will not comment on the national security vetting process. That would not be appropriate or in line with being consistent from Government to Government.
Stephen Doughty
I will not give way; the hon. Gentleman was not here for the debate and he has just popped up now to try to intervene.
National security vetting is a long-standing formal process undertaken by UK Security Vetting on behalf of individual Departments, and it reports back to them. It helps Departments to identify and manage risks where individuals have access to sensitive assets or sites, and there are established processes within national security vetting to consider any security concerns raised and to manage such risks appropriately. Importantly, the national security vetting process is rightly independent of Ministers, who are not informed of any findings other than the final outcome. Exactly the same procedures were followed in this case.
Stephen Doughty
I will make a little more progress and then will happily give way.
To return to the fundamental question that has been asked by many Members, as I said at the start, in the light of new information, the Prime Minister made the decision to withdraw Lord Mandelson as ambassador. The Prime Minister took decisive action on these issues, and now the Government’s focus is seizing the opportunities of our US partnership as we look forward to the next phase of government, moving from fixing the foundations to driving forward growth and national renewal.
A lot of Members asked sensible questions about the relationship with the United States, our economy, our security and the state visit that is happening this week. I point the House to the fact that last week we secured and announced a £400 million contract with Google Cloud, boosting secure communications between the UK and US and building new intelligence capabilities for the UK armed forces. On Sunday, we announced more than £1.2 billion of private US investment in the UK’s world-leading financial services sector, and that new investment will create 1,800 new jobs across the UK and boost benefits for millions of customers. [Interruption.] Just yesterday, we announced a new UK-US partnership on civil nuclear power as part of our drive to put billions of pounds of private investment into clean energy, and I look forward to further announcements over the coming days.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I can barely hear the Minister speak.
Stephen Doughty
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I have taken a number of interventions, and I do want to make some progress.
Hon. and right hon. Members have asked about the US-UK relationship. I can tell them that it is strong, thriving and growing. The steps that I have mentioned will ensure that our two nations continue to lead the world in innovation. We have trade worth more than £315 billion last year, and the US and UK economies are inextricably linked. Through the state visit, we will take that relationship even further, making trade and investment deals that will benefit hard-working families across these countries and regions.
Richard Tice
Last week, the Prime Minister expressed confidence in Lord Mandelson. This week, does the Minister express his confidence in national security vetting?
Stephen Doughty
Of course I have confidence in our national security vetting staff. They do incredibly important work keeping this country safe. I will not comment on individual cases—I have been clear about that. I will return to the fundamental question asked by the hon. Member and others.
Emily Thornberry
Will the Minister help us with this? In the letter that the new Foreign Secretary wrote to me, she said that the Cabinet Office propriety and ethics team conducted a due diligence process at the request of No. 10 prior to the announcement of the appointment, and that the FCDO was not asked to contribute to that process and no issues were raised with the FCDO as a result of it. Now that the Minister has heard that, is he surprised that the Foreign Office was not involved?
Stephen Doughty
I have set out the process clearly, and I note that the Chair of the Select Committee has received that letter, which also sets it out clearly. She may have slightly missed the commitment that I made to her and to members of her Committee at the start of the debate, which was about considering all options to support the Committee in its work on pre-scrutiny processes. She makes an important and sensible point.
Stephen Doughty
I am going to conclude, and I do want to get back to the fundamental question.
The Prime Minister has made it clear that Lord Mandelson should not and would not have been appointed as ambassador in the light of the shocking information that came to light in the past week. The argument that we have heard from Opposition Members today is that the information was clear all along. But if the full depth and extent of this relationship had been so obvious, I hardly think that Lord Mandelson would have been one of the leading candidates to become chancellor of Oxford University—but he was. I highly doubt that he would have been offered a job as a presenter on Times Radio—but he was. He also appeared on BBC “Newsnight”, a programme that has done important work investigating the crimes of—
Sir Desmond Swayne
It is. Am I mistaken in my belief that there is a convention in the House that when the Leader of the Opposition puts their hand on the Dispatch Box and seeks to intervene, the Minister gives way?
Madam Deputy Speaker
That is not a matter for the Chair. It is entirely up to the Minister if he wishes to give way or not.
Stephen Doughty
I was making an important point about the scrutiny of Jeffrey Epstein conducted by BBC’s “Newsnight”; such serious questions might have been asked of Lord Mandelson, but to my recollection none were. [Interruption.] Indeed, I am glad that the Leader of the Opposition wants to intervene, because I have a question for her. She and the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), as well as other Opposition Members, have raised questions today, but did they say a word in this House about Lord Mandelson’s appointment before last Wednesday? I do not have any record of that. In fact, the record shows that they did not raise it and they did not ask questions. The reality is that in the light of new information, the Prime Minister has acted decisively.
Mrs Badenoch
We did not need any new information to know that it was an unsuitable appointment. The Minister is making a doughty defence of Lord Mandelson, but the truth is that this debate has been about the Prime Minister’s judgment. When I was a Secretary of State and questions were asked about judgment, I did not send junior Ministers to answer my questions; I faced the House and I explained what had happened. The Prime Minister is not doing so. Will the Minister commit now to answering all the questions that I asked in writing? Will he also take this opportunity to apologise to the victims? He has not done so and the Government have not done so. The debate is nearly over. Will he take this opportunity to apologise to the victims for the appointment of Lord Mandelson?
Stephen Doughty
Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition was not in her seat at the start of the debate, because I made very clear our position on Epstein’s victims and our horror at the revelations, and said that all our thoughts are with them. I did that in sincerity in response to the points that have been made across this House, and I say that again. However, she could not answer my question. She did not raise this issue before last Wednesday. If it was all so obvious, why did not she do that?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I hope it is a proper point of order.
Dr Evans
I would hate for the Minister to mislead the House inadvertently, because I raised the examples earlier of Sky News and of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns), who raised concerns about Mr Mandelson. Even in this debate, we heard evidence of what the Opposition have been doing, including talking about the inappropriateness of this ambassador back in May.
Stephen Doughty
I was referring to whether this matter had been raised in the House by the Leader of the Opposition and others.
The Prime Minister acted decisively in response to the new information, which is exactly what should have happened. The former ambassador has been withdrawn. The Prime Minister and the Government are focused on deepening our special relationship with the United States in the interests of people across the Atlantic for jobs, growth, prosperity, security and our defence. That relationship with the United States is a relationship that has endured, is enduring, and will endure for the prosperity and security of our peoples well into the future.
David Davis
I am going to pause for a second. Let me say first to the Minster that I think everyone who spoke remembered the victims. After the sound of this political gunfire is long forgotten, they will still be suffering the scarring of what happened to them as a result of Mr Epstein’s behaviour, and I would say to the Minister that, without U-turns or whatever, he should say to his Prime Minister that at the next possible opportunity, at that Dispatch Box, he should apologise to those victims for what the Government have done to date.
Secondly, let me say to the Minister that he is highly respected in the House. I see him almost as the last Spartan at Thermopylae, full of arrows as he stands there trying to defend an impossible position. It is a position in which a number of us have been ourselves, so I have some sympathy for him. The simple truth is, however, that I found it very hard to reconcile what he said about this clearance process with what I know was known by the agencies as long ago as 2008 about Mandelson’s behaviour, connections and the like, and the clear possibility of kompromat, to which one of my hon. Friends referred.
There seem to be two possibilities. What often happens with direct vetting is that the agencies produce a series of risks for a Minister, and the Minister—in this case the Prime Minister, I assume—decides that those risks are worth taking. That is one possibility. The other possibility is that the vetting process was completely broken, and somehow or other it did not detect all those things that were in plain sight. That strikes me as implausible. I am afraid that what this Minister has told the House does not seem to figure, especially when it is added to what was said by the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee about the report from the propriety and ethics team being produced effectively without the FCDO’s input, which is—again—absolutely astonishing.
The House itself has been remarkably unanimous, with one exception. The Leader of the Opposition made a characteristically sharply focused speech, and she made a number of comments with which, almost uniquely, the leader of every other party here agreed. She said that we needed the information and we needed the accountability. What does that mean? It means something that was highlighted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton): we need the release of all the documents. There is no need to hide behind security, because there is no national interest security issue. The issue is whether the system is working, and we cannot know unless we see those documents. We need the Ministers involved, and the advisers involved, to appear before the relevant Select Committees and to answer questions on this matter—and, if the Minister wants to hide behind security, they can even do that in camera, as long as it is done properly and they have the opportunity to test some of these assertions.
The Minister and others received a great deal of good advice from a number of people, most notably the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), but from others too. They said that these problems are bad enough when they are to do with the original error, but they get worse in the cover-up. They get worse if people do not actually admit what has happened. Honesty is not just important in this; it is also a survival characteristic for the Ministers involved.
As I said, the Minister is the last Spartan at Thermopylae. He has not been sent here with the weapons to deal with this. He has not been sent here with the answers to the questions that we all properly have. I will finish as I started, by reminding him about that Bill that the Government announced today. On the Order Paper it is described as a
“Bill to impose a duty on public authorities and public officials to act with candour, transparency and frankness; to make provision for the enforcement of that duty in their dealings with inquiries and investigations; to require public authorities to promote and take steps to maintain ethical conduct within all parts of the authority”.
That is what we expect, and frankly, if we do not get the answers—by the sounds of it, we are not going to get them—we will return to this matter. The entire Opposition will return to the matter, and I suspect some Members from the Minister’s own party will return to the matter. I guarantee that I will be seeking to make sure that Ministers too are covered by the Bill, and when it eventually passes next year, I will be looking at what happens.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the appointment process and the circumstances leading to the dismissal of the former United Kingdom Ambassador to the United States, Lord Mandelson.
Child Poverty Strategy (Removal of Two Child Limit)
Tuesday 16th September 2025
(3 days, 7 hours ago)
Commons ChamberChild Poverty Strategy (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill 2024-26 View all Child Poverty Strategy (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
15:51 - The House divided: - Ayes: 89 / Noes: 79 - Question accordingly agreed to.
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
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Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to publish a child poverty strategy which includes proposals for removing the limit on the number of children or qualifying young persons included in the calculation of an award of Universal Credit; and for connected purposes.
In July 2024, the Prime Minister said:
“For too long children have been left behind, and no decisive action has been taken to address the root causes of poverty. This is completely unacceptable—no child should be left hungry, cold or have their future held back.
That’s why we’re prioritising work on an ambitious child poverty strategy and my ministers will leave no stone unturned to give every child the very best start at life.”
That was 426 days ago, but that action has not been taken. It will not be taken by today, by tomorrow or in the spring of 2025, as promised; it has been punted back to the autumn. Since the Prime Minister made this statement, 100 more children a day have been pushed into poverty by the two-child cap—100 more every single day.
Failing to take action to tackle child poverty has left more children in families that are unable to afford the essentials. The two-child cap has pushed 730,000 more children into poverty. How much longer do these children have to wait? The two-child cap is cruel, and it must be scrapped now. These children and families are having their life chances and their futures actively harmed by the Labour party’s persistent dither and delay. If child poverty really was a priority for this Labour Government, the Prime Minister would have scrapped the cruel two-child cap on day one of his premiership. He has now had over a year to do so. Labour is supposed to be the party of the left. What more progressive policy could there be than drastically cutting child poverty overnight?
The UK is the only country in the world that withholds state support from children based on there being more than two in a family. A lone parent with three children who works full-time for the minimum wage is currently £4,500 a year under the poverty line if they are affected by the two-child limit. Scrapping the policy would mean that that worker was still £1,000 a year under the line. Even on median earnings, a lone parent working full-time with three children is currently under the poverty line if she is hit by the two-child limit.
The Child Poverty Action Group has said:
“Poverty harms children’s health, social and emotional wellbeing, and education. It harms their childhoods and their futures.”
The two-child cap is cruel, and children are having to go without essentials. Over 7 million low-income families are still going without essentials such as food, heating and basic toiletries. Joseph Rowntree Foundation figures for low-income families with three or more children show that almost nine in 10 went without essentials, over eight in 10 were in arrears, and seven in 10 had taken out a loan to pay for essentials.
Of the families that responded to a Child Poverty Action Group’s rolling survey, 93% said that the two-child limit meant they struggled to pay for food. On the current trajectory, 34% of bairns will be in poverty by 2029-30, including half of all children in large families. Scrapping the two-child limit would bring 670,000 people out of severe hardship immediately, including 470,000 children. CPAG has said:
“Abolishing the two-child limit is the most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty which is at a record level”.
Other experts and charities agree with this assessment. Stop arguing about affordability, because scrapping the two-child cap will cut poverty at a stroke, and it is the most cost-effective way to do so.
The two-child cap is cruel. How are we still having to argue about this? The new the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Pat McFadden), said last year that it is “open to debate” whether the two-child cap is a harmful policy. It is a harmful policy. It is harming families and children. Why on earth would the Prime Minister put someone in charge of the DWP who wilfully ignores every single expert when it comes to the two-child limit? The two-child cap is cruel, and it is disproportionately impacting children in larger families, women and those in minority ethnic communities; people who are already vulnerable and already suffering disadvantage as a result of multiple issues.
The two-child cap is cruel and unfair. But, contrary to the Government’s arguments, this is not a problem of worklessness. Some 59% of families affected by the two-child cap have at least one working parent. By next month, 1 million children in working families will be hit by the two-child limit. Simply growing the economy will not change the lives of children in poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation says:
“We can’t expect children to be ready for school or able to learn if they’re going without the basics.”
The UK Government will not see any progress on child poverty by the end of this Parliament, even with high economic growth, without investment in social security. We need real action to improve the lives of children and families the length and breadth of these islands.
Scotland is the only part of the UK where child poverty is falling. This is a direct result of SNP policies, including the Scottish child payment, the Best Start grant and the baby box, as well as the SNP Government’s decision to mitigate the bedroom tax and the two-child cap. In the SNP, we recognise that the two-child cap is cruel, and we will mitigate it from March 2026, but we should not have to. On average, the poorest 10% of families with bairns are £2,600 a year better off in Scotland because of the Scottish Government’s actions. In Scotland, both relative and absolute poverty were nine percentage points below the UK average in 2023-24.
Keeping the two-child cap in place is holding Scotland back from reducing child poverty as much as we would like. It is keeping children and families in the rest of the UK stuck in that cycle of poverty. Matching the Scottish child payment of £27.15 per child per week, scrapping the two-child limit, the benefit cap and the bedroom tax, would take 2.3 million households out of poverty overnight, including 96,000 in Scotland.
Members should not just believe me that the two-child cap is cruel. The Child Poverty Action Group has testimonies from parents:
“The two-child limit is the difference between us being in debt and not. We have utilities debt and at the end of the month have to use credit cards just to keep living. I didn’t expect to be on universal credit. No one would want to be, and I don’t plan to be on benefits for ever. But nobody knows what’s going to happen to them.”
“We’ve been really struggling and although we’re starting to get out of debt, there are times when I don’t eat so I can feed the children. I do my best to put healthy food on the table, but it is not always possible and occasionally we’ve had to use a foodbank. I never have a haircut because I just can’t afford it. It doesn’t feel fair that just because your child was born after a certain date, there isn’t support for her and you have to spread the support over all three children.”
“I have to buy things on credit and the children can’t do the clubs they want to do. The policy is punishing children—that’s what’s wrong with it. I’m a taxpayer and my children will grow up and pay tax—the country expects them to—but when they need support now, there’s no help for them—they’ve been deserted.”
The two-child cap is cruel, and it is keeping children in poverty. Those who support scrapping the cruel two-child cap include: Save the Children, the Resolution Foundation, Sadiq Khan, Gordon Brown, Action for Children, Alison Thewliss, the Trussell Trust, Andy Burnham, AberNeccessities, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Aberlour, Neil Kinnock, Barnardo’s, Includem and the Child Poverty Action Group. There are so many important Labour members and so many incredible charities working to oppose child poverty and remove it.
This is a key test of whether the Labour Government are capable of the change they promised the electorate, or whether Labour MPs will keep following a Prime Minister who is making the same mistakes that have hammered families and seen support for the Labour party collapse during his first year in office. Labour MPs must vote for the Bill and send the Prime Minister a clear message that a radical change in direction is urgent and essential. Downing Street is briefing newspapers that it will resist pressure from the SNP and Labour’s soft left to scrap the cap. What is the point in Labour if it is not even willing to support soft left policies? This Bill is a common-sense change that will support working people. It is a cost-effective way to take children out of poverty. It will ensure that families can make ends meet and that bairns are not facing a childhood without essentials.
I know that many Labour MPs agree with me. If they hold their nose and refuse to vote in favour of the Bill in some misguided attempt to prop up the failing Labour Government, they will be choosing to put their party above the lives of children—children who live in their constituencies; children whose life chances are being hammered by the cruel two-child cap. All MPs, especially Labour MPs, must put maximum pressure on the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Chancellor to remove the cruel two-child cap once and for all, and they can start by supporting the Bill. History will judge Labour Members by their actions today.
Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
Before I begin, I thank the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) for introducing the ten-minute rule Bill today. While we may not agree on the Bill, I believe that this House is at its best when Members argue for what they believe in, and I am glad we have the opportunity to do so today.
My Conservative colleagues and I cannot support this Bill. We oppose it because we fundamentally believe in two core principles: fairness and personal responsibility. I believe that this Bill undermines both. Let us be clear: this debate is not about the principle of child benefit. As the eldest of three children from a single-parent family, I know from my own lived experience the challenges faced by those in genuine poverty—having to scrabble around at the end of the week to find enough money to keep the electricity meter running, having to go next door to borrow a cup of sugar to make it to the end of the week, and having to go without the basics at school that most of my friends had. Every child deserves the best start in life, and we should support that, but what is being proposed is something entirely different.
The Bill seeks to remove the two-child benefit cap—a cap introduced by the previous Government to address a spiralling bill in a welfare system that was, at times, being abused. Such a cap is fair to the hard-pressed taxpayer. Why should individuals already in receipt of state support gain additional benefit for having yet more children, while working families who get up early, pay their taxes and take full responsibility for their lives do not? Removing the cap would not foster fairness. Instead, it would penalise the people we should be championing: working families who play by the rules. It is only the Conservative party that is standing up for those families, promoting individual responsibility and protecting the country’s fragile finances.
Meanwhile, Members on the Government Benches—not content with the chaos they have recently inflicted on the nation—are now competing to be the most socialist, declaring their support for scrapping the cap despite knowing full well it will cost the country an eye-watering £4.5 billion a year. We must be honest with the British people: removing the two-child cap is a massive unfunded commitment that does not reward people for doing the right thing.
Simply put, I ask the House: why should a small business owner in Mid Leicestershire, who is already burdened with additional taxes, be asked to pay even more to support someone else’s children, especially when they are struggling to support their own? At the heart of this matter is a philosophical debate. As Conservatives, we believe in incentivising work, not penalising those who seek it. We do not consign people to a life of state dependency; we encourage them to strive, to achieve and to be the best they can be.
Unfortunately, it is not just those on the Government Benches who are promoting this recklessness. The Green party wants to spend £40 billion on its radical net zero agenda while still backing the two-child cap’s removal, and the SNP wants to add billions to their welfare bill by pursuing an open borders immigration policy paid for by hard-working Scots. Most surprisingly of all, though, is Reform UK’s position. Many of their hon. Members are proud Thatcherites—or so I thought. They appear to have undergone a damascene conversion and are now, I believe, backing scrapping the cap—a policy that would hammer hard-working ordinary white van men across the country. As we approach what would have been Mrs Thatcher’s centenary, I can only imagine what she would have to say about such an anti-aspirational and profligate approach to the public finances. Politicians simply cannot claim to want to reduce the welfare bill while pursuing policies that would push that bill up by billions.
Let me speak directly to the British public, who are inherently conservative-minded: if your political beliefs are rooted in economic freedom and low taxation, can you really support parties that want to take your hard-earned money and hand it to those unwilling to take responsibility? Only the Conservative party stands with you. We believe in letting people keep more of the money they have earned. We believe in addressing poverty at its roots, not just by writing cheques but by reforming the system that traps people in dependency.
Our approach is clear. A future Conservative Government will stop sickness benefits for foreign nationals, fix the UK’s sick note culture and reintroduce face-to-face assessments to stop people gaming the system, as the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), has said. We need to bring about a cultural shift where work, personal responsibility and self-reliance are once again core to our national ethos. As I said at the Work and Pensions Committee last week, we should not blindly throw money at the welfare system. We must instead highlight the importance of getting a job, promote better financial management and uphold a meritocratic system where hard work always triumphs over idleness.
The Conservatives will vote against this Bill. We are the only party telling the uncomfortable truth about our out-of-control welfare system and the serious financial realities facing our country. We owe it to our constituents to protect the public purse, we owe it to hard-working families to uphold fairness, and we owe it to future generations to build a society built not on entitlement but on effort, enterprise and aspiration.
Question put (Standing Order No. 23).
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 7 April, with the shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, I tabled a question to the Minister for the Cabinet Office about updating guidance for Ministers on declaring hospitality and meetings with social media platforms. As this is the last sitting day before the six-month anniversary of tabling that question, may I ask you whether there has been any indication from the Government that they intend either to answer that question on the Floor of this House or to write to me in the near future?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I thank the hon. Member for giving notice of his point of order. He will know that that is not a matter for the Chair. However, I am sure that those on the Government Front Bench will have heard his point of order and will be exhorting their Cabinet Office colleagues to respond as soon as possible.
Sentencing Bill
Tuesday 16th September 2025
(3 days, 7 hours ago)
Commons ChamberSentencing Bill 2024-26 View all Sentencing Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
19:44 - The House divided: - Ayes: 78 / Noes: 292 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:58 - The House divided: - Ayes: 340 / Noes: 77 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
The reasoned amendment in the name of Robert Jenrick has been selected.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr David Lammy)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is my pleasure to open this debate—my first since being appointed Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. It is an honour to be back on this beat and to take up this brief. Justice has always been at the heart of my politics over the past 25 years. Far from being abstract, it runs through every aspect of our lives: our education, our health and the opportunities that people have to succeed. It has shaped my life, from studying and practising law to serving as a Minister in the old Department for Constitutional Affairs, and of course as shadow Justice Secretary.
During David Cameron’s period as Prime Minister, I was asked to conduct an independent review on racial disparity in the justice system. I grew up as a working-class kid in Tottenham and saw too many young black men end up on the wrong side of the law. I represented Tottenham during the 2011 London riots, addressing at first hand the destruction caused when peaceful protests were hijacked by violent criminals. During the Lammy review I also saw the state of our prisons, which are operating at close to maximum capacity, putting the public at risk of harm.
Public protection is exactly why we have introduced the Bill before us today. At the heart of it is the threat that the previous Conservative Government left us with: that our prisons could run of out places entirely, leaving us with nowhere to put dangerous offenders, police without the capacity to make arrests, courts unable to hold trials and a breakdown of law and order unlike anything we have seen in modern times. As Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary, I will never allow that to happen, because the first duty of Government is to keep the public safe.
Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)
I broadly welcome the Bill’s provisions, which will take on the mess that the Conservatives left behind. Does the right hon. Member agree that it is important to get the right balance between the purpose of prison, particularly for violent crime, which is to rehabilitate criminals, but also to provide a deterrent and punishment, and maintaining public safety and delivering restorative justice?
Mr Lammy
That is a very good summary. We must have punishment that works, and I will talk about that later in my speech.
When we look at the record of the previous Government, and I have looked at the figures very closely, we see that the recidivism rates were running at 60%, 65%, 68%. Something is not working when people go back to prison over and over again. I got the Department to give me the figures: over 5 million offences. All those offences have victims. We have to do something about it, and the Bill will begin to get us into the right place, because the first duty of government is to keep the public safe.
But the Bill is not only about preventing an emergency; it also takes us back to the purpose of sentencing, which must be, as has been said, punishment that works—punishment that works for victims, who deserve to see perpetrators face retribution; punishment that works for society, which wants criminals to return to society less dangerous, not more; and punishment that works to prevent crime.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
There is much to welcome in the Sentencing Bill, including the inclusion of restriction zone measures, which are testament to the tireless work of my constituent Rhianon Bragg and her fellow campaigners. Details need to be clarified, however. Which offenders will be automatically included? Will the measures be applied retrospectively and, if so, to which offenders? Where will the zones be in relation to victims, and how will they be used and monitored in ways that are different from the current exclusion zone arrangements?
Mr Lammy
I pay tribute to the right hon. Member’s constituents for fighting to ensure that we got the balance right. At the heart of this—again, I will come on to this, and I know it will be explored in depth in Committee—the system of exclusion zones we have effectively excludes people from areas, and a lot of women who face domestic violence, who have had stalkers or who have faced violent men have had the situation where someone has been excluded. What we are doing is turning that on its head and restricting the individual to a particular place, house or street, which will give those women much more safety than they have had previously. I hope that her constituents will welcome that, because I know it is something that domestic violence campaigners in particular were calling for.
I want to thank David Gauke and his panel of criminal justice experts for carrying out the independent sentencing review, which laid the groundwork for the Bill. It was a thorough, comprehensive and excellent piece of work. I went through it in detail, obviously, when I got into the job. I also thank my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), for her work in bringing the Bill to this point.
When it comes to prison places running out, the constituents of Members right across the House ask, “Why don’t we just build more prisons?” That is what they ask on the street. In their 14 years in office, how many prison cells did the Conservatives find? I have shadowed the Foreign Affairs brief or been in the Foreign Affairs job for about three and a half or four years, so I could not quite believe the figure when I arrived in the Department. I thought it was wrong. In 14 years in office, 500 cells were all they found—500!
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
Earlier at Justice questions, the right hon. Gentleman’s Department attempted to take credit for HMP Millsike—and for its 1,468 places, which were confirmed to me in a written parliamentary answer—even though it was approved under the Conservative Government. Does he acknowledge that that prison was in fact started under the Conservative Government in 2021?
Mr Lammy
If the hon. Gentleman stops baying like a child and lets me come to the point, he asks me about the Conservatives’ record and their record was this: violence up in prisons, self-harm up in prisons, suicide skyrocketing in prisons, assaults rising by 113% and assaults on staff rising by 217%. That was their record. The hon. Gentleman can look at it in detail in the Ministry of Justice figures.
Ben Obese-Jecty
The right hon. Gentleman will not remember but I used to live adjacent to his constituency, and I remember what he was like as a local MP. He did not answer my question about the 1,468 places at HMP Millsike. He accuses me of “baying like a child”, and I appreciate that when he is on the back foot, he likes to give a little nervous chuckle to avoid answering the question, but instead of deflecting, will he address the point about the prison places that his Minister claimed this morning were built by his Government when they were in fact started four years ago by the last Conservative Government?
Mr Lammy
I have had fun with the hon. Gentleman, but I must make some progress.
The Government are funding the largest expansion since the Victorians. In our first year, we opened nearly 2,500 new places, and, as I said to the hon. Gentleman, we are on track to add 14,000 by 2031. In the next four years alone, we will spend £4.7 billion on prison building, answering the question that our constituents ask: “Where are the prisons?” However, unless we act on sentencing as well, we could still run out of places by early next year. Demand is projected to outstrip supply by many thousands in spring 2028. We cannot simply build our way out. We must reform sentencing and deliver punishment that works.
The Government’s starting point is clear: the public must be protected. More than 16,000 prisoners convicted of the most serious and heinous crimes are serving extended determinate or life sentences. Those serving the former can be released early only by the independent Parole Board, and those serving the latter can only ever be released at its discretion. Nothing in the Bill will change that, because it is punishment that works. Those who commit the gravest crimes will continue to face the toughest sentences.
Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
Road accidents caused by negligence and people on drugs and alcohol cause havoc for those who lose members of their family. Will the Deputy Prime Minister join me in thanking those families and activist groups, including RoadPeace, Mat MacDonald, our local media in Birmingham and the journalist Jane Haynes, for their campaign to bring about life sentences for the worst driving?
Mr Lammy
Dangerous and reckless driving that takes innocent lives is a serious and painful issue that causes lots of anguish across our country, so I applaud the work of the hon. Member’s constituents and thank him for raising that issue; no doubt it can be explored further in Committee.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know the new Justice Secretary will not want to be accused of misleading the House on such important matters. A moment ago, he referred to the measures before the House not affecting the sentences for people accused of “the gravest crimes”. The measures before the House will reduce sentences for rapists and child abusers. He either thinks that those are grave crimes and wants to correct the record, or he does not—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. That is quite simply not a point of order but a point of debate, which the shadow Secretary of State could well come to in due course.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
On that point, will the Justice Secretary give way?
Mr Lammy
I am going to make some progress.
The Bill introduces a new progression model for standard determinate sentences, incentivising offenders to behave in prison. It draws heavily on reforms that were pioneered in Texas, which ended their capacity crisis. I was very pleased last week to meet Derek Cohen, a leading Republican thinker.
I refer the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan) to clauses 20 and 21, which amend the release point. For regular standard determinate sentences, a minimum of one third will be served in prison. For more serious crimes on a standard determinate sentence, at least half must be served inside. Bad behaviour—violence, possession of a mobile phone and so on—could add more time in custody.
To ensure that the worst behaved offenders stay inside longer, we will double the maximum additional days for a single incident from 42 to 84. This has got to be punishment that works, with sentences that are tougher when offenders show contempt for the rules of prison. What we want, and what I think the public want, are people coming out of prison reformed. That is what we are attempting to do.
Sir Edward Leigh
I have a lot of sympathy with the Bill and with the argument that there is no point calling for longer and longer sentences unless we build prisons. I accept that, but I am worried about the presumption that if someone is sentenced to fewer than 12 months, they should not receive a custodial sentence. As a former practising barrister, I understand the arguments for why short sentences often do not work, but people committing offences such as shoplifting are complete pests, and they are causing enormous damage to the economy. It may sound hard, but sometimes we have to issue short sentences for that sort of offence. We should trust the courts and not try as parliamentarians to impose our judgment on them.
Mr Lammy
I understand the seriousness of the point the Father of the House makes. Let me say this. First, we are not abolishing short sentences. The presumption to suspend short sentences does apply, but not where there is significant risk of harm to an individual.
In 2019, the last Government commissioned work on this, which David Gauke relied on in his review, and it was deep research. The problem was that the recidivism rate for those who were committing short offences was desperate. They are prolific precisely because prison does not work for that particular cohort. What is also in the Bill—I think this is good, catholic stuff—is the intensive supervision court, where the judge gets to grips with what is happening with the defendant. Is it drugs? Is it alcohol? Is it addiction? What is going on? The judge really grips what is going on to get underneath the prolific offending. I emphasise that we are not abolishing short sentences entirely. I understand the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes.
Under the measures, released offenders will still be deprived of their liberty. Immediately after prison, offenders will enter a period of intensive supervision by the Probation Service. Clauses 24 and 25 introduce a strengthened licence period with strict conditions tailored to risk and offence, and it will be possible to apply new restrictive licence conditions to stop offenders from going to the pub, attending football matches or driving cars—restricting their liberties and their life in order to prevent them from being prolific.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
The Lord Chancellor describes a system that will rest heavily on the Probation Service and the reliability of tagging systems. Unfortunately, in my constituency surgeries I have recently heard from constituents who are living in fear as the victims of violent crime, because the perpetrators have not been efficiently tagged in time on release. Will the Lord Chancellor assure us that there will be adequate resources for the Probation Service, and that contracts given to tagging firms such as Serco will be supervised to ensure that the services are of a reliable standard?
Mr Lammy
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that issue, which was why I ensured that my first visit in post was to a probation setting. I pay tribute to our probation workers. They deserve full credit for all that they do. It has been important for us to find the extra resources to put into probation, to grow the numbers and the support, and to ensure appropriate supervision of tagging—to fine Serco where necessary but to ensure that the system is robust and works. That is of course a priority for this Government, as the hon. Gentleman might expect. I am grateful to him for raising the importance of probation.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I saw a worrying statistic that one in 20 people in the UK will be victims of domestic violence, which is truly shocking. I am sure that communities such as mine in Harlow will be particularly concerned about that. What will the Bill do to tackle that scourge?
Mr Lammy
Domestic violence is a serious issue. That is why having a flag in the system is important to ensure appropriate provision for that particular cohort of offenders who might leave prison and continue to offend, so that they can be recalled. Such provision is particularly important to domestic violence campaigners.
It will be possible to apply new restrictive licence conditions and, as mentioned, tagging will be central to depriving offenders of their freedom while they are outside prison. That is why I am introducing a new presumption in our system, that every offender is tagged on leaving prison. Reoffending rates, as I have said, are 20% lower when curfew tagging is used in community sentences. Today, about 20,000 people in the justice system are tagged. The proposed expansion will see up to 22,000 more tagged each year, and many under curfews and exclusion zones as well. This is punishment that works —not just a spell inside, but strict conditions outside, enforced by technology that we know cuts crime.
For the final phase of a sentence, the independent review recommended an “at risk” period without supervision. I think that that provision would cause concern across the House, so I rejected it. Under this legislation, all offenders released into the community will remain on licence. The highest risk will receive intensive supervision. Others will remain liable for recall to prison, with any further offence potentially leading to recall, even if it would not normally attract a custodial sentence. The prospect of prison must continue to hang over offenders, both as a means of ensuring that they mend their ways and as a punishment should they fail to do so.
In June 2018, there were 6,300 recalled offenders in prison. Today there are more than 13,500 prisoners in that category. Clauses 26 to 30 therefore introduce a standard 56-day recall, which gives prison staff time to manage risk and prepare for release. Some offenders will be excluded from this change and will continue to receive standard-term recalls, including those serving extended sentences and sentences for offenders of particular concern; those referred to the Parole Board under the power to detain; those convicted of terrorism, terrorism-connected offences and national security offences; and those who pose a terrorist or national security risk.
Those under higher levels of multi-agency public protection arrangements—levels 2 and 3—will also be excluded. That includes many of the most dangerous domestic abusers and sex offenders. Finally, those recalled on account of being charged with any further offence will be excluded too. They will only be released before the end of their sentence under a risk-assessed review or if the Parole Board says they are safe. This is punishment that works: breaches met with swift consequences, so offenders know that recall is a real threat hanging over their lives.
For some offenders, sadly prison is the only option. For others, we must ask whether custody is the most effective approach. The evidence is damning. In the most recent cohort, over a third of all adult offenders released from custody or who started a court order reoffended. More than 60% of those on short sentences of less than 12 months reoffend within a year. This is the legacy of the last Government: a system that fails to turn offenders away from crime and a revolving door of repeat offending.
The scale is shocking. Of the July to September 2023 cohort, 21,936 adults went on to reoffend within a year, and for the first time since 2018, over 100,000 reoffences were committed. That is what happens when there is a failure to take the tough choices needed to reform the system, a failure to invest in probation, as has been discussed, and a failure to act on the evidence.
Clause 1 introduces a presumption to suspend short prison sentences, and is expected to prevent over 10,000 reoffences each year. Let me be clear: this change will not abolish short sentences, as I said to the Father of the House, the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). Judges will retain the power to impose them in certain instances, such as where there is significant risk of harm to an individual, including victims at risk in domestic abuse cases; where a court order has been breached—for example, if a prolific offender fails to comply with the requirements of a community order or suspended sentence; and in any other exceptional circumstances.
Similarly, clause 2 widens the scope for suspended sentences, increasing the limit from two years to three, but custody will remain available wherever necessary to protect the public. Clause 41 also updates the “no real prospect” test in the Bail Act 1976, clarifying that bail should be granted if custody is unlikely. But, again, the courts will continue to be able to remand offenders where there is a need to do so. This is punishment that works: short sentences and custody reserved for those who pose a real risk, while others are punished more effectively in the community, unlike the previous approach, which left reoffending out of control.
Punishment must apply whether sentences are served inside or outside prison. Just as offenders released from prison will face restrictions to their liberty, similar curtailments will be available for those serving sentences in the community. As I have discussed, that includes tagging, where appropriate, and clauses 13 to 15 will mean that it could also include banning people from a pub, from attending a football match or from driving a car.
Clause 3 will also make it possible to introduce income reduction orders, requiring certain offenders with a higher income who avoid prison through suspended sentences to pay a percentage of their income for the good of the victims, ensuring that crime does not pay. There is community payback, which we will also expand. Working with local authorities, offenders will restore neighbourhoods, remove fly-tipping, clear rubbish and clean the streets. Again, this is punishment that works, with liberty restricted, income reduced and hard work demanded to repair the harm done.
Some 80% of offenders are now reoffenders. Alongside punishment, we must address the causes of crime. Four intensive supervision courts already operate, targeting offenders driven by addiction or poor mental health, and they impose tough requirements to tackle those causes. Evidence from Texas shows that these courts cut crime, with a 33% fall in arrests compared with prison sentences. More than three quarters of offenders here meet the conditions set, and we will expand that work, opening new courts across the country to target prolific offenders, with expressions of interest now launched to identify future sites. Again, we are following the evidence here. Pilots show that intensive courts cut crime, and we will scale them up.
Victims must be at the heart of our system. Too often they have been an afterthought in the justice system, and this Bill changes that. Clause 4 amends the statutory purposes of sentencing to reference protecting victims as part of public protection, requiring courts to consider victims—and we are going to go further. Clauses 16 and 24 strengthen the restriction on the movement of offenders. Current exclusion zones protect victims at home, but leave them fearful when they step outside. For that reason, the Bill establishes a new power that restricts the movement of offenders more comprehensively than ever before.
These new restriction zones, which will be given to the most serious offenders on licence and can be imposed by a court, will pin any offender down to a specific location to ensure that the victims can move freely everywhere else. That was campaigned for by the founders of the Joanna Simpson Foundation, Diana Parkes and Hetti Barkworth-Nanton, who I understand are in the Public Gallery today; I pay tribute to them and to all who have campaigned for this crucial change.
It is vital that we ensure our monitoring is equal to the risk that offenders pose and the protections that victims need. Clause 6 introduces a new judicial finding of domestic abuse in sentencing, which enables probation to identify abusers early, to track patterns of behaviour and to put safeguards in place.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
Does the Lord Chancellor agree with my concerns that neither the Bill nor the excellent report that preceded it make any mention of restorative justice—a process that truly puts the victim at the heart of the criminal justice process? Will he pledge in future legislation to address that omission?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. Before the Lord Chancellor responds, let me say that a huge number of his own Back Benchers would like to get in this afternoon. He might therefore like to think about getting to the end of his contribution.
Mr Lammy
I am grateful for the steer. You know how it is, Madam Deputy Speaker; this is my first outing, and I was getting a little carried away with how good this Bill is. The intensive supervision courts will be able to look closely at restorative justice, which, as the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) rightly says, is a fundamental part of our criminal justice system.
There is a growing area of crime in relation to sexual offences. It is important that I mention the trial that has been running for three years in the south-west, piloting medication to manage problematic sexual arousal. These drugs restrain sexual urges in offenders who could pose a risk to the public, and are delivered alongside psychological interventions that target other drivers of offending, including asserting power and control. Although the evidence base is limited, it is positive. For that reason, we will roll out the approach nationwide, starting with two new regions—the north-west and the north-east—covering up to 20 prisons.
I have already discussed investing in probation, so mindful of your encouragement, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will end by saying that the Bill ensures that our prisons will never run out of space again. But it does more than that: it ensures that prison sentences rehabilitate, turning offenders away from crime; it ensures that victims are at the heart of justice, with safeguards in place; it expands effective sentencing outside of prison for those who can be managed in the community; it follows the evidence of what works; it is pragmatic and principled, protecting the public; and it draws a clear line under the Tory record of failure. After 14 years that left the average number of reoffences per offender at a record high, Labour is delivering punishment that works through a justice system that follows the evidence.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Before the Lord Chancellor finishes, I want to welcome and highlight the measures in the Bill that deal with offenders, particularly clauses 7 to 10, which respond directly to Russia’s increasing use of petty criminals instead of its own agents in its campaigns of sabotage. This is something that my constituents have already been directly affected by, after incidents of warehouse arson and Islamophobic vandalism earlier in the year. Does the Lord Chancellor agree that we need to clearly advertise that petty criminals who work with malign states will be investigated, tried and sentenced in line with the threat they pose?
Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend knows that in my previous role, I unfortunately saw the increased risk of state threats and the pedagogy through which states are committing those crimes. It is absolutely right that a cohort of young men—petty criminals—are being used, and not just by Russia; there are other states that we could mention as well. It is important that those crimes are dealt with.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
Before the Lord Chancellor finishes his speech, can I direct him to part 4 of the Bill, which is one of the parts that applies to the whole United Kingdom? It provides for the deportation of criminal offenders. Has he considered the viability of that necessary clause, clause 42, in the light of the fact that in Northern Ireland—because of article 2 of the Windsor framework—those offenders sadly enjoy enhanced protections due to the importation of the EU’s charter of fundamental rights? Will the Lord Chancellor take steps to ensure that part 4 will apply to the whole United Kingdom by imposing a notwithstanding clause, stating that, notwithstanding article 2 of the Windsor framework, the same provisions will apply across the United Kingdom? It really would be preposterous if foreign criminals could be deported from one part of the United Kingdom but not from another.
Mr Lammy
Our intention is clear: foreign national offenders must be removed from our system. We will study this issue in detail in Committee. I am proud that on my watch as Foreign Secretary, we increased returns by 14%. It is hugely important that people do not feel able to come to our country and commit crime, unimpeded.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add
“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Sentencing Bill, despite supporting measures to better identify domestic abusers on sentencing, because the Bill will lead to an increase in the number of dangerous criminals on the streets, putting the public, particularly women and girls, at risk, and this is compounded by HM Inspectorate of Probation’s finding that HM Prison and Probation Service ‘requires improvement’ meaning it is not equipped to deal with the further pressures imposed by this Bill; because the Bill will undermine public confidence, particularly victims’ confidence, in the criminal justice system by enabling serious violent and sexual offenders to be released from prison early, and repealing measures to ensure law-enforcement and victims’ perspectives are secured in parole decisions; and will cause further loss of public trust in the criminal justice system because it will not end the scandal of identity-based sentencing.”
I welcome the Justice Secretary once again to his position, and congratulate him again on his demotion to Deputy Prime Minister. When he rose to introduce the Bill, I half-expected him to rise waving a flag instead of a Bill. It would not be a Union flag or a St George’s flag, of course, although if he were inclined, I would be happy to come to his constituency and help him put those up. It would be a white flag, because this Bill is nothing less than a complete and total surrender—a surrender of our streets and our safety to the criminals presently terrorising them. The Justice Secretary is already a man known for surrendering the Chagos islands, but if this Bill passes, he will be remembered as the man who surrendered our streets to criminals here at home, too. Make no mistake: this plan will unleash a crime wave across the country, paving the way for fresh injustices on our streets. The Secretary of State is fond of quoting figures and principles, so let me quote some back for context. Up to 43,000 criminals will avoid jail every year as a result of this plan. The numbers are eye-watering. That is more than half of all offenders who currently go to jail. It is the biggest reduction in sentences in British history.
The backbone of this Bill is a brand-new presumption against short sentences. In practice, it means that Labour is abolishing prison terms under 12 months. It is all but impossible for an individual to be sentenced for 12 months or less. Who are these individuals? Let us be honest with ourselves about who we are talking about here. Burglars, shoplifters, thieves and even thugs convicted of nasty assaults will henceforth be spared jail and handed a community order instead. If we apply this Bill to those imprisoned last year, it would mean: up to 3,000 thugs jailed for assaulting an emergency worker avoiding jail; 1,200 violent offenders convicted of grievous bodily harm avoiding jail; 11,000 shoplifters terrorising communities in each and every constituency avoiding jail; 2,700 burglars who rob families of their peace of mind avoiding jail; and 600 muggers who strike fear into people going about their daily business on the streets of this country avoiding jail. Those figures are eye-watering. This is a “get out of jail free” card on an unprecedented scale.
Sarah Coombes (West Bromwich) (Lab)
In the spirit of honesty, does the shadow Minister recognise that it was the previous Government who left our prisons at 99% capacity for most of the recent years? They let out 10,000 prisoners, largely in secret, and brought our criminal justice system to the brink of collapse. Does he take responsibility for all of that?
Robert Jenrick
The hon. Lady perhaps does not remember the last years of the last Labour Government. They let out 80,000 criminals on to our streets. That is how they emptied the prisons—not by building more, but by opening the doors. We did not do that.
There is a better way. Another way is possible. A third of all those in our prisons are either foreign national offenders or individuals on remand. The first answer to this challenge is to get the foreign national offenders out of our prisons and out of our country. The number of foreign prisoners in our prisons has gone up under Labour. The second answer is to fix the remand problem by getting the courts sitting around the clock to get the court backlog down. What has happened to the court backlog? It has gone up. If the hon. Lady is looking for someone to blame, she should look no further than those on her Front Bench.
Behind the many thousands of criminals who will walk free because of this Bill are thousands of victims, and each has a harrowing story. Daniel Tweed launched a vicious attack on his partner in their home in Northampton. He punched her multiple times. He dragged her by her hair. He kicked her and stamped on her. She was subsequently taken to hospital. He was sentenced to 12 months. [Interruption.] Someone said that is not enough, and I agree. Most people in this country would say that is not enough. That disgusting man should be in jail for far longer, but under the Bill, violent domestic abusers like Daniel will walk free. I say to Members, “Be under no illusions about what you are voting for this evening: Daniel Tweed and men like him will walk free.” There is no specific domestic abuse carve-out from the presumption against short sentences. That is what we are voting on tonight.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
The truth that dare not speak its name, at least on the other side of the Chamber, is that the public know what many on this side know too: that many more people should be imprisoned for much, much longer. Successive Governments have failed to grasp that nettle, because they have given in to what the Justice Secretary, who, by the way, is a personal friend of mine—[Interruption.] He is desperate to avoid that description. They have given in to what the Justice Secretary amplified today, namely the foolish idea that crime is an illness to be treated rather than a malevolent choice to be punished. We need a retributive justice system that recognises what the public recognise: that people like the thug whom my right hon. Friend described need to be punished, and punished severely.
Robert Jenrick
I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. The truth is this: most people in this country are already raging at the fact that prisoners get let out of prison early. They were sick of that happening under the last Government, and what are this Government doing in response? They are letting out more, and they are asking them to serve even shorter sentences. That is not justice. That is not what the people of this country want.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I was struck by the example that my right hon. Friend gave of someone who committed a vicious assault getting only 12 months, and now getting no months and no prison time at all. Of course, it could work the other way round: it could be that when a judge is forced to confront the fact that if he gives a sentence of only 12 months for a vicious attack the prisoner will walk free, he will feel that he must make the sentence somewhat longer—in which case the Government’s plan to free up a prison space will not even work, will it?
Robert Jenrick
My right hon. Friend may well be right. A number of the policies introduced by this Government have had the most extraordinary unintended consequences. The Secretary of State said earlier that a number of people have been recalled. That is because of the failure of the Government’s policy; it is because they let people out on early release when they should not have been let out. Who knows what the unintended consequences of these policies are? But let me ask one thing of every Member of this House: think what you would say to the victim of Daniel Tweed. Should that man be walking the streets of this country, or should he be in jail? I know what I would say. I know what we believe on this side of the House.
Ministers defend this policy by saying that short sentences are counterproductive, noting that 62% of offenders who served under 12 months reoffended within a year, but here’s a thing: 100% of criminals left on the streets have the opportunity to reoffend immediately. It is cold comfort to the victim of burglary that a man who ransacked her home gets a stern talking to, unpaid work or, worse, “prison outside prison”—that ludicrous and empty slogan put out by the Justice Secretary’s predecessor—rather than even a few months behind bars. Short sentences exist for a reason. Sometimes a short sharp shock is exactly what is needed to change behaviour, and sometimes a short sentence is the only thing standing between a dangerous individual and his or her next victim. The approach in this Bill is totally naive.
The Government celebrate their new earned-release progression model as the centrepiece of the Bill—a Texas-inspired scheme, we are told. Well, this could not be further from Texas if the Justice Secretary tried. Texas’s incarceration rate is triple that of England. Who exactly will benefit from the right hon. Gentleman’s new scheme? Burglars, rapists, paedophiles, and those convicted of domestic abuse-related offences such as battery, stalking, and coercive and controlling behaviour. Disgracefully, all such prisoners who supposedly behave themselves will be released after serving just a third of their sentence—yes, one third. They have to behave themselves, not be rehabilitated, as the Secretary of State suggested. They do not have to come out with some skill, course or restorative justice; they must just not be a thug while they are in jail. Is that all we are asking for now?
Only the so-called most dangerous offenders are excluded. Forgive me if I am not reassured. If a violent domestic abuser, who was given, say, nine years, can stroll out of prison in three years because he attended a few workshops and kept his nose clean on the inside, how exactly does that protect the public, how does that protect the victim and how is that justice? The Conservative Government had moved to toughen sentences for serious crimes, requiring many violent and sexual offenders to serve two thirds of their term before release precisely to stop such tragedies. Now the Justice Secretary seeks to reverse that vital progress and water it down again to half. Hard-working, law-abiding citizens are being told that their safety hinges on a criminal’s good behaviour after conviction, rather than the severity of the crime itself. Public safety should depend on what criminals did to their victims and whether they remain a threat to the public, not on whether they earn gold stars on a prison conduct chart.
To sugar-coat the largest reduction in sentences in the history of our country, the Government promise intensive supervision of offenders in the community. Even that assumes that our Probation Service, which the Secretary of State was right to say is stretched to breaking point, has the capacity to monitor the beeping lights on all these new tracking devices. At Justice questions, he himself said that the contract was not working, yet we are now going to place even more reliance on tags—tags for goodness’ sake—but is that justice? Who exactly will watch the offenders? We are told that probation officers are already swamped and that, struggling with huge caseloads and staff shortages, they are at 104% capacity. Now, every petty thief, burglar and drug dealer who would have spent a few months in prison will instead be out in the community with a mere tag between them and their potential victim. Is the Justice Secretary seriously suggesting that this will stop a violent offender abusing their partner? If he is, he should explain that to the House.
What of the expanded menu of community restrictions of which Ministers are so proud? The Bill gives courts the powers to ban offenders from certain activities and places—bars, pubs, sporting events—and the press release issued to the media gleefully talked about criminals being barred from football matches and pubs as a way to curtail their freedom. However, do any Labour MPs here truly believe that these bans will strike fear into the hearts of hardened offenders? Don’t be ridiculous! A career burglar or repeat shoplifter will not quiver at the thought of being forbidden from entering the Dog & Duck—ridiculous!
I turn to some of the less trumpeted parts of the Bill—the changes to parole and the oversight of the Sentencing Council. These are technical on the surface, but they reveal much about the Government’s priorities. First, on parole, in a little-noticed clause—clause 38—the Bill repeals the power that would have allowed the Secretary of State to require certain parole board cases to have particular members, such as ex-police officers, on the panel. That power was designed by the last Government to ensure that, for the most serious and high-stakes release decisions, there was a law enforcement perspective in the room, with someone who has seen the worst of what offenders can do. Now the Justice Secretary has just scrapped it entirely before it even came into force. So when a convicted murderer or rapist comes up for parole, they will no longer be guaranteed that there is a voice of law enforcement or a victims’ champion at the hearing. Removing that safeguard tilts the balance further in favour of the prisoner’s release.
Secondly, on the Sentencing Council, the Labour Government’s Sentencing Bill lifts its central idea from a Bill we previously put before the House, which they voted down but now support, having wasted Parliament’s time with an interim Act. Yet after all that, they water it down. They propose to force the Sentencing Council, which drafts judges’ guidelines, to get approval from the Lord Chancellor and the Lord or Lady Chief Justice for new guidelines and to submit an annual plan for ministerial sign-off. That is political oversight in principle—something Labour voted against when we proposed a stronger version—but in practice it is too little, too late. Only after I raised this issue on the Floor of the House did Ministers scramble to block those outrageous guidelines at the eleventh hour. Even the former Justice Secretary had to admit that such “differential treatment is unacceptable”. But remember, if Labour had listened to us sooner, this entire debacle would have been avoided.
The Sentencing Council is a creature of the last Labour Government—a quango deliberately insulated from democratic accountability. We warned that an unchecked council would go rogue and it did. Sure enough, it tried to rewrite sentencing by stealth and almost succeeded. Labour’s belated tweak, requiring ministerial sign-off on guidelines, adopts our position that the council needs democratic oversight, but it barely scratches the surface. The truth is that the council is a totally flawed structure. When Labour set it up in 2009, they made it answerable to nobody. As a result, an unelected body nearly smuggled in identity-based sentencing.
If the Justice Secretary really opposes identity-based sentencing, let us look at what is in the pipeline. Will he use this power on the forthcoming immigration guidelines, signed off by the previous Labour Lord Chancellor, which will deny Parliament’s clear will that immigration offenders should be locked up and subject to automatic deportation? Will he scrap those guidelines? They are in his in-tray. He is taking the power to do so. It is on him.
Despite this being a new role for the right hon. Gentleman, I am sorry to say that the Justice Secretary cannot feign ignorance on this approach. It was his 2017 review that fixated on statistical disparities in the justice system. His answer was not to enforce the law impartially; it was to impose outcomes by quota. His review’s guiding principle was “explain or reform”, effectively demanding that if an institution cannot explain a disparity in minority outcomes, it must change its practices until the numbers look equal. In theory, that sounds like holding the system to account. In reality, it invites social engineering and double standards.
The right hon. Gentleman openly champions equity over equality. In plainer terms, that means believing in bias by design—a justice system that explicitly favours some groups in order to tweak the statistics. We just saw the consequences of that thinking. The Sentencing Council’s two-tier guidelines were a textbook application of the Justice Secretary’s long-held belief: a two-tier system where justice is not blind, as it must be, but rather squints at your skin colour, your gender, your faith or your age before deciding how to punish you. On the Conservative Benches, we will always believe in the universal principle of equality before the law, not equity. That is the difference.
Turning to the matter of foreign criminals, for all the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks, as of 30 June this year there were 10,772 foreign nationals in our prisons—12% of the total. That is up on last year.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I am enjoying the right hon. Gentleman’s one-man show on why he should be leader of the Conservative party. He will get no argument from me on the fact that we need to reduce the number of foreign national offenders in our prisons—I agree that that is what we do need to do, as does my party. However, between 2019 and 2024 under his Government, the numbers increased by 12%. He knows that it is a difficult thing to achieve; he knows there is no simple answer, because if there was, his party would have done it when it was in government. Rather than offering simple magic-wand solutions, what is he actually suggesting that we do to deliver a reduction? If he knows the answer, why did he not do it when he was in government?
Robert Jenrick
The hon. Gentleman is on rocky ground, because the Justice Secretary literally put his name to a letter stopping the then Government deporting foreign criminals from our country back to their own countries. [Interruption.] He did, I am afraid, as I think did the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. You literally could not make it up, Madam Deputy Speaker.
What is the answer to the question from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell)? It is simple: change our human rights laws and address the European convention on human rights so that it is possible to remove each and every foreign national offender in a timely fashion, and then use every lever of the British state—whether it is revoking visas or suspending foreign aid—to achieve that.
Let me give the House an example of just how ludicrous the present situation is. When the Justice Secretary was Foreign Secretary, it was reported that he got into a debate with Pakistan over whether it would take back three grooming gang perpetrators—rapists—to their home country. Pakistan held out, saying that in return for taking back its own citizens—despicable rape gang perpetrators—we needed to agree to resume flights from a disreputable airline that has had safety challenges in the past. How weak is this country? How weak is this country that we will not stand up to that? We are giving more than £100 million a year in foreign aid to Pakistan. We should be using every lever of the British state to get these people out of our country and our prisons so that we do not have to carry out the early release of dangerous people, which is what this Bill will do.
Several hon. Members rose—
Robert Jenrick
I must make progress—I need to bring my remarks to a close.
In plain English, there are more FNOs overall, and more FNO sex offenders in particular, while those on Labour’s Front Bench have spent years campaigning against their removal. That will change only if the Justice Secretary confronts the broken ECHR, which is the biggest legal obstacle to their removal—everything else is tinkering. For the good of the country, I urge the Justice Secretary to support anyone within the Government who seeks change to the ECHR, because he will never resolve this challenge without that change.
The Sentencing Bill is soft on crime, soft on criminals and brutal on the hard-working, law-abiding people of this country. It offers oven-ready excuses to offenders to get out of jail early and cold comfort to victims. The Justice Secretary has a choice: he can plough ahead with this farce and watch as our streets are swept by the coming crime wave, or he can heed our warning—shared by victims groups and rooted in common sense—and think again. The British people deserve safer streets. Instead, under this Bill, they are going to get a jailbreak. A crime wave is coming.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
Prisons in England and Wales are almost at capacity. The prison population currently stands at 87,578, with a current operational capacity of 89,664. The latest prison population projections estimate that the population will rise to between 95,700 and 105,200 by March 2029. This troubling picture means that reform is essential if we are to reduce the prison population and return to a functional criminal justice system. I welcome the reforms suggested in the Bill; they are both a necessity and the right direction of travel for an effective prison system. The Government have taken up most of the recommendations made in David Gauke’s independent sentencing review, which if taken together will reduce the numbers in custody by almost 10,000.
The prison system is in a unique place. It will be accommodating the highest number of inmates in history while working hard to find non-custodial punishments for a growing number of offenders. This is necessary following the irresponsible neglect of the criminal justice system under successive Tory Governments. It is also the first step to a prison and probation system that puts rehabilitation alongside punishment as an objective—that objective being a reduction in reoffending, with beneficial outcomes for offenders, victims and the taxpayer alike. I have no issue with the strategy, but I have serious concerns about the specific measures needed to achieve its purpose.
Sir John Hayes
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way; he is always courteous in the Chamber. Let us be clear: is the Bill a result of too few prison places —I acknowledge, by the way, that successive Governments have built too few prisons—or is it driven by a certain ideology? Is it about rehabilitation, which I describe as the treatmentist approach to crime? There is a confused message emanating from this Chamber. On the one hand we are told that it is a matter of convenience, because we do not have the places, but on the other hand we are told it is a matter of principle, because we do not believe in prison. Where does the hon. Member stand on that?
Andy Slaughter
The right hon. Member is not easily confused. I will turn to exactly that point later, but in brief it is both, and there is a contradiction in it being both. There is going to be a massive expansion in prison places, and there are going to be more people in prison. However, at the same time, partly to reduce the need for even more prisons to be built and partly because there are alternatives to custody, there will be people leaving prison as well. It is a difficult trick to pull off, I appreciate, but I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is up to the task.
The Sentencing Bill shifts the focus from custodial sentences to dealing with offenders in the community. It is paramount, therefore, that probation services are adequately funded to manage the substantial increase in workload and that supporting resources, such as electronic monitoring, are available and reliable. There are several measures in the Bill that will increase the pressure on probation services. These include a statutory presumption to suspend custodial sentences of 12 months or less; an extension of the availability of suspended sentences to three years rather than two; and new community orders, including those that ban offenders from public events and drinking establishments, prohibit offenders from driving and impose restriction zones on them.
In the 2023-24 annual report and accounts for the Prison and Probation Service, the overall annual leaving rate for Probation Service staff was over 10%. His Majesty’s inspectorate of probation said:
“High workloads and a lack of support are critical factors in driving practitioners away from their roles”.
A report leaked to the BBC estimated that there is currently a shortfall of around 10,000 probation staff, which is four or five times the number being recruited. I welcome the extra £700 million pledged during the spending review period to assist the Probation Service in dealing with the increased pressures. It will be vital in filling the shortfall and increasing staff retention. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State acknowledged that in response to me during Justice questions today.
The success of the measures in the Bill relies heavily on the use of electronic monitoring, primarily through the use of tags. The Justice Committee has continually raised its concerns about the performance of Serco, the Government’s current tagging provider. In correspondence with the Committee dated 7 May this year, the Prisons Minister revealed to us the shocking fact that Serco had received financial penalties for poor performance every month since it took on the electronic monitoring contract a year earlier.
In oral evidence given to the Committee, Ministers have recognised that Serco’s performance has been unacceptable and that stronger punishments for Serco are possible, should it continue to fail. Those should include possible debarment and exclusion from bidding for public contracts. Indeed, some of us wondered how Serco was ever awarded that contract by the previous Government after the appalling fraud it committed during its previous tenure as contractor. Ministers have reassured us that Serco’s performance is beginning to improve. It is difficult to see how the Government can continue to have faith in Serco, but it is also evident that they cannot easily shift to another contractor as there appears to be no viable alternative.
Sir Julian Lewis
Naturally, I had assumed that if people were not going to serve short sentences, in many cases they would be tagged. It is worrying to hear what the hon. Member is saying about Serco’s performance. Is he saying that effectively the people being tagged are not being properly monitored? In which case, does that not bring the viability of the whole system into question?
Andy Slaughter
That is a valid concern. Ministers assure us that performance on the contract is improving in exactly those areas, but we are not just waiting for that improvement; we are introducing a huge additional burden, because all those offenders who will now remain in the community, rather than being incarcerated, will need tagging. I worry that an unreliable contractor with a poor record—even if it is improving—is being given a great additional burden.
Let me turn to another aspect of the Bill. It amends the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to revise down the statutory release point for standard determinate sentence prisoners to one third, although additional days added to time in custody as a consequence of breaches of the Prison Rules 1999, known as adjudications, will be served after the one-third point. Those changes follow the sentencing review’s recommendation that the Government should introduce an earned progression model for those serving SDSs. The review argued that, as a large proportion of offenders will be released after one third of their sentence,
“custodial sentences should be used to incentivise good behaviour and focus on limiting the risks of reoffending.”
As the sentencing review set out:
“The criteria for compliance should also include the expectation that the offender will engage in purposeful activity and attend any required work, education, treatments and/or training obligations where these are available.”
The review also held the view that,
“as prison capacity eases and fuller regimes become possible, compliance requirements for earned release should become more demanding.”
I would appreciate clarity from the Minister on what exactly is meant by a “more demanding” regime.
The Justice Committee is currently halfway through its inquiry into the rehabilitation and resettlement of offenders. It has heard of the difficulties that prisons face in administering proper rehabilitation programmes when prisons are full, which results in most of their efforts being focused on dealing with day-to-day incidents and combating widespread drug use. Rehabilitative programmes also vary greatly between prisons.
I welcome the steps taken towards an earned progression model in the Bill and hope they can free up capacity to allow for a better and more consistent rehabilitative regime. It is important that once the changes are made, rehabilitative regimes remain robust and continue to be focused on combating the behaviours that lead to reoffending, rather than being focused primarily on prisoners meeting the goals that lead to their early release—that is a rare point of agreement with the shadow Lord Chancellor.
Under the earned progression model, there is also the possibility that some prisoners may stay in prison for longer than they currently would as they do not meet the new criteria for release and are required to serve additional days. That, of course, will put further strain on the numbers in prison. Prisoners should be provided with clear guidance setting out how they should implement the earned progression model. This will ensure consistency for prisoners subject to the model and ensure that victims are informed of what to expect under the scheme.
In brief, we need to ensure, first, that the reasons for rehabilitation are clear—are they undertaking additional work, or are they simply keeping their noses clean in prison? We need to consider how rehabilitation will be used in prisons in future, and we need look at every aspect of incarceration as to how the earned progression model will work.
The Bill contains two clauses that make provisions relating to the Sentencing Council. Clause 19 introduces a statutory obligation on the Sentencing Council to obtain joint approval from the Lord Chancellor and the Lady Chief Justice for all sentencing guidelines before final definitive guidelines are issued. It is borne out of the disagreement of the former Lord Chancellor with the Sentencing Council earlier this year regarding the revised guideline on the imposition of community and custodial sentences. The revised guideline was the subject of much, and often poor-quality, political debate at the time.
The former Lord Chancellor promised to further review the Sentencing Council’s powers during the Bill stages of the Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Act 2025 in April this year. On Second Reading, I expressed my concern that it could cause
“damage to the relationship between Parliament, the Executive and the judiciary.”——[Official Report, 22 April 2025; Vol. 765, c. 1012.]
I also expressed regret about how it had been used to support attacks on the judiciary. Concerns have been raised regarding the impact that the Lord Chancellor’s veto in clause 19 could have on the judicial independence of the Sentencing Council.
However, if we are to have a double lock, perhaps we should have a triple lock. One suggestion that was made to me was that the Justice Committee—as well as or instead of the Lord Chancellor—should be granted the power to veto or approve guidelines. That would operate alongside the equivalent power of the Lady Chief Justice. It would go beyond the Committee’s current role as a statutory consultee for ordinary Sentencing Council guidelines, but the logic would be to rebalance power so that democratic parliamentary oversight is given to the guidelines, rather than there being a veto on behalf of only the Executive and the judiciary.
One area not covered in the Gauke review or the Bill is the question of those who are in prison on imprisonment for public protection sentences. It has been 12 years since the last IPP sentence was handed down, yet around 2,500 people are still serving IPP sentences in prison. It is now widely acknowledged that the nature of such sentences causes serious distress for those who are serving them and their loved ones. I welcome the Government’s progress in reducing the numbers of IPP prisoners, with a 9% reduction in the year to 31 March 2025. More could still be done, but the work being done through the action plan by the current Prisons Minister, and indeed the previous sentencing Minister, has gone some way towards achieving that.
In 2022, the previous Justice Committee recommended that a resentencing exercise should be carried out to bring the sentencing for IPP prisoners into line with current sentencing practice. Successive Governments have chosen not to take up that recommendation. My position remains that a resentencing exercise is the most effective and comprehensive way to reduce the number of IPP prisoners, and I think IPP prisoners should have been included in this legislation.
In conclusion, I welcome the legislation and commend the Government for bringing forward these bold reforms. However, I note that there are a number of areas where more detail is needed and where I can see challenges in its implementation. Many of the measures in the Bill will place extra pressures on an already stretched Probation Service. I hope that some of the issues that I have highlighted can be covered during the Bill’s passage through the House, despite the limited time that we will have in Committee of the whole House. I and my colleagues on the Justice Committee will consider ways in which we may be able to press the Government on points of concern through amendments. I hope that the Bill will go at least some way towards solving our prisons crisis and restoring the faith of the public in our damaged criminal justice system.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
The last Conservative Government crashed our criminal justice system, and ever since it is victims who have been paying the price. The shadow Justice Secretary spoke today of surrender, but who was it that surrendered victims to years-long waits for trials? They did. Who surrendered victims to reoffending rates through the roof? They did. Who surrendered victims to a failing tagging regime? They did. Who surrendered victims to their own early release scheme, with no specific exclusions for domestic abusers? They did. This is not justice; this is Conservative chaos.
Sir Julian Lewis
Will the hon. Gentleman just remind the House with whom the Conservatives were in coalition for several years when they started their 14-year term?
Josh Babarinde
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but should he look at the figures for 2015, he will see that all the things that I have described surged under the last Conservative Government. It is chaos and it cannot go on.
The Bill contains a number of measures that Lib Dems have proposed to help fix our pummelled prisons and crashed courts, but it also contains some problematic provisions that will need to be addressed if the Bill is properly to deliver justice for victims and survivors. The Liberal Democrats therefore cautiously support the Bill on Second Reading, but unless considerable changes are made throughout the remainder of the legislative process, the Government cannot expect our support any further.
Following a long campaign on one of the measures in the Bill, working with fellow victims and survivors of domestic abuse, I am heartened that the Government are honouring the commitment they made to them and to me to create a formal domestic abuse identifier in the criminal law for the first time. Convicted abusers will fly under the radar no longer. I thank the survivors who campaigned on this alongside us, including Elizabeth Hudson, as well as Women’s Aid, Refuge, Victim Support, ManKind and the 50,000 people who signed my petition in favour of greater identification of domestic abuse in the law.
Sir John Hayes
I did not know that the hon. Gentleman had done that, so may I congratulate him on that? What he says is absolutely right and will, I think, be widely welcomed across the House. However, I must press him on one point. Does he, like me, believe that such people, once caught and convicted, should spend much longer in prison? Does he agree that they should be incarcerated because punishment is the right thing for people who have done wicked things, spoiled lives, and hurt families, hurt women and hurt children?
Josh Babarinde
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Speaking as a survivor of domestic and child abuse myself, and as someone who has been hurt in those very contexts, I have significant sympathy and alignment with a lot of what he describes. When I come to the domestic abuse identifier later, I will talk about how I think that should play out when it comes to the presumption against short sentences.
We will be closely monitoring the force of the new identifier through its implementation, and we will continue to make the case for a full aggravated offence of domestic abuse to strengthen the identifier.
Can the Government confirm that they will work with organisations such as Fair Hearing to provide domestic abuse training for judges and magistrates, so that the domestic abuse determinations that they make under clause 6 of the Bill can be informed by domestic abuse survivors’ experiences?
We also welcome measures to introduce a presumption against short sentences, which we know are failing to reduce reoffending. According to Ministry of Justice figures, 62% of people receiving a sentence of 12 months or less go on to reoffend. This compares with a 24% reoffending rate for equivalent suspended sentences. However, there must be an exclusion for domestic abuse offences. For domestic abuse victims and survivors, the respite period—as it is often referred to—represented by a custodial sentence for their abuser is critical. Will the Government commit to excluding any offender convicted of a crime where the new domestic abuse identifier is applied from the presumption against short sentences?
We welcome the reasonable and proportionate use of robust community sentences and licence conditions in the context of the earned progression model, but the Probation Service must have the tools it needs to manage this. I am sure we will hear again that the Government have pledged £700 million to the Probation Service to help enhance its capacity, but how will they resolve the 2,315 full-time equivalent shortfall in probation officers by next spring when those measures are set to be enacted?
On some of the new conditions, the income reduction orders and the additional driving prohibition powers may disincentivise or even inhibit employment, which is a key factor when it comes to rehabilitation and reducing reoffending. How will the Government militate against that unintended consequence of potentially driving up reoffending through those measures?
The recall provisions need to change. It cannot be the case that offenders can benefit from an automatic “get out of jail free” card after 56 days, with no assessment by the Parole Board before re-release. The Bill also threatens the independence of the judiciary from the Government by granting the Lord Chancellor a veto over judge-made sentencing guidelines. That looks like textbook Executive overreach, and it must be reviewed.
On foreign national offenders, the Bill offers placeholders for secondary legislation, which will evade scrutiny by the whole House. Our constituents instead deserve clarity and full parliamentary scrutiny of that matter, and I hope the Minister will commit to providing that.
Beyond that, there is lots missing from this legislation. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) said, where is the reform on IPP sentences? Where is David Gauke’s recommendation of an independent advisory body on prison capacity? Where are the measures to prevent offending in the first instance and not just to increase the supply of prison places? Where is the statutory footing for the publication of sentencing remarks for those victims of sex offences in perpetuity?
I will ask many more questions throughout the process, but I hope the Government will work with us and with the victims and survivors whose concerns we have all been platforming this evening to make significant improvements in the Bill which fix the criminal justice system that the Conservatives broke, while affording victims the freedom, dignity and welfare they need.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
The police in Torbay tell me that in Paignton and Torquay town centres a number of habitual offenders see a call back to prison as just a professional risk. Does my hon. Friend agree that after years of a lack of investment by the Conservatives, we need to see investment in rehabilitation to help keep those individuals on the straight and narrow?
Josh Babarinde
I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and I refer to the comments I made on recall. As someone who spent their career setting up an organisation that supports young ex-offenders out of crime and into employment, I know that investment in rehabilitation is key. Rehabilitation prevents reoffending, and preventing reoffending prevents victims, reducing misery and improving lives.
I hope the Government have heard loud and clear where we stand on this issue. We stand ready to work with them to improve the Bill.
Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)
I rise to speak in the debate from the perspective of a former serving police officer; I saw first hand how our justice system far too often failed communities and, most importantly, victims—repeat offenders cycling in and out of custody, victims living in fear, and prisons at breaking point. That is why we need urgent reform and why I welcome this Government’s delivering the most significant changes to sentencing in over a generation.
Last summer, prison overcrowding reached an all-time high, as we have heard. Our system was stretched to crisis level, and we cannot let that happen again. The independent sentencing review exposed what many of us working in the system knew all too well: too few prison spaces, too little support for victims and short sentences doing nothing to cut reoffending.
The Conservatives extended sentences for serious crimes by almost two years on average, but built just 500 new places in 14 years. The result was prisons so overstretched that 10,000 offenders had to be released early. That is unacceptable and unsustainable, and it must not happen again. I welcome the Government’s commitment to building 14,000 prison places over the next decade; 2,500 have been added already.
Ben Obese-Jecty
The expansions of the prison estate by 10,000 additional places through new houseblocks and through refurbishments, including for category D prisons, are rated “red” because the supplier has gone into administration. I heard nothing this morning from the Minister about what the Government are doing to ensure that the plans stay on track. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concerns?
Matt Bishop
I would share those concerns, but I have complete faith and confidence in my Front-Bench colleagues—more so than the previous Government.
Building new places alone is not enough. If we are serious about cutting crime, we must change the way in which sentencing works and future-proof the justice system. In the police force, I saw victims living in fear as violent offenders were released early, while petty offenders wasted away in jail cells serving short sentences that did nothing to change their behaviour and nothing to make our communities safer. I also saw the opposite: community sentences—the tough and visible ones that we are talking about—gave offenders a chance to change course. I remember offenders cleaning graffiti, clearing rubbish and, for the first time, making a positive contribution to the very communities that they had once damaged. For some vulnerable offenders, a short prison stay is not a deterrent but a danger. It exposes them to hardened criminals, pulls them into more violent lifestyles and leads them further down a path of reoffending.
That is why the Bill’s provision to suspend short sentences in favour of unpaid work and community service-style punishment is so important. Done properly, such sentences can foster community cohesion by making offenders visibly repay the public for the damage that they have done, reassure victims that wrongdoers are held to account, and deter crime by breaking the cycle of reoffending that short sentences too often fuel.
Another thing that is close to my heart is the idea that victims and survivors deserve a system that keeps them safe and listens to their fears—too often, they do not have that. That is why I welcome the provisions for victims in this Bill. Domestic abuse will now be explicitly called out in court, creating a clear and consistent record that will help to protect victims and manage offenders. Specialist domestic abuse courts will mean stronger support for victims and proper rehabilitation for abusers. Victims of rape and sexual offences will have access to judges’ sentencing remarks and better information. And above all, the purposes of sentencing will now place the protection of victims at the heart of justice. I will continue to advocate for transparency so that victims can understand how sentencing works. After experiencing crime, they should not have to face a justice system that leaves them in the dark. We need to do more for victims, such as giving them unfiltered victims statements and allowing them to say what they want during sentencing, but that is a step for another Bill.
In my policing days, I saw how victims were left unheard and unprotected, and how sentencing failed to deliver justice or reduce crime. The Bill begins to put that right. We are building prison places, reforming sentencing and putting victims—finally—at the centre of justice. That is what the public expects, it is what victims deserve, and it is what this Labour Government will deliver. The Bill is about turning sentencing from a revolving door into a system that protects victims and cuts crime.
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
We need more prisons and prison places, but I find the Conservative case absolutely incoherent. They talk about being tough on crime, but they closed police stations, closed courts, cut the number of police officers and completely failed to deliver the number of prison places that they speak about—talking tough without delivering the goods. Frankly, that does not work and the country has had enough of it. We need to move on.
I recognise, however, that courts need to make greater use of community sentences. Courts need to be agile, and they need tools that deal harshly with persistent offending. Community sentences can do that. Defaulting to prison every time, almost fetishising prison, cares nothing about the victims of petty criminals who are sent to prison for short stays, where they learn more about crime than they had ever learnt in their whole lives, and then come out and reoffend. We heard no concern from Conservative Members about the victims of reoffending. Why not? It is not convenient for their argument that prison is always the answer. Community sentences, demonstrating that people are paying back to their community and society, can be a tough sentence and the right sentence.
Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)
Does the hon. Member agree that requiring an offender to look at the root causes of their offending is far from the easy option? Facing up to those life difficulties is very hard, but it is a really effective way of stopping the cycle of offending.
Gideon Amos
The hon. Lady makes a compelling point about the depths to which that kind of sentencing can go. The lack of concern from Conservative Members about reoffending after short-term prison stays is surprising, to say the least.
Coming down hard on crime means we need to bring back proper community policing, quicker justice that halves the time between the offence and the sentence, and better and tougher supervision of community sentences, as set out in our Lib Dem manifesto. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) referred to our position on the Bill, which I wholeheartedly support, and he does a tremendous job.
In my Taunton and Wellington constituency, I am working with local businesses and the police to try to stamp out shops that are trading illegally. Time and again, police and trading standards raid premises and find counterfeit cigarettes or unlicensed alcohol, with evidence of sales to under-age youngsters. However, I have spoken to the police about this, and they find that the only person they can put before the courts is the individual behind the counter—a fall guy for the shadowy layers of owners who lie behind the business. Conniving and cowardly fraudsters are basically employing and putting behind the counter vulnerable people who often have little grasp of the law and the regulations that apply.
All criminal behaviour deserves to be punished, but sentencing the fall guy for up to 10 years in prison, as provided for in the Trade Marks Act 1994, does not effectively deal with the menace of dangerous goods being sold to our children. The convicted man or woman often deserves less blame than their employers, while those employers—the shadowy bosses—simply open a new business under a new name in the same shop and carry on trading illegally, with a different fall guy behind the counter.
Back in 2008, research in the British Medical Journal found that
“Smuggled tobacco kills four times more people than all illicit drugs combined”.
In 2018, the Mesothelioma Center reported on a study of counterfeit cigarettes imported into Australia from China which showed alarming results:
“Each cigarette is packed with up to 80 percent more nicotine and emits 130 percent more carbon monoxide. Worse still, many contain other impurities such as rat poison, traces of lead, dead flies, human and animal feces and asbestos.”
It is a menace that we have to deal with.
Why should those who are trading honestly—like my constituents who run shops, pubs and businesses, sustaining town centres and communities across Taunton and Wellington—and paying their taxes be forced to compete with criminal enterprises, for which it takes months and months to obtain a closure order under the current legal process? Is it not time to change the law to “one strike and you’re out” when it comes to shops trading in illegal substances? Why must it take months for such orders to be granted? Why can we not empower the police officers in my constituency, who are as frustrated as I am, to close down premises overnight? I hope that the Secretary of State will meet me to discuss that aspect of the legislation—I will explain that to him afterwards, if I have the chance, because I am not quite sure that he caught it. Being tough on this kind of crime should mean being swift with the punishment. That would put a stop to the behaviour immediately, and rightly send a shiver down the spine of any shop owner contemplating illegal sales.
In conclusion, although better supervision is needed, tough new community sentences including tagging are welcome to deter repeat offending. That will not increase the reoffending in the way that prison often does. There is, though, a wider lesson: sentencing reform alone is not enough when the real culprits are able to hide in the shadows. We need to strengthen the powers of the police and councils not only to prosecute the individuals at the counter, but to close down the premises that police know are repeatedly flouting the law. If we do not, we risk punishing the least powerful while allowing the real fraudsters to keep raking in their gains, to keep harming our children, and to keep evading their taxes.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I welcome the Bill for many of the reasons already highlighted by the Justice Secretary and many Labour colleagues earlier. My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) made many of the points that I wished to make so, because of the shortage of time, I do not intend to repeat them, although I would like to reinforce them.
The Bill is a bold step towards easing the pressure on our overcrowded prisons and repairing a criminal justice system so badly broken by the Conservative party’s agenda of economically illiterate austerity. However, concerns have been expressed to me by the trade unions—including Napo, which represents probation staff—especially on the extra workload that the Bill will mean for their members. I say respectfully to the Minister and to the Justice Secretary that I hope they will engage fully with the justice unions as the Bill progresses in order to address these legitimate concerns in good faith.
Robust community sentences in the right circumstances —contrary to what many Opposition Members have been saying—can offer a better and more effective alternative to prison, provided that they are supported by new tagging technology, but only if that is done correctly. At Justice questions this morning, the Justice Secretary gave some excellent responses to concerns raised about the existing contract that the previous Government signed with Serco. Indeed, the Government’s own assessment suggests that change will be required, and the changes will require hundreds of additional probation officers in order to keep the public safe. Early release for good behaviour is supported by the unions, provided that prisoners show that they are turning their lives around and addressing the issues behind their offending. Again, early release comes at a cost, and at a cost to the Probation Service.
Other measures in the Bill have been welcomed by people working in the sector. Probation staff have long complained that rehabilitation activity requirements and post-sentence supervision, which are leftovers from the previous Government’s failed privatisation experiment, are ineffective and time-consuming. Napo is therefore relieved to see the Bill abolish them for good. Although it is true that this will free up more staff time, the Bill still puts additional pressure on the Probation Service. Yes, the extra resources already announced by Ministers will help to bring more staff into the service, but what will make them stay? Attrition rates—the rates of skilled probation officers leaving the service—are appalling. That is unsurprising, given the unbearable workloads for staff on top of 15 years of real-terms pay cuts and a degradation in the service presided over by the previous Administration. I am also told that the Government still have not made a formal pay offer to probation staff this year, so I respectfully encourage Ministers to reflect on how best to hold on to these key workers, who perform such a vital and demanding role.
The Bill would benefit from stronger safeguards around tagging and unpaid work, to ensure that the biggest beneficiaries are the public at large, not profit-hungry private corporations. We have heard many times in the House recently, including at Justice questions this morning, about Serco’s catalogue of contractual failures, especially with electronic monitoring. As we expand the use of tagging, we should try our hardest to reduce private sector involvement, partly because it has proved to be such a costly failure in the past and partly because this new form of punishment should be harnessed and used for the public good, not private profit. The Government have earmarked an extra £4 million a year at least for tagging expansion, but that money must not be used simply to line the pockets of rip-off failing privateers.
In conclusion, if we want to turn our criminal justice system around, we must work harder to prioritise public good, not private profit. I know that this Labour Government share that ambition and I hope that they will work closely with their own frontline workers in the Probation Service to fully realise the benefits that the Bill could bring.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
It has become increasingly clear that we see huge discrepancies across sentencing for offences. Comparatively trivial offences receive stiff penalties, while serious crimes appear to go relatively or actually unpunished. There is an increasing feeling that the punishment rarely fits the crime, that the law is soft, that criminals act with impunity and that justice has become hard to come by.
I would like to recount a story about a family from my constituency. Michael Gough was a keen cyclist and had been cycling weekly, on Saturday mornings, with a group of four friends for a number of years. He would head off early, before 8 am, and go out for three to four hours, returning home by lunch time. He rode all over Cambridgeshire, usually covering between 35 km to 50 km on a ride. As a keen cyclist myself, who rides the same roads and the same sort of distances, I know what a joy it is to get out on my bike at the weekend.
On 16 March last year, Mike and the group went out as usual. His daughter, Kim, recalls what happened as the family waited for him to return:
“I had gone to mum’s around 12.25 and we set off shortly after. Mum did think it was unusual dad wasn’t back yet, but he did like to talk so thought he’d probably had an extra cuppa at their cake and cuppa stop. We only made it round the corner when my phone started to ring. Mum picked it up and answered it as she noticed it was dad’s friend Tim calling. I pulled over as soon as I could. Tim had said there had been an accident and dad had been knocked off his bike”.
The family made their way to the scene of the accident on George Street, in Huntingdon town centre.
“We were stood in the street outside Elphicks, opposite Wetherspoons, waiting not having a clue what was going on. Lots of the public were walking up the street and being allowed to walk up and past the scene of the accident to get to where they wanted to go but we were told we had to wait. After a while an officer came down from the scene to talk to us. He asked us to sit in the back of the police car where we were told that dad had been knocked off his bike and had died from his injuries.”
The post-mortem subsequently outlined that Mike had been crushed across his chest and could not be resuscitated.
It was not until December 2024, some nine months later, that the Crown Prosecution Service charged the driver with causing death by careless driving. A further six months later, on 27 June 2025, the driver—Dennis Roberts, aged 74—plead guilty to causing death by careless driving. He was banned from driving with immediate effect. Roberts was given a one-year sentence suspended for two years, a two-year driving ban and 250 hours’ unpaid work, and was ordered to pay court charges of around £200. As Kim says:
“The sentence is within the guidelines of the law, but does the law fit the crime? He has lived his life like normal for 18 months, whilst we have lost our dad, husband, friend, grandad, and lived the last 18 months encompassed in a whirlwind of grief. Even after sentencing he continues to live his life, just with a small inconvenience of not being able to drive and giving up a few hours to work unpaid. How is that justice?”
Mike’s tragic and untimely death is sadly not an outlier, but the current sentencing guidelines for causing death by careless driving are far too lenient, given the impact that such a tragedy clearly has on family and loved ones. The factors determining culpability as “careless” as opposed to “dangerous” are largely subjective and the difference between them is opaque, but it is the factors reducing seriousness or reflecting personal mitigation that I find difficult to understand.
A good driving record is taken into account upon having killed someone through carelessness. The inexperience of the driver is taken into account upon having killed someone through carelessness. Efforts made to assist or to seek assistance for the victim are taken into account upon having killed someone through carelessness. A lack of maturity is taken into account upon having killed someone through carelessness. A mental disorder or learning disability is taken into account upon having killed someone through carelessness. A deprived background is taken into account upon having killed someone through carelessness. The prospects of education are taken into account upon having killed someone through carelessness. What prospects do the victims have now—or their family or dependants?
These mitigating factors beggar belief. This is not a trivial offence or a victimless crime; it is one that devastates lives. Would any one of us here who lost their partner, child or parent to the carelessness of someone’s driving be content to see that person leave court with little more than the inconvenience of having to get a lift home? Furthermore, the minimum level of sentencing starts at a medium-level community order to one year’s custody. The bare minimum must be a custodial sentence, and it must not be suspended. If we are to trivialise a crime with the most serious outcome—that of ultimately taking a life, even through carelessness—then what price stiffer sentences for less serious crimes?
I would not wish anyone to suffer the trauma of enduring such a tragedy, but those who sadly do should at least take comfort that justice has been served. We must stiffen the sentence for causing death by careless driving. We must eliminate the ludicrous mitigation factors that offer too much opportunity for offenders to avoid justice. We must ensure that victims and their families get justice. To prevent others from suffering the lack of justice that Mike and his family have endured, I will table an amendment to address this issue and ensure that Mike’s death was not in vain.
Sarah Coombes (West Bromwich) (Lab)
When this Government came into power last year, we inherited a prison system on the brink of collapse. After 14 years of Tory neglect and underfunding, our prisons were at breaking point. If we had not acted, prison places would have run out within weeks. When our prisons are full, violence rises, putting prison officers at risk. When no cells are available, suspects cannot be held in custody, which means that vanloads of dangerous people are circling the country with nowhere to go. That is the appalling situation that the Conservatives left us with.
Rather than letting that happen, this Government took decisive action and are ensuring the future of the system by introducing this landmark piece of legislation. There are many forward-thinking measures in this Bill. This is about creating a sentencing system that punishes those who commit crime, ensuring that victims see justice served. It is also about creating a system that works for rehabilitating those who have committed crime and, critically, preventing reoffending.
Similarly to the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), I will focus my remarks on driving bans and vehicle crime. Since becoming an MP, I have heard countless stories from families and individuals who have lost loved ones or had loved ones seriously injured on our roads. I have heard horrific stories of grandmothers killed in hit-and-runs, and of tiny toddlers whose lives have been cut short by drivers racing around in stolen cars and fleeing the scene. These families have been let down by huge backlogs that have been in the system for years.
I have been working closely with the charity RoadPeace, which was mentioned earlier. It has opened my eyes to all the ways in which the system is failing. I was shocked to find out that even after someone has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving, they are often allowed to continue driving until they are actually found guilty, which can take years and years; that may be similar to the case that was just mentioned.
The thing I found most shocking is that once offenders are released from prison, they often have incredibly short driving bans. One such case is that of a woman who ended up in prison after taking the life of a man from Tividale in my area. Martyn Gall was an experienced cyclist. He was killed by a woman who was on her phone for her entire journey—sending messages, taking pictures and using social media apps behind the wheel. The first call she made after hitting Martyn was not 999; it was to her sister. That driver was sentenced to four and a half years in prison, but following her release she will have a driving ban of only five years—which I and Diane, Martyn’s wife, think is far too lenient for the suffering that she has caused.
Another indication of the historical failure of the system is the chronic rate of reoffending in our country. We know that half of all crime in the UK is committed by just 10% of offenders. The campaign group Crush Crime has highlighted examples of chronic offenders, who commit crime again and again. Unfortunately, the same is true of serious driving offences. Data released to me following a parliamentary question shows that nearly 20% of offenders convicted of dangerous driving in 2024 had committed a similar offence previously. Of those offenders, 6% had received several convictions for dangerous driving, and the worse the offence, the higher the reoffending rate. While nearly 20% of those convicted of dangerous driving were reoffenders, less than 5% of those convicted of careless driving had a previous conviction.
The length of bans given to those who commit these serious offences needs to be much longer. Let me give the House some examples. One man hit a 13-year-old girl in a 60 mph hit and run. The child suffered life-changing injuries. The perpetrator already had a conviction for dangerous driving, yet when he was released from prison, he only received a five-year driving ban. In another case, a woman who was doing 60 mph in a 30 zone smashed into a taxi. She was uninsured, was under the influence of cannabis, and had a baby in the front seat. It was her second driving conviction that week, but she was given a driving ban of just two years and five months.
Jane Haynes, a campaigning journalist from the Birmingham Mail, alerted me to one of the very worst cases I have heard of. Grant Meredith-Trafford was doing more than double the 30 mph limit on Tipton Road in the Black Country when he mowed down and killed a 64-year-old pedestrian in January 2023. The driver sped away and tried to cover his tracks—he went on the run for weeks and hid in a country hotel. The most shocking part is that he was already disqualified from driving. Following the crash, he was jailed for 15 years and banned from driving for 17 years. Even though the judge described the case as
“one of the most serious cases of its kind…in recent times”,
the offender still did not receive a lifetime driving ban. I think most of the public would be shocked that some of these people will ever be allowed behind the wheel again, yet the reality is that just 1% of people who were convicted of causing death by dangerous driving in 2024 had their licences revoked for life.
I think the public would also be shocked to realise how many people with 12 points on their licence are still on our roads. In 2021, research by Cycling UK found that one in five people were spared an automatic ban when they reached 12 points by claiming exceptional hardship—for example, that they needed their car for their job. In my view, if a person requires a licence for their job, they should be extra careful on our roads. The exceptional hardship frame is being applied far too liberally, and this loophole needs to be addressed. I encourage Ministers to look at how we can tighten up the rules around that loophole and lengthen driving bans as this Bill progresses through Parliament.
My final point is how important it is that the Bill uses driving bans as part of community sentences and licence conditions. Driving is a privilege, not an inalienable right, and vehicle crime is often linked to other types of crime. It is absolutely correct that a driving ban is one of the options available to judges to ensure a tough sentence for offenders who receive a community sentence or are released on licence.
At the heart of this Bill is the question of how we deliver justice for victims, tough punishments for perpetrators, and protection for the public. After years of failure by the Conservative party, I am proud that this Government will take the strong action needed to fix our prison system and ensure criminal justice in Britain is working once more.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
I cannot deny that clause 4 of the sentencing Bill is a step forward for victims, but I believe it can go further by specifically mentioning physical and psychological harm. Clause 4 amends the statutory purposes of sentencing to specifically include the protection of victims of crime, a measure recommended by the independent sentencing review. By adding an explicit reference to protecting victims into the statutory purposes of sentencing, it makes clear that justice is not just about deterring future crime or punishing offenders, but about safeguarding those who have already suffered. It is about recognising not only the harm that has been done, but the very real need to shield victims from ongoing and future harm.
Four months ago in my constituency of West Dorset, 14-year-old Isabella was lured to a cemetery by another girl she knew. As she arrived, somebody already had their phone out, recording—they knew what was about to happen. Moments later, Isabella was savagely attacked. She was stamped on and kicked in the face repeatedly, and her head was smashed on a concrete step. The physical attack was horrific, but so was what followed: the video of Isabella’s attack was deliberately circulated almost immediately, shared on social media and in private WhatsApp groups across schools in Beaminster, Bridport and Lyme Regis. Children who did not even know Isabella watched her brutal assault play out on their phones. What might have been one terrible moment has instead become a lasting trauma. This is exactly why strengthening clause 4 matters, because sentencing must reflect not only the physical harm caused to the victims, but the lasting psychological harm, the humiliation, the distress and the ongoing trauma that follows them for months and even years after the attack. The bruises may have faded, but Isabella’s pain has not.
I cite Isabella’s case as an example of a wider problem. According to the Youth Endowment Fund, 70% of young people report having seen real-world violence online in the past year. That means that countless children across the country are being victimised twice: first in the violence itself and then in the endless replaying of that violence on phones and on social media. Clause 4 gives us an opportunity to send a clear message that the law will stand with victims. However, we should go further and expressly include physical and psychological harm. That would mean that when judges and magistrates pass sentence, they treat cases such as Isabella’s not as a single moment of violence, but as an ongoing and deliberate act of cruelty that continues long after the assault ends. I hope that the Government will use the opportunity as this legislation moves forward to strengthen the provision.
Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)
I am glad to support a Bill put forward by the only party serious about reforming our criminal justice system. I say that as a barrister with 19 years’ experience, and I draw the House’s attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Having been in full-time practice right up until last July’s elections, I saw at first hand the chaos in our prisons, the leaking and inadequate court buildings, and the overstretched probation officers, criminal barristers and others who were doing more for less in increasingly challenging circumstances.
This Bill is critical to delivering meaningful justice for victims, protecting them more effectively, punishing perpetrators and rehabilitating offenders so that they become better citizens, not better criminals. We often talk about the Government’s inheritance from the Conservatives, but I argue that the prison and probation system is the area of the public realm that is most affected by the Tories—where they did most damage. They had 14 years, and they created 500 prison places, as the Lord Chancellor said. The number of frontline prison officers fell by 31% and the Conservatives decimated the Probation Service. Their so-called transforming rehabilitation reforms, which privatised part of the Probation Service, resulted in taxpayers bailing out failing private companies with £467 million of public money. There is nothing more serious than ensuring law and order, and the Conservatives became the party of lawlessness and disorder.
It will take time to fix our prison and probation system, and this Bill begins that vital work. There is much I strongly support in this Bill. I particularly welcome the commitment to transition to an earned progression model for standard determinate sentences, inspired by reforms in Texas. There, as we heard, crime is at record lows, and it is important to stress that the behaviour of prisoners will impact their release. The principle on which this reform is based—that offender risk is relevant to how long they will stay in prison—is sound. If they reoffend and breach the terms of release under this system, the system will come down on them like a ton of bricks.
The inescapable fact is that we send too many people to prison who then become better criminals. The point of prison is to face punishment as part of taking personal responsibility for their actions, but most people in prison can be rehabilitated. People must be accountable for their actions without us becoming cynical about human nature.
I also strongly support other measures in this Bill, such as the expansion of tagging to monitor offenders in the community, which, as the Lord Chancellor said, has been shown to cut crime. I also strongly support the streamlining of deportation for foreign national offenders, on which I have a recent constituency example. In June, three men from Folkestone and Dover were convicted of raping a child and committing related sexual offences. They were together sentenced to around 54 years’ imprisonment. It was an utterly horrendous case. They were foreign nationals. Under existing laws, they can only be deported after serving the minimum term of their custodial sentence, which is often between a third and a half of it. Why should the British taxpayer foot the bill for their incarceration here for the next seven, eight or nine years while our prisons are at capacity?
Clause 32 of the Bill answers that question by allowing the Home Office to remove the offender from prison at any time and subject them to deportation action, irrespective of how long they have spent in prison here. I support that common-sense measure, which is yet another example of a measure that could have been enacted by the Conservatives, yet was not.
Sir Julian Lewis
Despite the party political edge to the hon. and learned Gentleman’s remarks, I want to ask him a serious question. Presumably there need to be safeguards to ensure that when people are deported before they have served their sentences, those sentences will be served in the country to which they are deported. Can the hon. Gentleman explain to the House what sort of guarantees there will be that these people will not get off scot-free after deportation? I am sure that there must be some such safeguards.
Tony Vaughan
I do not think anyone is suggesting that people are going to leave their sentences early from the UK and walk free in their country of origin. There is a range of existing rules relating to prisoner transfer agreements and so forth, which will apply in any event. This may be a matter that the right hon. Member will be able to raise in Committee, but I have no doubt whatsoever that this measure—which will still be subject to the safeguards that are already in existence, whether in the deportation process or the justice process—will ensure that justice is done, which is the whole point of the Bill.
There is much in the Bill that I welcome, but let me ask the Minister a few questions. How can we keep the strongest possible safeguards in place for victims during the transition to more community sentences, how can we ensure that our Probation Service is well resourced and able to support the expansion of such sentences, and what additional measures are Ministers considering to support more effective rehabilitation of prisoners who have addiction and mental health conditions?
The Bill is a serious and radical response to our prisons crisis and our reoffending crisis, which are costing our society more and more every day in every way, and I invite Members to vote for it today.
Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)
I was a magistrate for 20 years, so I hope that I speak with some authority and have something to contribute on Second Reading.
This Bill is based on recommendations in the recent Gauke review, which falls woefully short of addressing the many concerns that the British people have about the current judicial system. Worse still, it does nothing to reverse the current trend for woke justice, and enables the further politicisation of our once great judicial system. The left will describe the Bill as progressive, but in fact it is unrealistic, requires vast amounts of investment and funding for the Probation Service, and will take years to implement, and in the meantime it puts the public at risk.
The Bill makes whole life orders mandatory for certain types of murder, but does not specify which types of murder. It allows for
“special sentences for offenders of particular concern”
to be imposed for rape and certain other serious sexual offences, without giving any explanation of what that actually means. The British people want to know that life means life—that murderers, terrorists, rapists, hate preachers and paedophiles will be sent to prison and never allowed out to threaten the safety of the British people again, that they will face harsh conditions in prison, and that prison is punishment, not a soft option.
The Bill does nothing to defend our democracy and end the era of two-tier justice in this country, where free speech is a crime punishable by a more severe sentence than sexual assaults or paedophilia. It enables the continued facilitation of the special treatment of defendants according to their racial, cultural or religious identity.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sarah Pochin
I will make some progress, please. It allows for the even earlier release of dangerous criminals into the community on licence, reducing the time served from 50% of a sentence to a mere third. The implications for public safety in general, and for the safety of women from repeat offender domestic violence perpetrators in particular, are concerning. Prisoners recalled to prison for breaking licence conditions would receive a reduced sentence of, I believe, 56 days—it was 28 in the Gauke review—as opposed to serving the full term of their sentences. That would apply to criminals convicted of serious offences, which is a betrayal of justice for victims and for brave women who have gone through the harrowing experience of a trial.
What of the Bill’s intention to eradicate custodial sentences of less than 12 months? That in effect removes the ability of the magistrates court to give out a custodial sentence, leaving only community orders available as a means of rehabilitation and punishment. By the time a streetwise defendant has pleaded mental health problems and declared they are on universal credit, there are very few options available to the sentencing bench, and without custody there are even fewer.
These elements of the Bill are designed to free up prison spaces as opposed to administering the justice that the British people want convicted criminals to face in return for the crimes committed. There are no concrete plans to increase prison capacity, and there is no policy on deportation. This Bill is all about leniency, not about the reality of the dangerous places that prisons currently are.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
The hon. Member is speaking with great authority from her experience as a magistrate, but she criticises the Bill for having no concrete plans to expand prison capacity. Could she talk about her party’s plans to increase prison capacity, how much they would cost and when that capacity would come on line?
Sarah Pochin
I thank the hon. Member—I was going to call him an hon. Friend, but I am not sure that is appropriate—and, yes, I could do that, but I think all Members know Reform’s policies on building prisons. [Hon. Members: “No, we do not.”] Let me finish my speech.
The Bill proposes increased powers for the Probation Service such that it could shorten the length of a community order. It is entirely inappropriate for the Probation Service to be able to alter the sentence given by a magistrate or a judge. All this is open to abuse, and it means that the already stretched Probation Service can release convicted criminals from its books to free up capacity, rather than because rehabilitation or punishment has been successfully completed. The Bill is purposely vague and open to interpretation. It is not tough enough, and it does not address the problems our judicial system is facing. For that reason, I will not be supporting it.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)
To respond to the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin), in 1997—I do not know if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was with us then—we were concerned that the prison population was 40,000; it is now 80,000 and it is predicted to go up to 112,000 if we continue on the current flightpath. I just say to the hon. Lady that we are all straining to do our best to make sure that all our constituents are safe and that there is a just and effective system in our society to deal with crime and injustices. However, based on what I heard of her understanding of the Bill, I suggest it would be worth her while to sit down with Justice Ministers so that they can take her through some of the detail of the Bill, because I genuinely think there are elements of it that she has completely misconstrued. I say that not in any party knockabout way; I just think that would be worth while, because we want, particularly with this Bill, to build as much consensus as possible to reassure people out there that this House cares about their concerns.
I declare an interest in that I am an honorary life member of the Prison Officers Association. There is no financial relationship or nexus to that and, as I have said before, the POA has made it clear that there is no benefit to me whatsoever—I would not get a south-facing cell, an extra pillow or anything like that; it is a privilege. I want to make four or five points very briefly, because I know that others want to speak, and they will to a certain extent echo those of my hon. Friends the Members for Easington (Grahame Morris) and for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter).
On the sentence management process, all the advice we get from Napo, which represents probation officers, shows that there is a shortfall of about 10,000 staff, exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick said. The morale in the service itself—remember that probation officers have gone through privatisation, and then been brought back as a public service—is pretty low. They are very committed professionals, but having wages stagnate for a long period has had its effect, and recruitment and retention is a real issue that we need to address. I would not underestimate the stress they are under at the moment. We welcome the additional resource, but realistically there is a demand for more that we need to take on board.
One issue with resettlement that has been raised with us by probation officers and others is that because of the cutbacks in local government and other funding regimes, a lot of the voluntary sector bodies that they relied on to refer their clients to are no longer operating or have been starved of resources for a long period. A lot of those voluntary sector bodies were specialists in their own way, in particular with regard to drug abuse.
The second issue is about prison. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick that we need a lot more detail about earned progression, but prison officers tell us that the reality is that rehabilitation is almost impossible at the moment. Prisoners cannot access the courses that are needed. We do not even have the staff who will go to their cells to accompany them to rehabilitation and education courses. Again, the pressure staff are under is immense.
One specific issue with the skilled worker visa system has been raised by the Prison Officers Association. It has had an impact on the number of staff working in our prisons. I was not aware of this to be honest, but there were recruitment campaigns in Africa and elsewhere. Staff have been brought here and now we are at risk of losing them because they fall foul of the new visa regime. It does not just affect prisons—it affects a whole range of services—but it needs to be looked at again.
Another issue that has been discussed is the supervision of unpaid work. I am really worried that there are discussions about privatising that again. In London, we had the experience of Serco a number of years ago when it was privatised. To be frank, it was an absolute disaster. I am worried that it could be interpreted as simply exploiting prisoners for private profit in some instances.
There is not much reference in the Bill to children and I wonder whether we will come back to that, because unless we look at the regime for children as well, we could be in a situation where children will be serving longer sentences than some adults. One other point in relation to children that has been raised by a number of organisations, such as the Howard League, is the publication of a prisoner’s or convicted person’s photo. I can understand the motivation behind that, but I believe the family often serves the sentence just as much as the prisoner. As a result, stigma is attached to the whole family. What we have found from our experience is that children have suffered because of crimes perpetrated by the parent. We need to be very careful about how we use the identification process. We need to do it wisely and look at the implications for the whole family.
I will make two final points. On race, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been goaded by the Opposition, but the work he did on an exploration of the justice system highlighted discrimination in the system—we have to admit that. It is not about two-tier justice; it is about trying to get fair justice for everybody. The reality is that all the statistics demonstrate that for the same crime, those who are black or Asian will get a harsher sentence and will almost certainly have a harsher regime when in prison than others. We need to follow up the work done by my right hon. Friend. We need to be open and transparent, and get all the information out there again and re-examine it on intersectionality and the implications for the justice system.
Finally, I share the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick on IPP. We have been at this for a number of years and the Select Committee made its recommendation on re-sentencing. The Government rejected it, because they were worried about being branded as releasing prisoners into the community and worried that there would be risks. The re-sentencing exercise was about how to manage and minimise those risks.
Every time we have this debate and we do not move forward, what happens? We have had suicides of those IPP prisoners. I am worried that unless we speed up the resolution of this problem, we will have an injustice. Lord Blunkett, who introduced the system, has subsequently absolutely condemned it, saying it was one of the worst mistakes he ever made in politics. We will render those injustices continuing ones and do more harm to both the prisoners themselves and—as those who have had constituents who have endured this will know—their families. As I say, the families serve the sentence as much as the individuals concerned. Although there has been progress on this, I do think we need to revisit it in some legislative form in the near future.
Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)
As a former Crown prosecutor of 21 years, like my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan), I have seen close up the impact of our broken criminal justice system on victims, on communities and on our country as a whole. Because of that, I can say, hand on heart, that I am proud to be stood here today in support of this Bill and the transformative reforms it proposes—changes that will target reoffending and address the root causes of crime in a meaningful, lasting way.
I will use my time to talk specifically about probation resourcing. Before I get into the specifics, I ask Members to cast their minds back to just over a year ago. The Secretary of State has already set some of this out, but, having heard from Opposition Members, I think it is worth reiterating what last year looked like and remembering the crises we inherited from the previous Government: prisons nearing maximum capacity, the Probation Service understaffed and stretched to the brink of collapse, and a court backlog of more than 73,000 cases. And to what effect? Justice delayed is justice denied. We had a revolving door of offenders going through an underfunded, under-resourced system that was nearing the point of being unable to effectively deter, punish or rehabilitate criminals.
Difficult decisions were taken to manage those issues, regain control of our prisons and ensure that the most dangerous offenders were kept off our streets. I am pleased that the Government acted quickly and decisively, but we must never find ourselves in that position again. That is why it is time to look forward and to consider how we can create a system that breaks down the cycles of reoffending, enables victims to secure swift, fair justice, and always has space to lock away society’s most violent and perverted offenders.
Those are precisely the provisions that the Bill will drive through, with measures such as the move away from short custodial sentences, which are shown to be ineffective in deterring and rehabilitating offenders, and towards a system that puts those aims at its heart. Current evidence shows that nearly 60% of people sentenced to 12 months or less in prison reoffend within a year of release—a clear sign of a system not working as it should. It is not cheap, either: it is estimated to cost the taxpayer £47,000 per year per prisoner. Those shocking statistics only confirm what I witnessed year in, year out when I worked for the Crown Prosecution Service, where I repeatedly saw the same people coming through the system, often committing the very same offences. I am old enough, Madam Deputy Speaker, that throughout my years working for the CPS, I was saddened to see those regulars later joined by their children, with entire generations of families caught up in gruelling cycles of reoffending.
The Bill introduces a presumption to suspend short custodial sentences of 12 months or less, subject to certain exceptions, and creates the pathway to improved community sentences with more effective measures.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady for her wisdom. There are many measures in the Bill that the DUP supports and sees as commendable, but I would respectfully say that we have some concerns about reducing the length of custody for offenders, and our concern is sufficiently grave that we, as a party, will be supporting the reasoned amendment. I am sorry to say that, but I have to put it on record. There are many things that are good, but that is not good.
Linsey Farnsworth
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I am saddened to hear that that is his position, but I am afraid it does not change my view of the Bill.
Strict and stringent measures will be in place to encourage rehabilitation. Those will be accompanied by a simplified probation requirement, which will empower the Probation Service to determine the terms and volume of rehabilitation activity for each offender on a specific and individual level. Every offence is different, and under this system tailored community orders will reflect the nature of the offence and the offender. That means putting in place measures best suited to punish offenders for their crimes, encourage rehabilitation and deter them from future criminal activity. That is supported by evidence. The rate of reoffending for those on community orders is 36%, and it is 24% for suspended sentence orders with requirements, so this approach works.
Let it be clear stated that in this system offenders are far from free to do whatever they like. They will be supervised intensively and placed under a set of strict conditions. That will lead to a shift away from the root causes of crime, such as addiction, and towards gradual reintegration into society.
Of course, these reforms must be accompanied by significant investment in our Probation Service, and I am pleased that the Government have already committed to an extra £700 million in funding and recruited 1,000 new probation officers, with 1,300 more to come. However, as I said in previous debates when the sentencing review’s recommendations were first announced, the Government must be prepared to provide further resources to the Probation Service if that becomes necessary.
I am honoured to sit on the Justice Committee. Our inquiries have involved speaking to probation officers, and two things have been made clear. First, officers are absolutely committed to rehabilitating offers. Secondly, regardless of their goodwill and no matter how hard they work, probation officers cannot do their jobs effectively without proper resources. It is clear that the Probation Service has been working for many years on extremely limited resources, and we cannot let that continue under the measures in the Bill.
As a young prosecutor in the mid-2000s, under the previous Labour Government’s Respect agenda, I worked as part of the community justice initiative in Nottingham. The initiative, which was based on the Red Hook community justice centre in Brooklyn—America’s first multi-jurisdictional community court—adopted a holistic approach to tackle the root causes of a person’s offending, with agents such as housing officers, drug treatment workers and employment advisers under one roof taking part in the sentencing process together. The approach has been shown to significantly reduce the number of people receiving jail sentences while enhancing public confidence in the Government. The award-winning centre is still running today, but sadly the Nottingham community justice court is not. Despite early and promising signs of success, it lacked resources and sustained funding. We must learn from our previous mistakes.
Many of the recommendations of the independent sentencing review are carried forward in the Bill. Importantly, the review noted specifically that probation officers
“should be provided with the time, resources and autonomy necessary to build meaningful relationships with offenders and discharge this new responsibility to determine the appropriate content of probation requirements.”
Justice, the cross-party law reform and human rights charity, has also outlined concerns about shortfalls of probation staff, including a deficit of around 10,000 Probation Service staff in August this year. The charity suggests that despite more Probation Service officers being appointed in the last year, the target staffing level of full-time equivalent probation officers has not yet been met.
As I said, I have seen at first hand what happens to great projects and well-evidenced initiatives if they are under-resourced. The Bill’s provisions rightly place increased responsibility on the Probation Service to deliver proper justice and to rehabilitate offenders, but it needs to be supported to do so. Therefore, although I welcome the Bill and the Government’s announcement of increased funding for the Probation Service and the aim to recruit more probation officers, I am compelled to urge the Minister to ensure that adequate resource is in place so that the changes in the Bill will ensure that our criminal justice system can once again keep our country safe, protect victims and reduce crime.
Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)
I am pleased to speak in support of the Bill, which seeks to make our society safer through more effective sentencing of offenders, whether in custody or in the community. I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on penal affairs and as a member of the Justice Committee. I also declare a prior professional interest as an historian of criminal justice.
Sentencing is one of the ultimate powers of the state: the power to punish by depriving a citizen of their liberty. It also protects the liberty of others by preventing crime, whether through deterrence or rehabilitation. The history of our prisons system tells us that when prison neither deters nor rehabilitates, prison fails and the public are let down.
The Bill draws on the independent sentencing review conducted by the former Secretary of State for Justice, David Gauke. The review was driven, as we have heard, by a crisis we inherited from the previous Government, with a massive rise in the number of inmates and an utter failure to plan and prepare for them. We have far too many people in prison. The number has doubled over the past 30 years, from 43,000 in 1993 to over 87,000 last year. That rise in inmate numbers has been caused not by an increase in reported crime, but largely by an increase in the use of short custodial sentences and an increase in recalls to prison of those who have breached their licence conditions. When our prisons are packed to the gunwales, they cannot do their vital job of turning offenders away from crime and they cannot offer value for the billions of pounds of public money put into them.
The Gauke review found that, in the year to September 2024, nearly 45,000 people—58% of all custodial sentences—were given a custodial sentence of less than 12 months. It also found that the recall population has more than doubled over the past seven years, rising from around 6,000 to well over 13,000.
In recent months the Justice Committee—I am surrounded by several members of the Committee—has heard shocking evidence about the everyday impacts on a prison system that is running red hot. We have heard about education sessions that cannot be delivered due to lack of space, about substance-free wings being used to house inmates who may not need those services but simply need a cell, and about repairs to crumbling prison buildings that cannot be completed because no decant space is available.
The Bill seeks to tackle that by reviewing short sentences and resetting sentencing culture. It will do that by: as set out in clause 1, a presumption to suspend short custodial sentences of 12 months or less unless exceptional circumstances apply; and, in clause 2, extending the availability of suspended sentences. As we have heard, the Bill will do much more than that. Notably, it will strengthen community justice and refresh the powers of our Probation Service, although I note the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth) about the resources needed to sustain that. It also seeks to make it easier for domestic abusers to be flagged across the justice system. That is all to be welcomed.
That said, some proposals in the Bill will require close attention in Committee. For me those include: the procedural mechanisms for flagging domestic abusers, which must be robust; the proposed use of photographs of offenders undertaking paid work, which will need careful consideration; definitions of excess wealth when applying income reduction orders; and the procurement arrangements for enhanced electronic tagging. I hope that Ministers will be willing to engage on those questions as a means of strengthening this much-needed Bill, as this is a much-needed reset of our sentencing processes.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
I want to speak today about how the Sentencing Bill will bring some common sense to sentencing and bring in an evidence-based approach to stopping reoffending and protecting victims of crime. That is the primary duty of government: to protect citizens from harm. I will particularly highlight changes that mean that victims and survivors will be at the heart of sentencing and that punishments will fit the crime, protect survivors and focus on true rehabilitation, not just warehousing.
One example is the move from the existing system of exclusion zones, which prevent domestic abuse or sexual assault offenders from entering specific areas where the victim might be, to restriction zones that will limit the offender’s movement to an agreed-upon area. For too long, the burden has been on the victim, with survivors moving house, switching jobs and changing bus routes to avoid the person who hurt them. Restriction zones mean it is the offender whose life is reshaped, not the victim’s. Technology will track compliance, breaches will mean prison and survivors will help design the zones alongside probation officers, so that their freedom, not the attacker’s, is the priority.
For years, magistrates and judges have been calling for more constructive and flexible sentencing options—more than fines that can be dodged or custody that does not fix the underlying criminal behaviour. The Bill introduces that, whether through driving bans, travel restrictions, football banning orders or sexual harm prevention orders. It moves past a one-size-fits-all approach and allows judges to deliver personalised punishment, hitting criminals where it hurts.
Short prison sentences do not cut crime and they do not stop reoffending. Hon. Members need not just take my word for it, or decades of evidence; maybe the Conservatives will accept the word of a former screw. My constituent James, who worked in the Prison Service for decades, said to me:
“Short sentences do nothing.”
He welcomes many of the measures in the Bill:
“In short, the Bill is the law we’ve all been advocating for, for a long time.”
All the money that we currently spend on short prison sentences is not spent on Best Start centres, hospitals, schools, healthcare and drug treatment, where the root causes of crime can actually be addressed.
Sir Julian Lewis
I am trying to go along with the thrust of the hon. Lady’s argument, but I just wonder whether it is as absolute as she suggests. Admittedly, people who undergo short sentences may be repeat offenders, and that is particularly true of shoplifters, for example, as we have heard. However, if a store is a victim of the same shoplifter over and over again, to be relieved of that shoplifter raiding the premises even for a period of eight or 10 months must be some sort of salvation, must it not?
Lizzi Collinge
I agree that retail premises need relief from that shoplifting, but I would like that relief to be permanent. I would like to see the causes of shoplifting stopped, and quite often that is drug use and organised criminal behaviour. I do not want just to chuck people in prison for a bit and then let them out to reoffend again.
We need sentences that give offenders proper access to drug and alcohol rehab and mental health care—the kind of support that tackles the root causes of crime. We need sentences that ensure the offender pays back their debt to society. Public safety is the bottom line here. Judges will have discretion to hand out prison sentences of less than 12 months, say, for domestic abusers or violent offenders. They will be able to make sure that survivors have the confidence to rebuild their lives knowing that the perpetrator is behind bars. Rapists and criminals who commit other serious sexual offences will spend their custodial term in prison.
Lizzi Collinge
I do not think the hon. Gentleman’s analysis of the Bill is correct. I understand that perhaps he has some personal experience here and I appreciate that he has very strong feelings on the matter. Perhaps he will listen again to my former prison officer, who welcomed the changes.
Lizzi Collinge
I will not give way—[Interruption.] I think the hon. Gentleman is perhaps not showing the House the respect it deserves—[Interruption.] I would appreciate it if he would allow me to continue without this continuous chuntering.
At their core, these reforms do two things at once. They keep the most dangerous offenders where they belong, in prison, protecting the public, and they end the waste of locking up low-risk offenders. The evidence is really clear. I know that the Conservatives really struggle when the evidence contradicts their instincts and their prejudices, but it is simply true. The hon. Gentleman disagreeing does not make it any less true.
The victims of crime in my constituency deserve better than this current crumbling justice system. They deserve better than our overstuffed prisons that just churn out more and more criminals. They deserve this Sentencing Bill.
Paul Davies (Colne Valley) (Lab)
I want to speak today about justice; not just about punishment but about rehabilitation, dignity and the transformative power of second chances. For too long, our criminal justice system has been shaped by short-term thinking and political posturing—we have seen a fair amount of that in this debate—but we are changing that. This Government are committed to a smarter, fairer approach to sentencing that protects the public, supports victims and gives offenders a real chance to rebuild their lives. That is why this Bill matters. It enacts key recommendations from the independent sentencing review and marks a turning point in how to deliver justice.
This landmark legislation will ensure that our prison system never again reaches the brink of collapse. It introduces a presumption against short custodial sentences under 12 months, except in cases of serious risk or a breach of court orders. Instead, we are expanding the use of robust community sentences and giving judges greater flexibility to tailor punishments to the individual. Also, as has been mentioned, we are investing in technology to monitor offenders outside prison. This has very much been shown to reduce reoffending. Overall reoffending rates in 2023 were 26.3%. This was far too high, and short custodial sentences were a significant problem. Over 56% of offenders serving less than 12 months go on to reoffend. Young people are especially vulnerable. Those aged 18 to 20 have the highest reoffending rate at 36.2%, followed closely by 15 to 17-year-olds at 32.6%. Theft offences top the list with 48.4% of individuals reoffending. That highlights the deep link between socioeconomic hardship and repeat crime.
These figures underscore the urgent need for targeted rehabilitation, education and employment support to break the cycle, and one of the most pressing challenges is literacy. Over half of the UK’s prison population struggle with basic reading. According to the Ministry of Justice, 57% of adult prisoners read below the level of an average 11-year-old. That is incredible. In 2022-23, 65% of those assessed were at entry levels 1 to 3 in English, which is below the lowest GCSE level. Poor literacy is closely linked to higher reoffending rates and diminished chances of rehabilitation. However, we can look to other countries for inspiration in this area.
In Brazil, the Remission for Reading programme offers a powerful example of how education can transform lives. Introduced in 2012, it allows prisoners to reduce their sentences by reading books and writing reviews. Each approved review earns four days of sentence remission, up to 48 days per year. This is not just about reading; it is about rehabilitation. As one teacher involved in the programme said,
“This is about acquiring knowledge and culture and being able to join another universe.”
The programme fosters literacy, empathy and self-reflection. It gives prisoners a new perspective and a pathway to reintegration.
The Philippines has also followed suit, with the “Read your way out” initiative launched in 2023. This time, prisoners can reduce their sentences by 15 days for every 60 hours of reading, study, teaching or mentoring. Thirteen new prison libraries have been created to support the scheme.
The programmes show what is possible when we treat prisoners not just as offenders, but as people capable of change and growth. I ask the Minister if the Government would adopt a similar scheme to the “Remission for Reading” programme in Brazil across our entire prison estate. The initiative would make our justice system smarter, safer and more humane. It would provide an opportunity for change while still being tough on the causes of crime. Of course, this approach aligns with the principles set out in the independent sentencing review, chaired by former Lord Chancellor David Gauke.
Let me be clear: dangerous criminals will continue to be locked up for a very long time. For those who can be rehabilitated, we must offer hope. Helping them improve their literacy is one way to do that. The Conservatives left us with a broken system. We are building a better one that is smarter, safer and more humane.
Sally Jameson (Doncaster Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I declare the interest that, as a former prison officer, I am still a member of the Prison Officers’ Association. Having served as a Justice Parliamentary Private Secretary until only last week, this is the first time I have been able to speak on these departmental matters in the Chamber since I was elected. I want to use this opportunity to pay tribute to my friends and former colleagues at His Majesty’s Prison and Young Offender Institution Moorland who I served with prior to the general election. They are some of the bravest and most dedicated people I have ever known and, as only the second prison officer ever elected to this place, I want to use my time on these Benches to ensure that their voices are heard.
I want to acknowledge the work done by the former Lord Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), and the former Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin), as well as the Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending in the other place, for all they have done to get us to today. I wish the very best of luck to the new Minister and the new Lord Chancellor in their roles.
I am proud that this Government have had the backbone to take the bold but necessary steps to reform our sentencing and justice systems in this country. Context in this debate is incredibly important, because over the last year I have heard the shadow Front Benchers criticise this Government month after month, and it has been, frankly, galling—the sheer audacity of them sitting there with their faux outrage, knowing what they have done. The Conservatives nearly brought our prison system to the point of collapse; it is frankly beyond comprehension. Under them, we saw huge rises in violence, self-harm, drug abuse, overcrowding and an abject failure to build the spaces we needed. Rather than deal with that crisis, rather than face up to the challenge, they called a general election. This dereliction of duty is not something we can shrug off or pass over because they are not in power any more. Catastrophic handling on that scale means that they should be held accountable. Their decision making, or lack of it, has put the safety of our prison estate in huge jeopardy and has had real-life and horrific consequences for staff and prisoners. I for one will not forget their legacy, and I will not allow anyone else to forget it either.
I want to shine a light on the additional measures in the Bill that are focused on victims, who must always be at the centre of our thinking when discussing the justice system: creating new restriction zones, limiting the movement of offenders, better identifying perpetrators of domestic abuse and creating a defined category that can be used to better manage domestic abuse perpetrators, both in custody and on release. I hope that that package of strengthened rights for victims will, along with all the other measures, be an important step forward in the journey towards ensuring that their rights are respected and their voices heard.
I am also pleased that the legislation recognises that prisoner behaviour should dictate whether they are released as part of the earned progression model. Although it is important that we are able to manage population numbers, it should not come at the detriment of support for good behaviour and punishment for bad. The additional powers to extend the number of days added at adjudication level are important. I am keen to explore in more detail with the Minister how we can use and improve the adjudication system to enforce that. I am sure he will be pleased to hear that, as a trained adjudication liaison officer myself, I have many views on how to strengthen the system so that prisoners who are violent—they are, frankly, the chief trouble-causers—face maximum penalties, and we capture those who should not benefit from the earned progression model. I ask Ministers to consult operationally experienced voices at every level of implementation to ensure maximum impact in that area.
I am aware that there is limited time and many colleagues wish to speak, so I will not go into further detail on the Bill. These reforms are not just about cutting prisoner numbers—we will have more prisoners at the end of this Parliament than we had in the previous one—but about making our prison system safer and more manageable, and, in doing so, giving prisons space to focus once again on rehabilitation, reducing reoffending and driving down the number of victims.
I hope that the success of the Bill will mean that, in time, we are able to place extra focus on supporting groups of people who are often over-represented in the prison system—not least care leavers. It is estimated that 52% of young offenders and 29% of the overall prison population are care-experienced. That is not something that we as a society can accept; change must come. I hope that reforms in the legislation will allow the space for that to happen over time.
We must ensure that our prisons are safer for prison staff, we must drive down reoffending rates to protect victims, and we must recognise that the previous Government’s approach did not work. These reforms are bold, yes, but they are long, long overdue. I congratulate the Government on taking the first steps towards getting a grip of our prisons and wider criminal justice system so that we never again find the system on the point of collapse.
Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
Like my colleagues, I very much welcome the move to favour community sentences over short custodial sentences, as the Sentencing Bill provides. As we know, short-term sentences often lead to reoffending, which places a much-needed emphasis on rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation plays a vital role in addressing the root causes of offending. There is a wealth of research on the risk factors associated with offending and reoffending, with drug and alcohol dependency among the most prominent factors. Although there is slightly less research on this matter, I am increasingly concerned about the link between problem gambling and crime. Gambling disorders can and do lead to criminal offending, which is often committed out of desperation. The Commission on Crime and Gambling Related Harms has highlighted clear connections between gambling and various types of crime, including acquisitive crime, street robbery, domestic abuse, criminal damage and drug offences. Although gambling can be a fun activity for some, a gambling disorder can very easily take over an individual’s life: rates of suicide are significant, disordered gambling can ruin families, and gambling disorders push people into debt and subsequently into crime.
I am concerned about the fact that gambling disorders are not given parity of esteem with substance addictions by the criminal justice system. There is a range of rehabilitation requirements to support prisoners sentenced with severe drug and alcohol dependencies, but there is no such statutory support for gambling-related offences. That is a potential gap in the Bill that could be addressed in Committee. Gambling disorders share similar cognitive and mental health characteristics to substance addiction. Problem gambling is officially recognised as a mental health disorder in both the World Health Organisation’s international classification of diseases, and the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders”, sitting alongside traditional substance addictions. Addressing problem gambling in the criminal justice system must therefore be treated as a public health and rehabilitative issue, in much the same way that we address drug and alcohol addiction.
The gambling levy, introduced in April, will fund treatment, research, education and prevention in relation to gambling harms. I credit the Government and the NHS for working exceptionally hard to support those suffering from this cruel addiction. However, I am concerned that departmental silos may hinder the effective delivery of support in the criminal justice system.
The Sentencing Act 2020 mandated drug rehabilitation for offenders convicted of drug and alcohol-related crimes. Part 10(19)(1)(a) of schedule 9 to the Act states that the offender
“must submit to drug rehabilitation treatment, which may be resident treatment or non-resident treatment”.
Dr Gardner
Unfortunately, the legislation did not mandate that individuals sentenced for gambling-related offences must seek rehabilitative treatment for their gambling disorder. Again, I suggest that the Bill could correct that as it progresses through the House.
In a survey conducted by the University of Staffordshire, 99.6% of stakeholders supported sentencing options that mirror those used for drug and alcohol addiction, including the option to contribute to rehabilitation activity requirement days. Currently, community sentence treatment requirements propose drug and alcohol rehabilitation requirements for individuals sentenced to a community order, where the offender has consented to receiving treatment for substance misuse. Again, that is not offered to those with gambling disorders.
There is a clear need for greater intervention. In a report commissioned by the Centre for Crime, Justice and Security at the University of Staffordshire, between 2022 and 2024, 41% of people under probation supervision reported regular gambling. I echo the heartfelt support that Government Members have expressed for all the probation officers and prison officers working extremely hard and their need for resources to support offenders in rehabilitating.
In 2023, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities estimated that the imprisonment costs associated with problem gambling are equivalent to £167.3 million per year. I thank the Minister for our conversations regarding this issue. I ask him to consider the merits of mandating rehabilitative treatment for individuals sentenced for gambling-related offences because of a gambling disorder and whether a proportion of the gambling levy funds could be ringfenced to fund this treatment.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
Madam Deputy Speaker, put yourself in the place of a victim of crime. You want to go out for a walk with your family, out to the park or to the other side of town, but you are worried that the perpetrator might see you there. You want to go for a night out or to support your football team, but you are worried about what they might do or how you might react if they are there too, so you do not. They are the one who was convicted, but you still feel like the prisoner. They received the sentence, but you are being punished. It happens too often, and I have come across cases like these not just as an MP but in my time as a barrister.
This is a Bill whose time has come, because it turns that injustice on its head. Currently, some offenders can be excluded from certain limited areas, but under this Bill, they can be restricted from all areas apart from a limited one. Whether it is the pub, the match or driving around, expanding community punishments and licensing conditions will ensure that it is the offenders who face restrictions on what they can do and enjoy, not the victims.
I do not need to tell my constituents in Derby North about the situation inherited from the Conservatives—a broken justice system, prisons full and in crisis, severe criminal court backlogs and decaying infrastructure—because too many of them live the reality of having to deal with the thousands of antisocial behaviour incidents that we see in our city every year. There is a need to tackle prolific and persistent offenders with strict monitoring and co-ordinated support. The expansion of intensive supervision courts is designed to do just that, and it is hugely welcomed by those I have spoken to who work in our criminal courts. They have said to me, “Roll this out as fast as possible.”
The additional £700 million that this Government are investing in our Probation Service—with the recruitment of 1,000 trainee probation officers already and 1,300 more to be recruited in the next six months—is rebuilding that service. We are rebuilding after the Conservative Government’s vandalism, their failed experiment in privatising probation, which pushed it to crisis, and their having to bring it back into public hands. Probation officers work incredibly hard to keep our communities safe, and I am grateful that this Government are investing in their essential work.
May I also take this opportunity to thank those who work in our prisons? The number of prisoners will, of course, still go up. The Government are building more prison places—something that the previous Government all but failed to do—and more offenders will be behind bars than ever before under this Government. We therefore need to turn prisons from creating better criminals to creating better citizens. The earned progression model rewards good behaviour and punishes bad behaviour in our prisons. It is an important tool to break the cycles of offending that we have seen for far too long, and when offenders stop offending, our communities are safer.
The Minister of State for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending—a businessman who throughout his career enabled offenders to turn their lives around and to break those cycles—knows better than anyone how to make this work. I recently visited HMP Ranby to see how it is increasing the type of work that the prisoners there undertake, from creating furniture and doing laundry for prisons and other public services, saving taxpayers’ money, to working on reading and writing, or undertaking work for the private sector, giving offenders the skills to secure work on release. Utilising and increasing the opportunities for offenders to work in prison can build on the important measures in the Bill, reducing reoffending by giving them purpose and skills, while instilling a work routine. I will make that case in an Adjournment debate on 15 October.
I am grateful for the opportunity to highlight these three aspects of the approach: the intensive supervision to tackle antisocial behaviour and prolific offending; measures to help end the revolving door of offending; and new restriction zones and community punishments to give freedom back to victims. The Bill was born of necessity, because of the mess in which the Conservatives left our prisons and criminal courts. While born of necessity, though, I am excited about the transformative difference that the Bill will make, so that fewer offenders reoffend, victims are where they must be—the focus of our criminal justice system—and our communities are safer as a result.
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak in favour of the Bill, because in so many ways it epitomises what the Government have had to do over the last 14 months. We inherited a prison system in crisis, having been fit to burst for years—something that evidently did not catch the attention of the then Ministers, given that in their 14 years they added only 500 places, one 40th of what they promised the people of this country they would deliver.
Despite rapidly ramping up prison building as a national infrastructure priority to address the failed legacy of the Conservatives—whose reputation as the supposed party of law and order is, frankly, in tatters—this Government are being honest with the public that we will still face a shortfall in prison places of some 9,500 by 2028. That is why generational reform of sentencing is needed to ensure that our legal system is fit for the future. That is the responsible thing to do, which is why it is so unedifying to see the party of Peel, Disraeli and David Gauke disgracing itself with the scaremongering and party political point scoring we have heard from the Conservatives, over a Bill that will clean up the mess that they created.
Let me turn to the specifics of the Bill. The changes to early release will ensure that that release is genuinely earned. It is indisputable that over many years we have seen an erosion of discipline and order in many of our prisons, as evidenced by the amount of contraband that makes it into secure facilities and the number of assaults on prison officers. The changes in the Bill will ensure that possession of a mobile phone, for example, or violent behaviour can add months to a sentence, and that there will be no limit to that, as additional time can be added consecutively. Far from being soft on criminals, the clear message is that if people cause disorder and intimidation in our prisons, they will spend longer behind bars.
On rehabilitation, we have to be pragmatic and do what works. In my view, the primary purpose of our sentencing system is to punish offenders and make them repay society for their crimes, but I am also a pragmatist. If, as the Justice Secretary clearly outlined, the reoffending rate and the likelihood of offenders going on to commit more serious crimes is sky high, particularly for those serving short custodial sentences, then we have a duty to look at this again. It is right that the consequences that are proven to be more effective, such as community orders, are used, but with vital carve-outs for dangerous and prolific offenders, so that judges can ensure that victims, like those of vile domestic and sexual violence, are protected.
On that point, this Government’s efforts to fix the mess that the last Government made of tagging will help us to protect victims through pragmatic changes, including a pilot of tagging before prisoners reach the gate for release. That will be coupled with the measures in the Bill of which I am proudest: restriction zones, which will be important for victims, often women, who have so much to fear from offenders—often ex-partners or family members.
In one of the first surgeries that I held as an MP last July, I spoke to a constituent who lived in constant fear of her manipulative, violent and abusive ex-partner, who she felt would kill her. She had a restraining order in place but she felt that it was no protection at all, because her ex-partner would repeatedly find out where she lived and knew exactly how to get around the order. I know that many hon. Members have heard such stories, where the victim feels that they are now the one being restricted to a geographical area. Under this Bill, it will be the offender who feels that sense of geographical restriction. It should always have been that way around.
On making offenders feel restrictions on their life and liberty, I also welcome the proposed reforms to community sentences, so that rather than a one-size-fits-all approach that will not affect every offender, there will instead be a broad range of punishments that can be tailored to the nature of the offending and to what would act as a deterrent to each offender.
Finally, I welcome the Bill’s introduction of a requirement that the Lord Chancellor is consulted on new sentencing guidelines. That was a firm commitment made by the previous Justice Secretary, when new guidelines—stating that judges should take facts including the defendant’s ethnicity into account—were put before us without her oversight. She stated that this Government would take urgent legislative action to address that, and that commitment is being put into effect in this Bill.
In conclusion, the measures in the Bill are necessary after the last Government’s abject record of failure on criminal justice and prisons. They will ensure that all our constituents can have the assurance that the criminal justice system is once again effective, fit for purpose and on a solid footing for the future.
Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)
It is a privilege to speak on Second Reading. This is an historic debate, as I believe it is the first piece of legislation to be introduced by a Deputy Prime Minister who is a graduate of the King’s school in Peterborough. I welcome the Justice Secretary to his place, as well as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards).
As an MP who represents a prison and a crown court, I am very much alive to the issues that the Bill covers, including the failure not only of full prisons, but of a criminal justice system on the point of collapse, with backlogs in the courts, crime unpunished and, for too many people, often justice denied. Having listened to many of the important contributions from Members on the Government Benches, I wish that more Members from the Conservative Benches could have been here to bear witness to the legacy that they have left this country, which this Government are beginning to unpick.
In my advice surgeries and in my postbag, I regularly hear the issues: of families worried that justice will not be served, but also of a broken system, where the idea that people can offend but go on to have a good life has been lost. I warmly welcome the speed with which the Justice Secretary is grasping the prison crisis with two hands, because that crisis is also a crisis of trust in our public services. It is crucial that we have a just system that punishes offenders and supports victims.
To make better use of time, I will not repeat many points, but I will focus on one particular aspect of the legislation and talk in favour of rebuilding our broken probation system. One of the biggest challenges facing society is that our prisons still turn out too many repeat offenders, particularly among young people. Recent data shows that if someone leaving prison is employed within six weeks of release, their likelihood of reoffending is cut by half. That is a powerful testament to the impact and meaningful nature of work. It also speaks to a truth: too many young offenders have been failed by school or lack the skills and opportunities to get on in life. They should be held accountable for the crimes they have committed, but we need a pathway back, with community orders in the Bill to give people a chance to contribute to society as well as serving their time and doing their punishment.
This issue interests me greatly through both my faith and my values, and it matters greatly in Peterborough. I am lucky enough to know Gez and Rosy Chetal, who set up Prismstart to work with employers, prisons and offenders to create work experience opportunities. Through their huge efforts, they have secured meaningful employment for more than 60% of the individuals who have come through their scheme and have produced work experience and opportunities for others.
I also draw the House’s attention to the work I have been doing as a Co-op MP with the Co-operative movement. In July this year, the Co-operative Group launched a new partnership with City & Guilds for a new apprenticeship scheme for serving prisoners at HMP Highpoint in Suffolk. The scheme offers level 2 rail engineering operative apprenticeships, with guaranteed employment in the rail sector on release. This initiative aims to address the rail skill shortage that this country desperately needs to fill and to reduce reoffending by providing prisoners with qualifications and work experience before they leave prison. The scheme speaks to something that I hope this House holds dear. By providing clear employment pathways, we can break the cycle of reoffending, fix our prisons and rebuild our country.
Tristan Osborne (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab)
Every single one of us is here because we want to deliver justice for every one of our constituents. As a former police officer, it has been really welcome to hear of the lived experiences of barristers, criminal prosecutors and people who have worked in our Prison Service, because it is their expertise that makes this place deliver for people.
As a former police officer, I know that this Government have inherited a criminal justice system on the brink of collapse after 14 years of Conservative neglect. I can see that the early release scheme has been in action tonight, with Conservative Members being absent. Probation was hollowed out and police numbers see-sawed; they were cut in the early part of the Conservatives’ tenure, only to grow later after crime rose. The stark truth is that the Conservatives left prisons full at the end of their term; they know that, and they have never apologised for that derogation of responsibility. The Conservative party is the party of law and disorder, and this is its failure. No matter the gimmicks of the shadow Justice Ministers—whether it be chasing people in tube stations or climbing lamp posts—that record will have been on their watch. That is why this Bill is so urgent.
We know that the number of prison places is growing, with 14,000 more before the end of the decade. We have a Government who are finally stepping up and listening to the public when it comes to putting people in prison, but we know that that cannot be the only solution and that we need to adopt other approaches. That is why the Sentencing Bill is so necessary; it recognises that capacity must be built, but also that sentences must be reformed so that the right people are behind bars for the right length of time and the public can have confidence in justice. Our prisons should not be a revolving door for ever more prison experience and criminals rotating through the system, and we need to change that.
This Bill takes a clear-eyed approach. Let us be clear about this: dangerous offenders and those posing the highest risk will continue to serve long sentences—no ifs, no buts. For most offenders, though, we will move towards an earned progression model. Behaviour in custody will determine how much of a sentence is served. As we have learned from the States, that is a model that works, and I look forward to seeing it develop in action, overseen by Ministers who will consult with the professional bodies and prison staff. I welcome the reforms to the way in which we approach sentencing, listening to professionals such as The Times’ Crime and Justice Commission and David Gauke so that we can have a system that delivers the outcomes we want. This shift is not about being soft; it is about being smart and ensuring that punishment is effective.
I am conscious of time, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Bill is not perfect, and I look forward to improving it in Committee, working with all Members. It learns from the failures of the past, of which there are many; it builds on the findings of an independent review; and it balances punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation. I hope Members will support it today.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
That is the end of the Back-Bench contributions. I call the shadow Minister.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I am grateful to colleagues on all sides of the House for their contributions to the debate, and I welcome the Minister to his post—I think today is his first time at the Dispatch Box. As I have said before, wanting to see more consistent delivery of justice for victims of serious crime was one of the primary reasons I sought election to this place, and I do not think that any Government in my lifetime has universally delivered that. For decades, across parties, our justice system has fallen short far too often. I am sure that many Members from all parties can relate to the experience of hearing about some of the most horrific crimes that take place and being appalled by the sentences given. That is not new, but the question we have to ask ourselves today is whether the Bill we are considering will make the situation worse or better. Will more victims get what we would consider justice as a result of this Bill, or fewer?
Since this Labour Government came to power, we have quite rightly been holding them for account for the measures they have already taken to let people out of prison earlier. Members on both sides of the House will be familiar with the consistent debate we have had about pressure on prison places, where responsibility for that lies, and what can be done about it. Labour Members point to our prison-building record, while I point out to them that the pressure on the prison system left by the last Labour Government was worse, and that there are other options for foreign nationals and the remand population. A lot of heat is generated, but there is not much more to it. Labour Members point out that they have had to take emergency steps, and it is true that the measures they have taken have not been permanent changes to our sentencing framework. However, I say to them that the Bill we are considering today does something very different.
As the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) and others have demonstrated, I am not sure that Labour Members fully recognise what the Government are asking them to support today. There are measures to be welcomed in this Bill—the new restriction zones and the measures to better track domestic abuse cases, which the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), also supported—but there are a number of reasons why I do not support the Bill. We have heard Members including the shadow Justice Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), raise criticisms relating to short sentences, community sentences, Parole Board reform, probation and the Sentencing Council, but I am not surprised that Labour Members do not agree with those criticisms.
However, I do not believe Labour Members can sincerely think what I am about to talk about is something they would knowingly want to support. I am going to read out a list of offences: rape; assault by penetration; rape of a child under 13; assault of a child under 13 by penetration; inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity; paying for the sexual services of a child aged under 13; kidnapping or false imprisonment with the intention of committing a sexual offence; and creating or possessing indecent photographs of children. I hope Labour Members felt as uncomfortable being forced to consider those offences and what they entail as I did while reading them out. I am going to read them again: rape; assault by penetration; rape of a child under 13; assault of a child under 13 by penetration; inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity; paying for the sexual services of a child aged under 13; kidnapping or false imprisonment with the intention of committing a sexual offence; and creating or possessing indecent photographs of children. In fact, there are even more of those sorts of offences that we need to have in mind this evening.
Why do we need to consider these offences? Because despite what some Labour Members have said to the contrary—without ill will, I accept—and for all the things it does that Members might support, the Bill we are considering this evening will mean one thing for the vile criminals who commit those sorts of offences. It will mean that they are let out of prison earlier, not as a temporary measure in response to the kind of short-term prison crowding challenge that we have debated and recognised, but as a permanent and profound change to our sentencing laws.
Members who support this Bill will be putting their name to legislation that will forever change our sentencing laws to let rapists and paedophiles out of prison earlier. The hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Sally Jameson) talked about legacy. I cannot honestly believe that Government Members want to support a Bill that will allow rapists and paedophiles to get out of prison earlier. That is not political posturing or hyperbole or scaremongering, as the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) described it. It is not an unfair interpretation or misrepresentation of the Bill before the House today. Rapists and paedophiles—those are the people that Members will be voting to let out of prison early if they support this Bill this evening. Is that really what they came to this place to do?
Gareth Snell
The shadow Minister is reading out a series of crimes that are reprehensible, and no one in this House would want to see the individuals who commit such crimes having anything but the book thrown at them. In the spirit and tone in which he has read that list out, his Government oversaw a 2.6% charge rate for people who were arrested for rape. Does he want to say anything to the House about that particular damning figure? There are people today who have not been let out of prison early, because they never even got there in the first place. What does he say to that?
Dr Mullan
The hon. Member will have noted that at the outset of my remarks I said that I have never been entirely in support of all the policies of a Government of either party on these issues. He has every right to make those criticisms, but they do not change the vote he is being asked to make tonight. They do not change the policy he will be putting his name to and supporting. There is no excuse for the things he will be changing on a permanent—not temporary—basis to deal with a short-term prison crisis. I do not think that that is what any Government Member’s constituents want.
These profound and permanent changes to our sentencing laws are the exact opposite of what the vast majority of victims, their families and the public want. They will sit on the record of those Members and this Government until the next election. They will need to justify themselves to their voters. I do not believe that the majority of Labour Members, deep down, want to support such changes tonight. It will be a great compliment to party managers if, after this reality has been spelled out to Labour Members, they decide to support this Bill anyway. If they speak to their constituents like I speak to mine, and ask them about child abusers and rapists, their constituents will tell them that they are already concerned by the limited time they spend in prison, which undermines justice. We have heard so many times from Members in this House about the horror of rape and other sexual offences, about the victims of grooming gangs and about the horror of all kinds of sexual abuse. Not once do I recall a campaign or a concern raised by Members that the answer is to make such offenders spend less time in prison.
I accept that there is a different debate to be had about different cohorts of offenders and different offences. There is always a tension between prison time as a punishment and helping to rehabilitate offenders. As others have said, and I agree, I do not think the Bill strikes the right balance in that area, but I respect those Government Members and members of the public who would draw the line in a different place from me for certain types of offences and offenders. However, we are not talking about drug addicts stealing to fund their habit, or the young man from a broken home who spent their childhood in care and vandalises the local playground. The hon. Members for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop), for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) and the hon. Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson), and others coherently and sensibly raised the debates we might have about how long those individuals spend in prison and how we rehabilitate them.
However, here we are talking about rapists and paedophiles—criminals who sexually assault children, criminals who create sexual images of children and circulate them around the world and criminals who snatch unsuspecting women walking home through a park, drag them into the bushes and rape them. Those are the sorts of criminals that Labour Members will agree should be let out of prison earlier if they support this Bill.
We should be clear that not a single voice among victims’ representatives supports this element of the Bill—not a single one. The Victims’ Commissioner does not support it. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner does not support it. Justice for Victims does not support it. Victim Support does not support it. The Victims’ Commissioner for London does not support it. Apparently, however, we will see this evening that Labour MPs do.
Let me also clear up any confusion about the circumstances under which these violent and sexual offenders will be released early. Members, innocently, may have been led to believe that prisoners will have to jump over considerable hurdles to secure early release. In fact, the former Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Birmingham Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) told us they would need to “earn” their release. The reality of the proposals in the Bill make clear what a complete sham that suggestion was. Actually, prisoners will actively need to break prison rules to run the risk of losing early release. That is not earning anything. That is doing what the majority of the public do day in, day out, without any reward—just behaving themselves and not breaking the rules. Apparently, however, if a rapist or a child abuser does it, Labour Members think that should entitle them to walk away from the proper punishment that they have been given for their crimes.
In fact, what Labour said to the press in an attempt to manage the news of this terrible set of policies gave the impression that the large discounts amounting to, in some cases, many years off prison time could be quickly reversed for bad behaviour, and that this was a radical departure. While the amount of time after which the Government are choosing to let people out is certainly radical, the mechanism to keep people in is nothing of the sort. As we see in the detail of the Bill, they will simply make use of the existing prison punishment legislation.
I wonder whether Labour Members are aware of the average number of days in prison that is added by the prison punishment regime. According to the latest data I could find, the average number of additional days given to a prisoner who breaks the rules is 16. When sentences for rapists and child abusers will be discounted by many months and years, they run the risk of having a handful of days added back on for breaking prison rules. That is shameful, and it does not apply only to the offences that I have mentioned. The hon. Member for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes) spoke about a 15 year sentence, and about how the victims of the person concerned would feel about their not being given a lifelong driving ban. How will they feel when they are told that instead of serving 15 years in prison, that person will spend five years there?
The parlous state of this Government is a blessing for Labour Members tonight. There are many other issues receiving media coverage at present—the political survival of the Prime Minister himself is in question—so they may get away with voting this Bill through unnoticed. However, this is just the first stage. I know that the timetable for the Bill is as short as the Government could make it—just a day of Committee of the whole House, which also means that the many victims groups will not be able to come before the House and voice their objections, and then one day for Report and Third Reading. The Government clearly hope that the Bill will also go through its future stages unnoticed by their constituents, who, they hope, will not know that Labour MPs want to let rapists and paedophiles out of prison earlier. [Interruption.] That is the reality of the Bill that they are voting through. Labour Members are chuntering and saying, “Shameful.” What is shameful is that they are preparing to vote for that policy this evening. Shame on all of them.
The Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Justice Secretary and I will do our utmost to hold Labour Members to account for this grave, grave injustice to victims and their families. We will do our best to make sure that their constituents do know, do hold them to account, and do understand the choice that they make in the end. I honestly do not believe, despite the chuntering, that that is a choice many of them would want to make if they had listened clearly to the position that I have set out. I do not think it is a choice that any of them came to this place to make.
We have seen Labour Back Benchers exercise their power over the welfare Bill. They can do that again—if not tonight, in future stages of the Bill, because we will seek to amend it. Labour Members can support us in that. Rape, assault by penetration, rape of a child under 13, assault of a child under 13 by penetration, inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, paying for the sexual services of a child under 13, kidnapping or false imprisonment with the intention of committing a sexual offence, creating or possessing indecent photographs of children—tell your Whips that you will not support people responsible for those offences being let out of prison early. Do your job as representatives of your constituents, do your job as advocates for women and girls—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. “You” and “your”—it has to stop, Dr Mullan.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I see that we have a fresh Minister, whom I congratulate and welcome to the Dispatch Box. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jake Richards)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am delighted to deliver the closing speech on Second Reading of this important Bill, which will tackle the prisons crisis that we inherited from the Conservative Government and confront the scourge of reoffending in this country. I thank all Members on both sides of the House for their thoughtful contributions to the debate—some more thoughtful than others—because this should be an agenda that enjoys support throughout the Chamber.
Most of today’s debate has been measured and helpful, indicating a recognition that it is necessary to stabilise a broken criminal justice system after 14 years of Tory misrule and to prioritise victims and the prevention of crime. The Bill achieves that aim. It is necessary to fix our prisons crisis, and it is also desirable, as it will confront reoffending and keep our communities safer. As my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister said in his opening speech, it takes us back to the central purpose of sentencing: punishment that works.
Let me deal with the Conservative amendment and the arguments we heard from the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), and the shadow Justice Minister, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan). They say that the Bill puts the public at risk, but without it we face the threat of prisons running out of places entirely, with no space to lock up the most dangerous offenders, which was their legacy when they left office last July. They say it will undermine the confidence of victims, but nothing is worse for victims than prisons running out of places and crimes going without punishment, which was their legacy when they left office last July. They say that the Probation Service cannot cope, and it certainly could not cope under the Tories, with a botched part-privatisation that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds and a persistent shortage of staff.
We are beginning to rebuild the Probation Service. We will increase investment in probation by up to £700 million by 2028-29, which is a 45% increase. We are recruiting: we hired 1,000 trainee probation officers in our first year, and we are on track for 1,300 more this year. It is worth remembering that this legislation was carefully drafted as a result of an independent sentencing review led by the former Conservative Justice Secretary David Gauke. I take this opportunity to thank him for all his work, as well as the previous ministerial team at the Ministry of Justice, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin).
It is a great shame that the Opposition have attempted to play politics on sentencing and law and order. The Conservatives could have adopted a more mature position, appreciating the difficult context in which this Government took office. They could have drawn on previous Conservative traditions on rehabilitation and prison reform to support an agenda that aims to cut reoffending and keep our communities safer. Instead, they are more interested in social media clicks than serious government. It is their mess that makes this legislation so urgent. It is their failure to deliver appropriate prison places and their failure to confront reoffending rates and invest in community sentencing that has led to the mess this Government are clearing up.
As for Reform, I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin), and I say with the greatest respect that it is quite clear she simply has not read the Bill. She was given ample opportunity during her speech to set out what Reform’s position is, and she simply refused. [Interruption.] I am happy to give way to her, but I notice that she is not going to intervene. She lent on her role as a magistrate, and there are an enormous number of magistrates across the country, but I note that the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office said of her time as a magistrate that her behaviour
“fell below the standards expected of a magistrate”,
and her speech fell below those of an MP.
I want to address a number of the points raised by hon. Members in this debate. The issue of probation was raised by the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), whose expertise in this area we will no doubt lean upon. It was also raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes), my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) and my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth).
We are very aware of the pressures the Probation Service faces, especially after the damage done by the last Conservative Government. That is why we are investing £8 million in new technology to lift the administrative burdens on probation officers and enable them to refocus their time on where it has the greatest impact. I joined the Justice Secretary on his first visit to speak to probation staff, and they told us how important that technological change could be to the work they do. However, that is not enough, and as I have said, we are increasing funding by £700 million—a 45% increase—and hiring more probation officers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) raised the issue of trade unions, and the challenges that this new sentencing regime will place on probation officers. I reassure him that I and the Justice Secretary will be having conversations with the trade unions throughout this process.
Electronic monitoring was raised by a number of Members, including the Chair of the Justice Committee and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe. There are significant challenges in how we ensure that tagging works, but we know that tagging does work. There is clear and reliable proof of an individual’s whereabouts and behaviour, and reoffending rates are reduced by 20% when tagging is used as part of a community sentence. That is why we are investing £100 million—a 30% increase—on the biggest expansion of tagging since 1999.
The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), spoke passionately, as he always does, about victims. In my submission, this Bill strengthens protections for victims in our system. The Government inherited a prison system that was in crisis, and—as I have said before, but it is worth repeating—if our prisons collapse, it is victims who will pay the price.
The Bill is not just about building prison capacity and stabilising the prison system. The legislation aims to go further in offering victims protection. The Bill updates the statutory purposes of sentencing to make it clear that judges must consider the protection of victims during sentencing. This is a really important reform and I am very pleased to hear that the Liberal Democrats support that aspect of the Bill.
On domestic abuse, I again praise the hon. Member for Eastbourne for his campaign on the domestic abuse flag. I listened to the arguments he made today and I will no doubt have further conversations with him in future. The domestic abuse flag is a massive improvement to ensure that protective services across Government—local government and Whitehall—have better powers to track domestic abusers and keep victims safe. I am pleased that that measure has received so much support.
I would push back on the argument we have heard today about short sentences. I want to be absolutely clear, on behalf of the Government: we are not abolishing short sentences. Judges will have the power to send offenders to prison when they want to: where a court order has been breached, where there is significant risk of harm, and in any exceptional circumstances. I want to put it on record that in many domestic abuse cases short sentences have a really important role to play. They will continue to play that role under this legislation.
Very briefly, Madam Deputy Speaker—I am aware of the time—we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop), who brought great expertise from his experience in the police. He spoke about the depressing reality of reoffending in our communities, whereby offenders are caught and put in jail for a few weeks, and then come out and reoffend again. That is why we are taking this action today. Alongside sentencing reform, we need better rehabilitation in our prisons. That is why my hon. Friends the Members for Colne Valley (Paul Davies) and for Stoke-on-Trent South (Dr Gardner) raised important issues relating to literacy and gambling. I have already had conversations with my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South and I will be having more with my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley.
Before I close, I will address two shorter issues if I may. The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) and my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich Albion—[Laughter.] Forgive me, I got carried away there; it’s nearly recess. I mean my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes). They raised important and very serious cases relating to driving offences. I reassure them that I have heard their speeches and will follow up in due course about the specific cases they raise, but also the general issues.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) raised a number of issues, but one very important one was youth sentencing. Youth sentencing is outside the scope of the Bill, but I reassure him that I will be looking into the consequences of this legislation for youth sentencing in due course.
There are few more acute crises than that which this Government inherited in our prisons. Last summer, the Government took the difficult but necessary decisions to keep the system afloat. Now, we need long-term and sustainable reform, and that is what the Bill delivers. Alongside our efforts to boost prison capacity, it is time for fundamental sentencing reform to stabilise the prison estate, confront our rates of reoffending and deliver punishment that works. We know it is possible because the evidence is clear, but we must have a laser focus on public protection and reducing reoffending. That must mean a system that incentivises offenders to become better citizens, not better criminals, and reacts swiftly when they breach the conditions of their release; that puts strong restrictions on offenders serving sentences outside prison, enforcing them where possible with the best technology available; that tackles the root causes of reoffending; and that puts victims first, with the right safeguards to protect them.
It is a great shame that, as I said, the Opposition have chosen to chase social media traction, rather than engage sensibly with this important agenda. The modern iteration of the Conservative party has stuck its head in the sand on progress, rather than facing up to the legacy it left. I am pleased the Bill does not shirk from the challenge we have been given, but faces up to it head-on and delivers the change that will keep our communities safer in the years and decades ahead. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Petitions
Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition on behalf of the residents of Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North. The petitioners declare that their constituency
“should be considered for support from the Government’s forthcoming Plan for Neighbourhoods funding.”
In particular, we hope that we can raise money from this fund for reinvestment and regeneration in the area of Glebe Farm and Tile Cross. It is an area rich in community spirit and blessed with extraordinary community groups, but it has suffered grievously over the last few years. This funding could make the world of difference. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to allocate funding to Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North constituency,
Declares that this constituency should be considered for support from the Government’s forthcoming Plan for Neighbourhoods funding.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to re-allocate funding under its Plan for Neighbourhoods to support Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003112]
Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) (Lab)
I rise to present a petition about road safety around primary schools in Suffolk Coastal. There is growing concern about speeding and dangerous driving that puts children, parents and staff at serious risk. Many schools also lack basic measures, such as 20 mph zones, pedestrian crossings and safe walking routes. In fact, I have one school that has a 60 mph road along the outside of it.
The petition states:
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to ensure Suffolk County Council prioritises the safety of children by developing and publishing a tailored Road Safety Action Plan for every primary school in the Suffolk Coastal constituency.
And the petitioners remain, etc.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the Suffolk Coastal constituency,
Declares that there is growing concern about the prevalence of speeding and dangerous driving near primary schools across the constituency, which puts the safety of children, parents, and school staff at serious risk. This petition further declares that many schools lack adequate road safety measures such as 20mph zones, pedestrian crossings, speed enforcement, and safe walking routes.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to ensure Suffolk County Council prioritises the safety of children by developing and publishing a tailored Road Safety Action Plan for every primary school in the Suffolk Coastal constituency.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003114]
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
I rise to present this petition which calls on the Government to protect our peatlands in any new planning framework or legislation. I want to thank all the 486 signatories to the petition and the Friends of Lindow Moss, which has campaigned for years to protect Lindow Moss in Tatton, a site made famous by the discovery of the preserved Iron Age body known as Lindow Pete. The petition rests on the premise that we must protect sites of environmental and ecological significance and that we cannot allow the destruction of sites of natural carbon capture. We must ensure that the ecological and environmental benefits of peatlands remain for generations to come.
The petition states:
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to require a special development strategy in relation to peatlands as part of any new planning framework and legislation.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of Tatton,
Declares that the vital importance of peatland is recognised from an environmental perspective in terms of both carbon storage and unique biodiversity, and measures implemented to protect it from environmental harm and impose specific responsibility on strategic planning authorities to protect peatland environments.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to require a special development strategy in relation to peatlands as part of any new planning framework and legislation.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003115]
Police: Professional Standards
(3 days, 7 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)
I welcome the Minister to her place. I requested this debate following some shocking constituency cases that I have dealt with since my election to this place last summer. I am sure that I am not the only Member to have serious concerns about the police complaints and professional standards process.
It is important that I make it clear from the outset that this is not a criticism of the hard-working police officers who do a fantastic job with limited resources. I must take this opportunity to pay tribute to my excellent local sector inspectors Adam Stonehill and Gregory Hodgkiss for their dedication and hard work. However, I must always give voice to my constituents when they feel that a justice has occurred and there is a clear need for wholesale institutional change. Systemic issues in the professional standards department at Devon and Cornwall police have shattered my constituents’ trust in the police.
While knocking on doors during the general election last summer, I met one such constituent. Lisa Rufus had completely lost faith in the police and felt that she would never see justice for her son, Kye, who was involved in a motorcycle accident involving a collision with a car back in 2019. He suffered life-changing injuries. Kye was found by the police to be entirely at fault, and he was therefore not entitled to any compensation from his insurance company for his resulting 24-hour care needs.
Kye’s mother Lisa raised a series of serious issues about the way the investigation was conducted. Crucially, the investigating officer had decided not to close the road in accordance with usual procedure when a fatality is likely, and, quite incredibly, a forensic collisions investigator was not called to the scene by the investigating officer, even though the explicit guidance in the College of Policing’s authorised professional practice is that the roles of forensic collision investigator and lead investigator are completely separate, and an individual should not perform both roles, as occurred in this case.
Other concerns about the case included the fact that Kye’s bike was later removed and destroyed without Lisa or any of her family being informed. The police initially told Lisa that there was no body-worn camera footage from the scene, yet it later emerged that there was—but only after Kye had been taken to hospital. The initial police report described how Kye must have slid across the road uphill, yet his clothes showed little sign of tearing or scuffing. A report from paramedics and a car mechanic mentioned serious damage to the car, but that was not detailed anywhere in the police report.
Lisa made a complaint to the professional standards department at Devon and Cornwall police and received a detailed response eight months later, on 12 February 2021. It took oral evidence from police officers who had attended the scene that day. Lisa’s complaint that an investigation of poor standard reached its conclusion at too early a stage was upheld by the investigating officer, as was her complaint that Kye’s motorbike was scrapped without her or her family’s knowledge, and that no photographs of it were taken beforehand.
In that report, one police constable explained how they felt reluctant to share photos of the scene with Lisa and her family because she did not feel it was a true representation of the scene. She said,
“I felt these photographs would raise more questions for the family and would not instil confidence in the investigation”.”
Another PC stated that he was
“astonished by the poor quality of the evidence package.”
The investigation report was then reviewed by a chief inspector who, quite incredibly, overruled all the report’s findings, and stated that the service provided by Devon and Cornwall police was “acceptable” and that there was
“no further action to be taken.”
No reasons or rationale were given for this decision.
Lisa then complained to the police and crime commissioner’s office, who again found that the service she had received was unacceptable and requested that reasons be given for this dramatic change. The chief inspector then followed up on 23 September 2021, detailing his reasons for reversing the decisions made in the original report and reiterating that the service was acceptable, though he did admit that there were
“investigative issues which could have been done better”—
this despite reversing the decision to uphold Lisa’s original complaint that a poor standard of investigation had occurred.
On the complaint that Kye’s motorbike was destroyed without informing the family, the chief inspector explained that there is no “written record of this” ever taking place that, but from the information available, it appears every effort was made to inform Lisa of the intention to scrap the motorbike. He goes on to conclude that, given the conflicting accounts, no definitive resolution can be determined—and yet he reversed the decision to uphold that complaint to “not upheld”.
I wrote to the professional standards department back on 5 November 2024, highlighting my serious concerns about this entire process that had arisen from the responses Lisa had received to her complaints. I finally received a response almost one year later, on 10 September, just a few days ago. This letter said that the chief inspector had been mistaken in setting out a second right to review and pointed Lisa to her right to seek a judicial review through the High Court if she was not satisfied with the responses she had received. I ask the Minister, is that really the only recourse for our constituents in this kind of situation?
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. A neurodivergent woman who was raped by her partner raised a complaint with the professional standards department last year due to the lack of any updates on her case, which, quite rightly, increased her anxiety that the perpetrator may retaliate for reporting him. When I requested an update from the police, they advised me that a complaint was already pending in the system so they could not access or update us on the case. Quite incredibly, the PC suggested that if she remained unsatisfied, she could “make a complaint”.
Another constituent, a teenage girl who is also neurodivergent, was raped by her partner on a night out. The crime was reported nearly two years ago, and the family had the impression that the case was already with the Crown Prosecution Service. They were recently told that the suspect was being re-interviewed. If they make a complaint, can they have any confidence that they will get a satisfactory response?
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
Professional standards set the tone and the culture for the whole organisation. I pay tribute to Roy Linden, who is the commander of South Devon police, the old F division. There is a significant challenge relating to the lack of knowledge within the police. There are lots of new officers, and if we do not have the professional standards holding people to account, police often fall short of the standards that many of us would expect of them.
Ben Maguire
I completely agree that it is essential we have police officers with the experience, skills and knowledge, to ensure that people have proper trust and confidence in our police and confidence that complaints will be dealt with properly.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Mr Shannon, I was beginning to get a little bit anxious, but finally you are on your feet.
Jim Shannon
I was holding my breath on this one. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He has given three examples of things that have happened. Does he agree that in a world of grey, it is imperative that the conduct and professionalism of our police forces is black and white and that officers understand that once they put the application form in, their conduct must be of the highest standards, and this will be enforced at the highest level?
Ben Maguire
I completely agree we must hold our police officer to the highest standards, particularly when it comes to complaints. If those standards do not meet the threshold that we all rightly expect, we need to have a robust complaints system, in which we can have proper trust and confidence.
I will quickly mention one more constituent case—that of another teenage girl, who was sexually assaulted by a close neighbour and has had to move away from the family home while the investigation continues for months and months, without any updates at all from the police. I am afraid that the list goes on.
I am sure that other Members will agree that one of the greatest privileges of being a Member in this place is meeting some really inspiring constituents. The bravery of those young girls, and Lisa’s relentless campaigning on behalf of her son, have inspired me. I am proud to bring their cases before this House.
To conclude, I ask the Minister to please clarify some of the following questions. What can my constituents do when they have legitimate concerns that have not been properly addressed by the complaints process? Clearly, a judicial review is completely out of reach for most of our constituents.
Zöe Franklin (Guildford) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend for his passionate speech on behalf of his constituents on this difficult issue. As other Members have, I pay tribute to my police force, Surrey police. They do great work, but sadly things sometimes do go wrong. I have had to deal with a number of cases in my constituency office where the process has not worked in the way we would all like it to. People have gone to the police with complaints, only to find themselves in distress and unable to trust the outcomes because, in effect, the local force—although also in another case with the Met—has marked its own homework. The complaint has stayed with that force, which does not fill people with the confidence they need for their case. Does my hon. Friend agree that serious consideration is needed? If we want people to trust our fantastic police forces up and down the country, we need to look seriously at the current situation so that we can move to one where other forces review some of the most serious complaints.
Ben Maguire
I hope that the Minister heard that suggestion of complaints about one police force potentially being reviewed by another. That seems like a sensible suggestion that, importantly, would give a much-needed sense of independence in our complaints system.
Will the Minister consider introducing a statutory time limit for a response to such complaints, given the long delays faced by my constituents and by myself, when I have inquired on behalf of my constituents—almost a year, in the case I mentioned? The guidance of the Independent Office for Police Conduct is to give complainants 28-day, regular updates on their complaint. That guidance clearly was not followed in any of the cases I mentioned. What can our constituents do to ensure that those 28-day updates happen? Also, what is the current backlog of complaints? Will it be brought back to an acceptable level? How many extra staff have been recruited or are in the process of being recruited to bring it down? Importantly, have frontline officers been drafted away from their duties on the frontline to help reduce the backlog?
Finally, as I said at the start, confidence and trust in our police force are so important. Many people know of the soap opera at Devon and Cornwall police. We have had three chief constables under police and crime commissioner Alison Hernandez. We eagerly await the Government’s rural crime strategy—something that my private Member’s Bill, the Rural Crime (Strategy) Bill, also called for earlier this year. I urge the Minister to act quickly to restore that trust and confidence in the professional standards of our police.
The Minister for Policing and Crime (Sarah Jones)
I thank the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire) for securing the debate. As he knows, I am a week into my new role as Policing Minister, but I did the shadow role for several years while we were in opposition. During that time and in the last week, I have spoken at some length and in some detail about these issues.
I pay tribute to Adam and Gregory, the police officers who he mentioned, for the work that they do. I also pay tribute to Lisa and Kye for the campaigning that Lisa has been forced to do because of the situation in which she has found herself, which must be devastating for her as a mother. The hon. Gentleman described Lisa’s frustration very well, and I think that we all felt it too.
The topic of professional standards in policing in the widest sense is enormously important. The hon. Gentleman was right to make the point that confidence in policing has been tracking in the wrong direction in recent years. It is always worth having the humility to accept that politicians have a substantially lower level of trust, but we have seen levels of trust in policing go down over recent years. The latest figures in the crime survey for England and Wales show a small increase in trust levels, so maybe there are shoots of improved confidence, but that has followed several year-on-year declines.
When we came into Government, public trust had been shaken by some very high-profile cases, as the hon. Gentleman will know. The visible reduction in neighbourhood policing had also badly eroded that sense of trust. At the same time, crime has become more complex: there are intense investigations into long-standing crimes, an explosion of fraud and online crime, and a high expectation, rightly, from the public that crimes will be dealt with, although there may not necessarily be the resources available to do that.
I am keen to carry on the work of the previous Policing Minister to ensure that standards are as high as they can be. We owe it to the vast majority of excellent police officers who are doing a brilliant job that we ensure that those standards are high. Last year, the previous Home Secretary announced some reforms to police standards, leading to a raft of legislative changes that strengthened the misconduct, vetting and performance systems. New regulations were laid to enable chief constables to dismiss officers who failed to maintain vetting. I understand that is separate to the issues raised by the hon. Gentleman, but having a force where the leadership drives standards, whether through vetting, recruitment or valuing the work of professional standards teams and ensuring that their work is in the front of police chiefs’ minds, is part of the same picture.
We have already made some changes on that front, and we will continue to do so. We will put the vetting standards on statutory footing through regulations that we expect to lay this year. The Crime and Policing Bill that is currently going through Parliament also contains measures to strength misconduct and performance systems, so, for example, when officers fall seriously short of the high standards expected of them, they will be swiftly identified and dealt with robustly, including through a new presumption of dismissal for proving gross misconduct. Those measures will change that landscape.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned some very upsetting crimes: we have to work harder and do better when it comes to violence against women and girls. Last year, the former Home Secretary announced plans to strengthen the requirement on forces to suspend police officers who are under criminal investigation for matters such as domestic abuse or sexual offences. Strong progress has been made, and I expect new legislation later this year.
Steve Darling
I alluded to the fact that we have sadly lost an awful lot of police officers with deep knowledge, and many of our police officers are relatively new to the position. Will the Minister reflect on how we can build that long-term knowledge back into the police force, because that can drive better standards where services are being provided, rather than looking for where things have already fallen over?
Sarah Jones
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We saw a collapse in the numbers of police then huge recruitment under the last Government, which meant that we lost a lot of officers and gained a lot of new officers. The turnover of officers is higher than I would like it to be, for lots and lots of reasons; there is a whole other debate about keeping our workforce where it is. We have to have people with experience and expertise, and we want to try to develop that through our neighbourhood policing plans, for example. We want an increased number of people working in those neighbourhood roles, and we want them to stay in position.
In previous years, neighbourhood policing was very much a turnaround profession in which people would work for a short period of time then move on to something else. We want neighbourhood policing to be seen as a brilliant thing to do in the long term as a police officer, and I hope that will help. It is very much our intention that those officers will be better police officers as a result of the expertise they develop about their communities—the people who they are there to serve. The hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) makes a good point. I do not have all the answers, but it is absolutely key that we try to get that expertise and to get people to stay in the force for their whole career.
As I was saying, the Angiolini inquiry is considering a range of issues in policing and the safety of women. We are already working to deliver the recommendations from part 1 of the inquiry, and we will look very carefully at part 2 when it comes out.
The hon. Member for North Cornwall mentioned the challenges in Devon and Cornwall police in recent times, and we all know about them. I acknowledge the significant progress that has been made by the force under the leadership of Chief Constable James Vaughan. The force has recently come out of the “engage” stage of monitoring by the inspector, which is a clear indication of progress, and I hope that the professional standards team is also on that journey of progress. When I meet the chief constable, I am sure that I will raise today’s debate.
Regarding the complaints system, the hon. Gentleman quite rightly talked about his constituents’ frustrations. People who are dissatisfied can apply for a review to the police and crime commissioner or the IOPC, but whether the case gets reviewed or not depends on its nature. I was interested in the suggestion of other forces policing each other, as it were, and the White Paper on police reform considers some of these things; we are looking at that at the moment and hope to publish it in the autumn. We can learn lessons from local government and elsewhere about how we ensure our policing is done in a way that means that where there are problems, there are good and effective ways of trying to resolve them.
I also hope our police are available to Members of Parliament, have good relationships with them and speak to each other, because that in and of itself is important. I would not undervalue the important role of Members of Parliament in raising these cases, and I hope that everybody has good relationships with their local police.
Police and crime commissioners have an important role in this space as well. They are the ones who are directly elected and responsible for holding their chief constable to account for the force’s performance, and they are also responsible for the appointment, suspension and removal of chief constables. They have the ability to determine which officer is best placed to lead the force.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I am an MP from Sussex. We are about to go through local government reorganisation and see the creation of a Sussex mayor, and as part of that process, the role of the police and crime commissioner is going to become redundant. How does the Minister think that new mayoral responsibility is going to work in practice? Is it going to be exactly the same as it currently stands with PCCs, or will it be different?
Sarah Jones
The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. We are moving to a system with an increasing number of mayors, and the functions of police and crime commissioners will roll into the mayoral authority. The responsibilities vary from place to place—the larger devolved mayoral combined authorities are more developed and have bigger teams. We will see these systems develop over time, but it is an interesting development, and one that I think can work. I have worked with mayors who have that policing function who have had a deputy mayor who has the police and crime commissioner role. That works very well—it can be a powerful thing—but of course, people do not like the changeover. If the hon. Lady identifies particular problems or challenges, I am happy to have conversations with her and pick those up.
I should conclude, or we will run out of time. I thank the hon. Member for North Cornwall for securing the debate and for remembering his constituents, on whose behalf he has brought these issues before Parliament. I would like to think that as we move towards the reform of professional standards across the whole of policing, we will recognise that a lot of the challenges we face are matters of resource. It is not that the people who are doing the policing are not great people; it is often a matter of time and resource. However, it cannot be right that people have to wait such long periods of time and feel such frustration. Of course, I will look at the case that the hon. Member has raised—if he writes to me with more detail, I will be happy to look at it in more detail—but I thank him again, and thank everybody else for their useful contributions tonight.
Question put and agreed to.