Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald]

It is important to do both, and we have a package of measures that achieves that, so I do not think the hon. Lady need concern herself that we are not taking this forward.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

As the Secretary of State mentioned, the Supreme Court judges application process ends on Friday. In circumstances where around 20% of Court of Appeal judges and 20% of High Court judges are female, what is she doing to ensure we get more diversity in our highest courts?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. We have never had a female Lord Chief Justice or a female Master of the Rolls. Out of 11 Supreme Court justices, only one is a woman, and that is not good enough in modern Britain. What we need to do is make sure it is easier for highly talented solicitors to apply to go on the bench, and Lord Kakkar is looking at that. We are creating direct entry into the High Court for talented individuals, and we are also creating the 100 top recorders competition to encourage more entrants from among good individuals.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Sam Gyimah)]

There is obviously a careful risk assessment before people are moved into open prison. I am not aware of the specific facts of the case that the hon. Gentleman has outlined, but I will be happy to meet him to discuss it.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) said that he thought that Lord Neuberger had mentioned that he would decide the case in accordance with the law on the basis of something that the Secretary of State had or had not said. Does the Secretary of State agree with me that Lord Neuberger said that he was deciding the matter on the basis of the law because that is his duty, and because it was stated that the matter would be decided on law, not politics, in paragraph 8 of the High Court judgment?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right about Lord Neuberger’s role—[Interruption.] It is pronounced “Newberger”; I have had frequent conversations with him. It is important that the judiciary itself states the case, too.

Prison Officers Association: Protest Action

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree that retaining staff is vital, which is why we have given these additional freedoms to governors. We are also recruiting more staff to the frontline so that staff feel safer, which is a very important part of the job. By having more staff on the frontline, we will enable more time to be spent turning offenders’ lives around, which is why the prison officers to whom I speak wanted to go into the service in the first place. What is important is getting offenders into jobs and off drugs.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

When the former shadow Secretary of State for Justice, Lord Falconer, opened a debate on prison reform earlier this year, he rightly recognised that the problems in our prison system go back not one year or five years, but decades. Given that we have a situation in which more than half of adult males reoffend within a year of their release, should we not be focusing on rehabilitation rather than blame?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. Reoffending is a huge cost to society—£15 billion a year—but it is also a huge cost to the victims who suffer from those crimes. The prison system is not turning lives around in the way that it should, which is why our White Paper was a plan for prison safety and reform. We need to have safe prisons in order to be able to reform offenders, and by reforming offenders our prisons will become safer too.

Prison Safety and Reform

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely reject the hon. Gentleman’s counsel of despair. This is the first time we will ever be putting it in statute that reform is the purpose of prisons. At the moment the Secretary of State is merely responsible for housing prisoners, not making sure we improve outcomes. We have not had that systematic approach and I am determined we achieve it.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I welcome the White Paper, which rightly recognises the need to educate prisoners and help them into work. It also identifies existing good practice in the relationships between prisons and businesses. The Lord Chancellor mentioned the scaffolding work; another example would be the restaurant at HMP Cardiff. How will she build on the current schemes and incentivise employers to work more closely with prisons?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that engaging with employers is vital. We have seen some fantastic examples, such as Timpson and Virgin, which are already working closely with us. My hon. Friend the prisons Minister will be doing further work on this subject and making further announcements on it shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to improve education in prisons.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to improve education in prisons.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We want an unremitting emphasis on rehabilitation. Reoffending has been too high for too long. That is why we are investing £1.3 billion over the next five years to transform the prison estate and give prisoners the help they need to turn their lives around.

[Lucy Frazer]

The Coates review that the Minister referred to says that the employment prospects for those on short-term sentences are three times worse for women than for men, with only one in 10 women finding a job on release. What plans does he have to improve the prospects of employment for women?

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend makes a characteristically perceptive point, and I think a large part of the answer is to encourage more employers to follow the example of Max Spielmann and Greggs, who have set up academies at HMPs New Hall and Drake Hall. Those academies provide work in prison and ongoing support after release, and if more employers did that with women in mind we would have more success in this area.

Safety in Custody and Violence in Prisons

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

What an extraordinary and novel development—an hon. Member who does not indulge in superfluous repetition. The hon. Gentleman is in danger of winning a medal. It is an extraordinary development, and very welcome, I am sure.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The Minister mentioned the importance of dealing with mental health in prisons. On Friday I met a justice of the peace in my constituency who talked about the good work done by the liaison and diversion services. He encouraged me to encourage the Minister and the Secretary of State to extend those services and ensure that more community orders have as a condition that people get the help they need.

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. and learned Friend, who is also extremely knowledgeable on these issues, is absolutely right. The Government are committed to making sure that there is universal access to a mental health assessment from the moment that anyone encounters the criminal justice system. I also point her to the co-commissioning that is going to happen between governors and NHS England on mental health and drug abuse services. That will also be very beneficial.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

I know the hon. Lady takes this issue very seriously, and I want to assure her that it is at the top of the agenda in my regular meetings with the senior management of the Courts and Tribunals Service. A lot is happening, however, not all of which gets into the public domain. For example, we are reducing reliance on paper bundles in the criminal courts, and the digital case system in Southwark Crown court now holds over 94,000 pages of information that would otherwise have been printed in triplicate. Also, the new national automated rota system for magistrates, which is now live for 2,500 magistrates, has eliminated a complex and error-prone manual process.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I welcome the upgrading of technology in the traditional court setting—for example, for civil claims, the Rolls Building now takes claims on line—but will the Secretary of State also be implementing the more radical proposals of the Civil Justice Council to include an online dispute resolution service for low-value claims?

[Mr Vara]

We are keen to have the most up-to-date and modern courts system in the world—one fit for the 21st century—and we are ruling nothing out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Vara]

The hon. Lady raises some important points. On the employment tribunal, she should consider the alternative facilities that are available. For example, the early conciliation service has reported that, in the first 12 months, 83,000 people used its services, and that the vast majority were happy with the services that they received.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

A total of 3,600 barristers, including a third of all Queen’s counsel, contribute voluntarily to the Bar Pro Bono Unit. I am honoured that, as a barrister, I was one of those statistics. Does the Minister welcome the significant contribution that the Bar Pro Bono Unit is providing to free access to justice?

[Mr Vara]

I certainly commend not only my hon. and learned Friend’s contributions, but the contribution of the Bar and the legal profession generally. Pro bono work benefits many people, and I am pleased to see that our engagement with the legal sector is fruitful, and that it is considering other ways of helping the community.

International Women’s Day 2016

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I look forward to the day when there is no longer any need for International Women’s Day; when “Woman tipped to become next M&S boss announces she is taking maternity leave” is no longer a newsworthy headline for the Daily Mail; when we have 50%, not 22%, of parliamentarians across the world being women, and we no longer feel any need to measure or report the statistic; and when we do not need to discuss how to encourage more young women into science and maths.

Yes, we have come a long way. Government after Government have brought in legislation to ensure that we have equal treatment, but we are still striving for parity. Why is that? I do not profess to have the answers, but I recently read an article about a transgender person who had therefore experienced life as both a woman and a man. Ben Barres is a biologist at Stanford who lived and worked as Barbara Barres until he was in his 40s. He said that, as a woman, he often experienced bias, but when he became Ben he noticed a difference in his everyday experiences. He said that as a man, people treated him with much more respect. He noticed that he was more carefully listened to and his authority less frequently questioned. He wrote:

“The reasons why women are not breaking into academic jobs at any appreciable rate is not childcare, not family responsibilities.”

He went on to say:

“I have had the thought a million times: I am now taken more seriously”.

So I welcome International Women’s Day, but I would welcome more a time when there is no need to celebrate it, when women are recognised and lauded for what we have done as individuals, not for our achievements as women.

Prisons and Probation

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point, and one that I will come on to.

If the Lord Chancellor is a prison reformer, as he is now billed, we are prepared to work with him. He could start with the Prison Reform Trust report, “Correction or care? the use of custody for children in trouble”, published last year, which looked at successful models around the world. Successful prisons are becoming smaller, more focused and more rooted locally, which is why he is right to abandon his predecessor’s plans for a new borstal. Although he is also to be commended for wishing to close unsuitable prisons, if, as a consequence, prisons are built a long way from friends and family or we move from local to titan prisons, that will have its own drawbacks.

We need prison watchdogs with real teeth and independence. The outgoing inspector, Nick Hardwick, has done a great job in spite of, not because of the Government. This brings me to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq). The reports last week that the MOJ had tried to control or muzzle him were outrageous. I welcome the Lord Chancellor’s announcement yesterday that he will retain Mr Hardwick’s expertise as head of the Parole Board, but let us use this opportunity to shake things up. We need a stronger, more independent inspectorate that is able to produce reports with total independence from the MOJ and to conduct more frequent and unannounced inspections.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman paints a bleak picture. Of course we must always do more, but does he accept that, according to a recent report by the chief inspector, outcomes for women have improved and the number of children in custody has fallen?

[Andy Slaughter]

I accept entirely what the hon. Lady says. I am painting a realistic picture, as the necessary starting point for the improvements that Members on both sides of the House wish to see. There have been improvements. The decline in the number of people in youth custody, from more than 3,000 to less than 1,000, is extremely impressive. It has happened under successive Governments. We are concerned, however, about the condition and treatment of the young people still in custody and the type of facility they are in. The incidents at Medway and elsewhere are examples of how things are failing in that sector as much as elsewhere.

My hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) wrote in response to a prison report:

“Too often we see the response to a poor inspection report centre on the appointment of a new governor or the assertion that things have improved dramatically since the poor inspection took place.”

It is time we put much greater effort into preventing people from getting involved in crime in the first place. We need a renewed focus on education and stepping in to divert young people from a life of crime. We must do better for trans people in our prison system. The “Dying for Justice” report, by the Institute of Race Relations, and the Harris review both revealed that black, Asian and minority ethnic people were over-represented at every stage of the criminal justice process. Yesterday, I spoke at a meeting here on the discriminatory effects of joint enterprise charging decisions on BAME individuals and groups, and asked the Lord Chancellor to examine that area of law, which his predecessor failed to do.

In the light of the number of Members wishing to speak, I shall terminate my remarks. I welcome the change in tone on prisons since the Lord Chancellor’s appointment, but so far that is about all it is. It is possible to be tough on crime, to put the protection of the public first and to make sure prisons play their role in punishment as well as in rehabilitation, but it is also true, to quote Dostoevsky, who knew a thing or two about crime and punishment, that,

“the degree of civilisation of a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”

It is in the self-interest of every citizen that prisoners, having served their time, become productive members of society and do not continue to pose a risk through reoffending. The Lord Chancellor may not be “a muesli muncher”, as he put it yesterday, but he is the Minister for porridge—and it is about time he served up something substantial.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) opened the debate by saying that it was not one about blame. He was right to do so because it would be absolutely wrong to suggest that the problems in our prison service can be laid at the foot of a particular Government or that the other party has a monopoly on the answers or on success. Government after Government have grappled with the problem of how to reduce recidivism. Throughout the Blair and Brown years, prisoners reoffended in their tens of thousands.

To understand the problems, it is important to start with some statistics. Some 67% of young people who leave custody reoffend within a year, while 72% of those young people regularly played truant from school and more than half of them do not have any qualifications. Those few facts tell us that it is the disadvantaged in society who end up in prison. The Secretary of State is therefore absolutely right to look into the provision of education in our prisons, as he is doing. We know, as the Centre for Social Justice reported, that prisoners who do not take part in any education or training during their years in prison are three times more likely to be reconvicted on release.

It is important to look not only at the availability of education—it is already currently offered—but at how we can encourage people to take up such education. I hope that Dame Sally Coates will consider in her review whether it is appropriate for education to form part of a prison sentence, and whether a reduction in a sentence might incentivise prisoners to improve their skills.

Nelson Mandela said that

“no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”

Our nation—our one nation—should hold out a hand and help all those who need a step up and a step out of their current world. However, our ambition should not just end there. We should aim to cut not reoffending, but all offending. For those who are vulnerable, who lack skills and who mix in circles where there is truancy and crime, the other world may be daunting and difficult. Fear is sometimes the greatest prison of all. Victor Hugo said:

“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.”

Let us continue to invest further in the education of the next generation to ensure not simply that our young criminals do not reoffend, but that they do not offend in the first place.