Court Reporting Data

Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I reassure your Lordships’ House that all journalists can access the information in exactly the same way as they could through Courtsdesk—it is just a slightly more complicated method: they have to go through HMCTS. The point about Courtsdesk was that it provided a slightly more convenient method, but there is no material that journalists could get then that they cannot get now.

Secondly, the agreement with Courtsdesk, which was a licensing agreement rather than a contract, was entered into by the previous Government as a pilot, which is why it applied to magistrates’ courts only. This Government decided that it might be better to make it available to more than one commercial company. We are in the process of looking at new licensing agreements, which lots of companies can bid for if they wish to, including Courtsdesk if it would like to do so. Anybody who can reassure us that they will treat our data with the respect and dignity that victims and defendants deserve will probably get that licence.

[Baroness Brown of Silvertown (Lab)]

My Lords, I know my noble friend the Minister will agree that it was utterly unacceptable for the company concerned to release personal information about vulnerable victims and witnesses without their permission or the permission of the department. As she knows, I am not a lawyer, but does she consider this to be a breach of the contract made with the previous Government by the company concerned?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. In fact, there was no contract; it was a licensing agreement. Our view is that there was a clear breach of the licensing agreement, and that is why we were concerned. The real issue is Courtsdesk’s lack of candour with us when this came to our attention. If there was no problem, why did Courtsdesk not ask us about it or even tell us that that was what it was doing?

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 9th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)]

My Lords, I speak to the six amendments in my name in this group. I do not need to explain what they say because they are all replicated by other amendments in the group, so I can be very brief. All these amendments are intended to ensure that a person seeking assistance to end their life first be referred to a registered medical practitioner who specialises in palliative, hospice and other care for the purpose of a full assessment—the operative word being “assessment”, not necessarily treatment. The Bill currently requires merely that a medical practitioner “offer” a referral to a specialist palliative care practitioner. This is inadequate in relation to such critical decisions as choosing whether to live or seek a state-assisted death.

It is important to note that all these amendments are based on evidence. In countries with assisted dying—Oregon has been referred to—experts say that patients who request help to die often change their minds if provided with proper palliative care. Yet the Government’s impact assessment confirms that fewer than half of dying people have input from a specialist palliative care team in the last three months of their life. It seems hard to dispute the case, therefore, for the Bill requiring that persons seeking a state-assisted death be given a full palliative care assessment, with the opportunity to choose to experience modern specialist palliative care at its very best. It is about doing everything humanly possible to keep people alive with as little pain and suffering as possible, and giving priority to life over death wherever possible.

Recalling our debate yesterday about which amendments the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, might be prepared to accept, the amendments in this group are, like the previous group, pivotal to the decision a dying person will have to make if this Bill is enacted. It would save much time on Report if the noble and learned Lord could indicate now whether he can accept one or more of them. The Government would then have a responsibility to ensure that adequate palliative care specialists are available.

I recall, as I did at Second Reading, the wise words of the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, who, in answer to an Oral Question in this House on 4 September 2024, said that the Government’s

“commitment is to ensure that any debate on assisted dying … takes place in a broader context of access to high-quality palliative and end-of-life care”.—[Official Report, 4/9/24; col. 1151.]

The amendments in this group would help to ensure that a person at least has a real choice of whether to access that palliative and end-of-life care or whether to seek a state-assisted death.

[Baroness Brown of Silvertown (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 51 and others would require the providers of assisted dying services to ensure that all persons seeking such services have discussed the range of end-of-life options available to them with a palliative care specialist.

The Government and proponents of the Bill have promised that end-of-life care will not suffer in order to accommodate assisted dying. I have significant reservations about whether this would be possible, and I fear a push factor, particularly for those who are vulnerable, those who are without family and, to be absolutely frank, those who are poor and cannot fund their own care. When done right, as we know, palliative care can provide a dignified end of life and alleviate the desire to hasten one’s death. Equitable access to options for end-of-life care must be a cornerstone for this Bill, which is why I have laid these amendments. I want to ensure, as far as humanly possible, that all people have and know that they have equal access to palliative care, to treatments that may extend life and to specialist teams to manage the symptoms and pain and to provide dignity.

This Committee must accept that equal access to these services, as for many public services, is not guaranteed and is rarely delivered. I give just one example, due to time. A Liverpool resident with the terrible asbestos-related mesothelioma cancer can undergo a specialist injection that has a high chance of abolishing the pain, whereas a resident of the Midlands, who may be unfit to travel to Liverpool, simply cannot because there are so few specialists trained to take this work on. Therefore, access is obviously limited.

Clauses 5 and 12 require doctors to have discussions about disease prognosis, treatments and symptomatic alleviation with patients. Clause 5 includes an offer to refer them to a specialist. Although these are important discussions, which must be had, they have to be conducted by somebody properly trained and experienced in such matters. For conditions that are specialist care cases, such as motor neurone disease, most doctors will have minimal involvement in the management of that condition and will likely not have the skills and training to adequately fulfil the duties that the Bill places on them. A specialist referral is absolutely necessary to that ensure patients are able to reach an informed decision about their care with somebody who properly understands the disease, how that disease will progress and what can be put in place to alleviate their distress and pain.

A person seeking assisted dying will be worried about their future, losing their independence and dignity and placing a huge burden on their families. A dedicated palliative care specialist would have the expertise, skill and training to provide the highest level of information and support, tailored to the individual needs of each patient, and have specialist knowledge of the condition that the patient is experiencing. Clause 1 requires that a person

“has a clear, settled and informed wish to end their own life”.

I believe that you can ensure a settled and informed wish and reach an informed decision only after properly exploring all available care and treatment options with dedicated palliative care specialists and having those options available to you. My amendment would therefore create a duty on all people involved in the provision of assisted dying services to ensure that those discussions have occurred, covering care options including symptom management and home care provision.

I welcome the amendments tabled by other colleagues that would ensure a dedicated palliative care assessment is part of the assisted dying process and I believe that my amendment can work alongside theirs. My amendment would also cover consultations with palliative care specialists that occur prior to a person seeking assisted dying, providing they cover the criteria outlined in the amendment. You can reach a clear, informed decision to end your own life only after having the advice and support to truly be able to weigh your options. That guarantee should absolutely be in the Bill.

[Baroness Hollins (CB)]

My Lords, when I first read this Bill, I realised that there was something important missing—a first stage, if you like. This group of amendments is probably one of the most important to address before the Bill can really make progress. Ther Bill, in its drafting, has perhaps failed to recognise the provisions of the Health and Care Act 2022, which my noble friend Lady Finlay referred to, with regard to the new obligations on integrated care boards to commission for the palliative care needs of their local populations.

There are several amendments in my name in this group. I have also added mine to my noble friend Lady Finlay’s amendment. The most important amendment is Amendment 221, and I will try to explain some of the rationale. The amendments are intended to ensure that specialist multidisciplinary palliative care is a mandatory, properly resourced and integral part of any assisted dying pathway. The central purpose is quite simple: it is that no person should progress towards assisted dying until their palliative, psychological and wider social care needs have been fully assessed and understood and, where appropriate, addressed. The medical royal colleges have endorsed this request.

Not all doctors are trained or equipped to provide comprehensive information about prognosis, symptom control or the full range of palliative care options at the end of life. This is not the remit of general practitioners or general physicians, nor should such complex and sensitive discussions be taking place in routine medical settings. For that reason, I disagree with the preliminary discussion clauses and the clauses about first and second declarations in the Bill as currently drafted. Instead, I propose that once a terminally ill person requests an assisted death under this Act, they must be referred for

“a multidisciplinary specialist palliative care assessment”

alongside a psychological assessment within established palliative care services. Given the urgency that often accompanies such requests, this assessment should be completed within seven days of referral. To ensure that any subsequent decision is genuinely informed, the individual must then be offered access to appropriate palliative care and psychological support

“within 48 hours of the assessment being completed”.

A person should not be eligible to proceed until their needs have been assessed, and the treatment and support options have been made available. That is why I propose that, before an application can proceed, there must be written confirmation from a consultant in palliative care medicine that all relevant specialist palliative and end-of-life care options have been discussed, offered and, where appropriate, tried.

Medicine routinely works in this careful, stepwise manner. It is entirely consistent with good clinical care that evidence-based palliative care should be fully explored before considering the irreversible act of ending a life. I have heard discussion in the media suggesting that these amendments would mean that people would be forced to have palliative care against their will. No, that is not their intention; the intention is twofold. First, it is to make sure that patients can make an informed decision. Secondly, it is to ensure that specialist palliative care services are available for people who want them, and that people are not choosing an assisted death because the NHS is not commissioning for the palliative care needs of the population.

Obviously, specialist palliative care itself needs to be properly defined, funded and made universally available and accessible. It is far more than the prescription of high-dose medications at the end of life. It is an active, multidisciplinary approach that supports patients and families at home, in hospital, in care homes and in hospices. That is why defining specialist palliative care, as set out in one of the amendments before us, is so important.

At present, access to such care is inconsistent and heavily dependent on charitable funding. Before introducing assisted dying on a national scale, we must ensure equitable access to high-quality specialist palliative care across the country. As part of the multidisciplinary palliative care assessment, I propose that every individual applying for assisted dying should be considered for NHS Continuing Healthcare through the fast-track funding process. This is an existing, well-established process, although perhaps not well understood within primary care or perhaps even within your Lordships’ House.

Continuing healthcare provides fully funded health and social care support, including assistance with medication, mobility and activities of daily living, but it can be slow to arrange. However, the fast-track pathway exists precisely to ensure that people with rapidly deteriorating or terminal conditions can access this support within 48 hours of their request. It works in practice. It is already there; the architecture already exists.

This can make an enormous difference, enabling people to choose their place of care, arrange nursing support, secure equipment or home oxygen, and relieving families of both emotional and financial burdens at a critical time. Encouraging fast-track access to continuing healthcare within the Bill would ensure that individuals receive timely, holistic support and are not driven towards assisted dying by unmet care needs. Furthermore, patients approved for fast-tracked continuing healthcare funding are more likely to have an accurate prognosis of six months or less. Taken together, these amendments would place specialist palliative care where it belongs: at the centre of end-of-life decision-making, ensuring dignity, compassion and genuine informed choice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mike Freer]

How that legislation is dealt with is a matter for other colleagues, but I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that, if treating drug taking as a health issue is working as he suggests it is, we will learn from that and discuss it with our colleagues in the NHS. The broad principle of it being a health issue is being dealt with by the NHS and the Health Secretary. In terms of legislation, that is a matter for Cabinet colleagues.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

7. What recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the prison estate for housing prisoners.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Damian Hinds)]

We are building 20,000 modern prison places to help rehabilitate prisoners, cut crime and protect the public, and we continue to invest in prison maintenance, so that existing places remain in use and safe.

[Ms Brown]

The Minister’s answer is very interesting because, let’s face it, our prisons have been run down for 13 years. Many are so old that they were built before RAAC—reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—was even a twinkle in somebody’s bank account. If we read the inspection reports, as I have, it is a list of woes. They are draughty, damp, infested, terribly overcrowded and woefully understaffed—hardly likely to enable rehabilitation. It is our communities that endure the consequences, with at least 37% of prison leavers reoffending within 18 months. It is simply not good enough, is it?

[Damian Hinds]

We continue to upgrade the prison estate. As I say, we are investing in 20,000 new places—the biggest expansion in the secure estate since the Victorian era. At the same time, we have been taking out some of our most overcrowded and unsuitable prisons. In the last financial year, we took out 1,900 places, and we are investing £168 million in custodial maintenance for 2023-24 and 2024-25.

The hon. Lady mentioned reoffending. There is no good level of reoffending but zero, but I am pleased to be able to report good progress on reoffending, which has been coming down as a result of more ex-offenders getting into employment, fewer of them being homeless and more being able to get suitable, good treatment for addiction.

Community Payback

Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Owen]

rose—

[Ms Lyn Brown]

rose—

[James Cartlidge]

I will take one more intervention, from the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown).

[Ms Brown]

Can the Minister explain to me, if he is so tough on crime, why he did not accept our amendment on minimum sentences for rape?

[James Cartlidge]

I am pleased to confirm to the hon. Lady, because it comes back to the speech of the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), who said that we were somehow legalising rape, that the average sentence for adult rape in this country was around 10 years in 2021. I can confirm that that amount has increased by 15% since 2010—not decreased; increased. Those are very tough sentences for what is a very serious crime. I think that when we speak in this House, we should send a message that deters people from carrying out these horrific crimes, instead of sending messages that somehow people are going to get away with it. That does not help anyone. It does not help my daughter and it does not help anyone in this House or any one of our constituents.

Turning to the contributions in this important debate, the hon. Member for West Ham made a very good point about the impact of community payback on women. She talked particularly about the effects of alcohol and drugs. When we talk about community sentencing, the rehabilitative part is important, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) mentioned. As the hon. Lady knows, we are piloting residential women’s centres, and we announced in May that the first one will open in Swansea. I hope that she will support that.

[Ms Brown]

Indeed.

[James Cartlidge]

I am glad to hear that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) speaks with great expertise. He made the important point that the motion criticises us for what happened to unpaid work, but it ignores the reality of the pandemic. He also made the crucial point that the Opposition would have kept us in lockdown for longer. Last December, they wanted us to have a lockdown because of omicron, but we resisted, which was the right thing to do for the country. If they had done that, it would have taken even longer for us to deal with the backlog in the courts, the backlog of unpaid work and everything else.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) for being persistent on the subject of persistent offenders. He had a Westminster Hall debate on it last week, to which I enjoyed responding. As a constituency MP, he continually raises the case that he has written to me about—I promise that I will respond to him—and he is a champion of his constituents. We obviously disagree on some of the matters that he raised, but he is right to pay tribute to prison officers. We certainly cherish the huge role they play and appreciate all their efforts.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) was typically robust and forthright in telling it like it is. He said that prisoners should go to work, and in the spirit of that point, I say that it is crucial to ensure that there is every chance for people to get a job when they leave prison. That is why I am proud to confirm that the number of persons released from custody who were employed six months after release is up by 66%. That is testament to the strength of the economy and to the Government’s commitment to reducing reoffending.

The hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), who is no longer in her place, made a very good speech. She made an important point that the evidence shows that, in many ways, if someone has a short prison sentence, it has less of an impact on reducing reoffending than community sentences can have. Hon. Members on both sides of the House agree with that, and it is certainly what the evidence suggests.

Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) made some good points. He encouraged his constituents to get involved in schemes and nominate where work can happen. If there is a problem with fly-tipping in a constituency, people should go to their parish councils, which should in turn go to the police and crime commissioner and say, “What about getting some of that unpaid work resource into our constituency?” He also made an excellent point about alcohol and the increasing use of sobriety tags; all hon. Members on both sides of the House surely know the impact of alcohol on crime. The Minister for Crime and Policing is committed to making more of that.

The Government have a clear plan to increase the number of community payback hours delivered via robust outdoor placements. We have made significant investments to bolster staffing levels and we continue to strengthen our engagement and collaboration with key local stakeholders to ensure that placements visibly improve the communities in which they are served. In that way, as the most timeless common law principle says, justice can be seen to be done.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that the number of community sentences handed down fell by one quarter in the last three years; further notes that completed hours of unpaid work carried out by offenders has fallen by three quarters in the last three years; notes with concern that despite the end of lockdown restrictions in 2021, the number of offenders permitted to complete unpaid work from home has continued to rise; and calls on the Government to create community and victim payback boards to place communities and victims in control of the type of community projects that offenders complete to restore public faith in community payback.

Police Grant Report

Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman concerned that the closure of some police stations might make it quite a long journey to take somebody from an incident to the police station for the processing, taking too much time out of their shift, and we are perhaps getting to a point where there are not as many arrests as we would expect for the types of crimes that our constituents are seeing on the streets and would like to have tackled? Does he share my concern that the closure of police stations is not allowing us to deal with that antisocial behaviour on our streets?

[Andrew Selous]

The hon. Lady is right; time spent taking offenders to custody suites is time when those officers cannot be on the streets doing their job. However, we cannot spend the same pound twice. I would like to see a 24/7 first responder response, and there are ways we can do that. We have a large public estate, and I think we need to be a bit more imaginative about how and where we base our police officers, because the primary focus is on having officers on the beat in our large centres of population 24/7.

On the police funding formula review, I have been asking every Policing Minister about this since I was elected in 2001, and I was pleased to have confirmation from the Prime Minister recently that we are moving forward and are going to deliver on this. I also received a letter from the Minister himself, in which he said that the consultation on the police funding formula review would take place this summer—so I have it in writing in an official letter from the Home Office. I was very pleased indeed to read that. It sounds as if the train has left the station. This is about being fair to Bedfordshire and those other forces that have been left out, and I look forward to swift implementation. The Minister talked about effective transition arrangements for that review. I want it to be effective but I do not want it to take too long, and I hope he will bear that in mind.

Prison Officers: Pension Age

Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to our SNP colleagues, and to you, Sir Charles. It is an absolute pleasure to see you and to serve under your chairmanship. The view from the front line is absolutely clear; prison officers and governors have told me exactly the same thing: they simply do not believe that they or their colleagues can be safely running around floors in their mid-60s.

From the conversations that I have had, most of those nearing retirement age have decades of service in prisons behind them. Imagine it: decades of rigorous physical effort—bending through doorways and wrestling with violent prisoners on the floor—the repeated mental strain of conflict and constantly being in flight or fight mode at work. It must be exhausting to witness and deal with terrible circumstances, day in, day out. Worst of all is dealing with the trauma caused by brutal assaults at work.

I am sure the Minister understands the physical toll all of that takes, because we all know that being a prison officer means dealing with very damaged people. It means stepping into danger to protect colleagues or prisoners or to stop a situation that is escalating out of control. It means someone being on their feet for long hours, walking the halls, never knowing when the next crisis will emerge. The Minister will note that, thankfully, violence against prison officers fell during the pandemic. However, in the most recent stats, the rate of assaults on staff was still 177% higher than in 2010, and the level of violence is now rising fast: up 14% in the last quarter.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I have HMP Liverpool and Altcourse prison in my constituency, and I am pleased to work with the Professional Trades Union for Prison, Correctional and Secure Psychiatric Workers and prison officers. Would my hon. Friend agree with a prison officer who has written to me, saying:

“We are the police behind these walls! Yet police in the community can retire at 60”?

Is this not simply about decency and fairness for our prison officers?

[Ms Brown]

I certainly agree with that. It is about decency and treating people fairly, and we are simply not seeing that. Whether or not a job becomes more dangerous depends in large part on what happens with recruitment and retention, and that is affected by the Government’s decisions on pension age.

It cannot be said often enough that the safety of our prisons and prison officers depends on staff experience. It depends on the extent to which prison officers and staff have the jailcraft to maintain good relationships with prisoners, understand the real dynamics going on in a wing, and de-escalate, by using many different mechanisms, dangerous situations before they become violent and out of control. That depth of experience has been stripped away over the past 10 years as more and more long-serving officers have left the service. In prisons today, 25% or more of staff have no experience at all of the pre-pandemic regime—that is frightening. I hope the Minister will tell us what plans she has to stop the service being hollowed out even further.

We rightly have a system where even senior managers walk the wings and respond to incidents alongside colleagues. They must also maintain the ability to restrain big and dangerous adult men if the escalation fails, and be kept safe doing so. Much upward progression still requires operational fitness, and moving to a non-frontline role will often involve a demotion and pay cut. Faced with those options and with retirement still years away, many will not remain in the service and their enormously valuable experience will be lost. Does the Minister agree that it is just too difficult for a prison officer in their mid-60s to be rolling around on the floor with a violent prisoner? Does she accept that we have a retention crisis in our prisons, which affects the all-important link between retention and safer working conditions?

Over the past year, this Government have rightly called our prison officers hidden heroes, so surely it is time to put those warm words into action. We will not solve the problems in our prison system until people know that their skills and experience will be valued and developed, and their hard work rewarded. The whole of this debate has simply involved asking the Minister to negotiate in good faith and understand the true value and nature of the work, the dedication shown and the importance of retaining experienced prison staff.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Lyn Brown]

Will the Minister give way?

[Victoria Atkins]

If the hon. Lady is quick.

[Ms Brown]

The Minister must understand that the pay for our prison officers is lower than that for those in the police force and in Border Force. Will she agree today to negotiate in good faith with the POA?

[Victoria Atkins]

I do not want to waste time by repeating myself, but I will meet the POA. I cannot agree on the Floor of the Chamber to negotiate, but I hope that the POA, having met me, understands that I make that offer of a meeting in good faith.

I want to emphasise the point about fitness tests. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) made an interesting point about menopause in particular. Since 2001, officers have had to pass an annual fitness test that is based on the requirements of the role, and which tests strength, muscular endurance, speed and agility. No specific adjustments have been made in relation to menopause because we must apply those tests equally. However, the test is based on the specific needs of the individual. It is intended to be both age and gender neutral, and I am sure colleagues will understand that we must be careful not to discriminate on the basis of age in such circumstances. I am conscious of the huge contribution that older and more experienced officers make. They can often de-escalate situations and they can help newer recruits to learn to do the job as well as they can.

On the important issue of security, we are investing £100 million in a prison security package that includes X-ray scanners, body-worn cameras and PAVA spray, which we want to roll out alongside rigid bar handcuffs to give officers the support of those items.

I will sit down now, Sir Charles, but I look forward to discussing this further with hon. Members.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for rightly paying tribute to our prison officers. Let us just pause to reflect for a moment. At the beginning of this pandemic, Public Health England estimated that, on a reasonable worst-case scenario, more than 2,500 prisoners could die in prison. Because of the excellent work of our prison officers, that figure—although each one is a tragedy—is closer to 119. It was prison officers who delivered that. I am pleased to say that, even in this difficult financial situation, our prison officers received between 2.5% and 7.5% increases last year. We are also investing heavily in the security equipment needed, including PAVA spray, SPEAR—spontaneous protection enabling accelerated response—training, and body-worn video cameras, that make prisons a better and more conducive environment not only for prisoners but for prison staff.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab) [V]]

The Minister must surely recognise that there are consequences to 86,000 years of staff experience being lost since 2010, because what happens when there are not enough experienced staff can be summed up in one word: violence. In 2019, violence was 134% higher than in 2010. Even last year, with prisoners locked up alone, violence was 38% higher. Self-harm has doubled, and assaults on staff have tripled. Experience matters. With further cuts coming, thanks to the Minister’s friends in the Treasury, will he recognise this? How is he going to make our prisons safer?

[Alex Chalk]

I agreed with the first half of that but not the second half. It is absolutely right that we have retention. May I reassure the hon. Lady that there are an additional 3,600 prison officers? In fact, I am sorry to say that what she said about the data on violence is wrong. The violence in terms of assaults on prison officers has gone down by 20%. I hope she will also be reassured to know that the leaving rate is down by nearly 3% as well. We are getting behind our prison officers. We are investing in our prisons. We are providing the security, providing the investment and making sure that their brilliant work can continue long into the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

As ever, I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s continued commitment to this issue. We are expanding the use of electronic monitoring to support robust and responsive community supervision. Following its well-received launch in Wales, as I mentioned, courts in England will shortly be able to impose the alcohol abstinence and monitoring requirement—the sobriety tag—to help tackle offending. We will shortly lay legislation to impose GPS tracking on offenders released from custody who have committed burglary and theft offences. The Bill will extend the maximum length of a curfew from 12 months to two years, making the use of those powers more flexible, and we will use those powers to test the house detention order concept outlined in the White Paper to see how that can contribute to reducing reoffending.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab) [V]]

The Secretary of State’s own strategy says that short prison sentences for women do not work because they fail to tackle the reasons women are there, which is often due to the abuse and trauma caused by the men in their lives. His own strategy says that. When the Government’s neglect of crimes against women is under the spotlight, why is he still insisting on spending another £150 million on ineffective prison places when that money could be spent on action to break the cycle of abuse and reoffending?

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to refer to the female offender strategy, which is at the heart of our approach to women offenders—the trauma-informed approach that she knows is so important. I can reassure her that the prison places that we are building will improve and enhance the existing female estate, some of which, frankly, is not fit for purpose. This will replace and revivify the estate and allow women to be in a secure environment where they can do purposeful activity, support each other and, indeed, benefit—[Interruption.] I do not know why Labour Front Benchers think it is so funny, Mr Speaker. I have certainly supported the female offender strategy, and I will repeat the point that what we are doing is improving and enhancing the custodial experience while delivering the strategy and, of course, residential centres such as the one in Wales that will be opening very shortly indeed. [Interruption.] I really fail to see why women offenders are so funny, Mr Speaker.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

To repeat, I recognise the very difficult work that prison officers are doing up and down the country at this time. The pay proposals that we have accepted deliver an increase in pay, and as I mentioned, we took into account factors including affordability and value for money at this time.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab) [V]]

Violence in our prisons has increased massively over the past decade, and skilled staff are essential to keep prisons safe. The Minister knows that the pay review body recommended a one-off increase to wages in band 3 as a job retention package, to ensure that our prisons keep the staff they need. She knows that staff and vulnerable prisoners will be at greater risk if yet more skilled officers leave the profession, so let me give her another chance to answer the question: she chose to ignore that recommendation—why?

[Lucy Frazer]

I would like to address the point that the hon. Lady raised about violence in our prisons. I am pleased that violence in the adult male estate has gone down over recent months. Of course we accept that it is too high, and we must continue to do more to protect our prison officers. That is why we are rolling out body-worn cameras, and why we have 24/7 counselling and trauma support, as well as other things to support prison officers. Of course pay is a critical factor in the way that people value their job, and we are introducing a package of measures to ensure that prison officers continue well in their roles.

Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Brown of Silvertown Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Member makes a very important point: we need to ensure that we support women not only in custody, but outside it. He will have heard me mention that we are in the midst of a £2.5 million funding exercise, in which some of the money will go to community centres. However, we are doing other things as well, such as improving pre-sentence reports to ensure that women get the right order and go into the community, not into custody, where that is appropriate. He will also have heard me announce recently our first residential women’s centre, which will be in Wales and which we are progressing with. It is for those women who are on the cusp of custody, but whom we do not want to put in custody where we can avoid that, so that they can instead be ordered by the court to go into a residential women’s centre, which will better look after their needs.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab) [V]]

The female offenders strategy published in 2018 by the then Justice Secretary and Prime Minister got it right. One woman in every three in prison self-harms. They are twice as likely as men to have mental health needs and more likely to have drug problems. According to those Ministers, short-term prison sentences

“do more harm than good”,

but last year, half of all women’s sentences were of less than three months, and the plan is to increase the women’s population by 40%. Why have these Ministers so quickly abandoned the promises made by their predecessors?

[Lucy Frazer]

I refute the claim that we are changing our policy in any way. As the police are funded to search out and investigate further crime with our 20,000 additional officers on the beat, it is inevitable that some further women will go to prison as a result, and it is our obligation to ensure that there is a safe place for them to go. We, too, are concerned about women coming through short sentences, but the judiciary makes those independent decisions on short sentences, and we are ensuring that when people do come through on short sentences, they will have specific probation officers looking after them in the new, reformed probation system to ensure that those women, and men, get the support that they need.