Oral Answers to Questions
Bridget Phillipson Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
6. What steps he is taking to reduce the number of crimes committed by ex-prisoners.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
10. What steps he is taking to reduce reoffending.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)
Despite investment, reoffending rates remain stubbornly high. We are fundamentally reforming rehabilitation services by opening up the market to new providers and incentivising them to focus relentlessly on reducing reoffending. For the first time in recent history virtually every offender released from custody will receive statutory supervision and rehabilitation and mentoring in the community. We remain on track to deliver these key reforms early in the new year.
Chris Grayling
As was said earlier, this is the key part of the reform we are pushing through. There was a group of people who were literally left to walk the streets with £46 in their pockets, and not surprisingly the majority of them reoffended very quickly. From 2015 all those people will receive a 12-month period of mentoring, support and supervision after prison to try to turn their lives around, and we know from trials in different parts of the country that this can make a real difference to the level of reoffending.
Bridget Phillipson
Probation works best when the service has close relationships with prisons, councils and others, but under the Justice Secretary’s reforms is there not the real risk that police intelligence will not be shared with the new companies? Not only will that put at risk the tackling of reoffending, but it also runs the risk of jeopardising public safety.
Chris Grayling
The reason that that is simply not true is that, under the last Labour Government, we had examples of police control rooms being contracted out to private organisations. If the police are happy to share control room data with private organisations, there is no earthly reason to believe that they will not work together with providers of all backgrounds on the rehabilitation of offenders.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bridget Phillipson Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Andrew Selous
We are undertaking more detailed risk assessments than there were in the past, but my hon. Friend raises an important point. Members should be aware that the number of people sent to prison for violent offences has increased by 40% over the past decade. However, I have seen very good violence reduction programmes in our prisons and am looking to spread those as widely as possible.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
2. What recent progress he has made on his courts reform programme.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)
Since the Secretary of State’s written ministerial statement on 28 March this year, the programme team has been developing the detailed plans required to deliver the programme over the next five years, as well as working to identify the areas where we can make early progress.
Bridget Phillipson
I have lost count of the number of times I have raised with the Minister and his predecessors the wholly inadequate state of Sunderland’s court buildings and the need for a decision. Plans to rebuild the court complex have been on hold since 2010. Will the Minister now acknowledge to staff, to magistrates and to victims that they should not expect a decision this side of the election?
Mr Vara
The hon. Lady is aware that I had a meeting with her, along with her colleague, the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott), and she has corresponded with me. She talks about having said the same thing over and over again. I have to say to her, over and over again, that there is a courts reform programme and the proposals for the Farringdon road site that she mentions are part of the mix. As we speak, no firm decision has been taken.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bridget Phillipson Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Grayling
I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman is plain wrong. He needs to stop listening to the trade unions; of course the trade unions still think this is a bad idea, but in reality our reforms are bedding in well and we will deliver the changes necessary to provide support and supervision to people who get none at the moment. The Labour party has no answers about how it would deliver that.
On competition, the right hon. Gentleman’s facts are plain wrong. I think we have 86 bids, with an average of four bidders in each area and a good mix of organisations from the public, private and voluntary sectors,. I am completely confident that we will shortly deliver a really innovative approach to rehabilitation, despite the blind opposition of the Labour party.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
12. What progress his Department has made on its courts rebuilding programme.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)
Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service continues to keep the use of its estate under review to ensure that it meets operational requirements.
Bridget Phillipson
Last November, I and my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) met the Minister to press the case for the much-promised rebuilding of Sunderland’s court complex, but unfortunately, since then, nothing has happened. Will he now join us, visit Sunderland and see the state of the existing court buildings and the impact these new courts could have in the regeneration of the city centre?
Mr Vara
The hon. Lady is right to refer to our meeting about this matter and will be aware that in March we announced a court reform programme to ensure that the courts and tribunals of this country met the expectations of the public in the 21st century. Any decisions about the site in Farringdon row in Sunderland will be taken in the context of that reform programme. Currently, no decisions have been taken about the site.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bridget Phillipson Excerpts(12 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)
We expect that the risk assessments in all these cases are rigorous. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to this case, and I will, of course, look into it and find out what has happened.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
T7. Sunderland’s courts are in urgent need of rebuilding, as the Department has previously recognised, spending nearly £2 million in preparation. I am grateful for the meeting that took place with the Minister, but we have been in limbo on this since 2010. When will a decision be taken?
Mr Vara
As the hon. Lady acknowledges, we have had a meeting, and I can assure her that of the 500 buildings the court estate encompasses, the ones to which she refers are very much at the forefront. She will appreciate, however, that we have a large estate and we keep matters under review, and we will keep her and her colleagues informed as soon as we are able to do so.
Members: Correspondence
Bridget Phillipson Excerpts(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Bridget Phillipson
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice when the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice will reply to the letter from the hon. Members for Houghton and Sunderland South and for Sunderland Central of 20 March 2013.
[Official Report, 20 June 2013, Vol. 564, c. 792W.]
Letter of correction from Jeremy Wright:
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) on 20 June 2013.
The full answer given was as follows:
Jeremy Wright
I can confirm that a response was sent to the hon. Member in response to her letter dated 20 March 2013. The response was dated 22 April 2013 and a copy of the letter was sent to her office based in the House of Commons.
The correct answer should have been:
Policing
Bridget Phillipson Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Damian Green
The Opposition, who were then in government, expressed a view, changed their mind and have now changed their mind again. I am fascinated that the right hon. Gentleman did not address the issue of privatisation, which started under his tenure as Home Secretary but which I assume he is now prepared to attack as a loyal supporter of his party’s Front-Bench representatives.
What we have heard so far is the Labour party’s central obsession with spending more money. The right hon. Member for Delyn has made no admission that the Opposition are, in fact, committed to the same level of cuts as this Government, or to any level of cuts at all. There was no honest admission that police numbers would have gone down under their plans, and no expression of regret for the 25,000 police officers stuck in back-room functions under Labour’s top-down management of the police service. Most of all, there was no apology for causing the financial mess that led to these cuts in the first place. We have had no transparency or apology from the Labour party, and just one solution—spend more money. It is as clear as ever that Labour is not learning and is not capable of learning.
We cannot even credit the Opposition with being consistent on that point. As we have heard, the police and crime commissioner elections will deliver accountable policing that responds to public demands. Labour Front Benchers are arguing for both more and less spending at the same time. They complain about what they describe as the waste of money on holding elections, which is an interesting attitude for a democratic party, at the same time as they argue that we should spend £30 million more on publicising the elections. I suppose that they could, with intellectual coherence, hold one or other of those views, but they cannot hold both of them at once, as they appear to want to do.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
What is the Minister’s prediction for the election turnout on 15 November and what does he regard as necessary to give the candidates a mandate?
Damian Green
I will address the PCC elections in a moment. Unlike the right hon. Member for Delyn, I want to start my speech by talking about policing, which is what this debate is supposed to be about.
At the start of the spending review, the service was spending more than £14 billion a year. It is only right that the police make their contribution to the savings that are needed, while ensuring that the quality of service that the public receive is maintained and, where possible, improved. This can be done and it is being done. By changing the way in which police forces work, getting officers out of the back office and on to the front line and stripping out bureaucratic processes, officers can be freed up to do the job they joined to do—to fight crime and protect the public. This is what forces up and down the country are doing. The House does not need to take my word for it; the independent inspectorate of constabulary has said so.
Damian Green
I am spoilt for choice but I think that the hon. Lady has had a go, so I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bridget Phillipson Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Clarke
We canvassed that proposal in the consultation, and I have considerable sympathy with the right hon. Gentleman’s view, but we have responded to the consultation, in which there were strong feelings against the procedure being applied to inquests—despite the support that we had from coroners’ associations.
The argument is that the coroner cannot consider such material in closed material proceedings because it means that the family, the press and other interested parties will not be able to hear what the spies have to say, and that is the basis on which we have introduced the Bill—we are a listening Government. But I did canvass the measure that the right hon. Gentleman proposes.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
4. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for the Home Department on providing high-quality services for women within the criminal justice system following the election of police and crime commissioners.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
The Ministry of Justice has been working with the Home Office to ensure that local areas are prepared for the introduction of police and crime commissioners, who will have duties to work with local criminal justice bodies, including in relation to the provision of women’s services.
Bridget Phillipson
I am grateful to the Minister for that answer, but the proposal to devolve some victims’ services to police and crime commissioners is not without risk. What will he do to ensure a minimum standard of provision throughout the country, regardless of the area in which the victim lives?
Nick Herbert
First, it is important to point out that some specialist services, such as the homicide service, rape crisis centres and so on, will continue to be commissioned nationally, but we think it right in principle that elected police and crime commissioners should commission victims’ services locally. It will mean that there is a champion for victims in every single area; it will ensure the greater integration of such services with the police, who have a very important duty in relation to victims; and it will be for elected police and crime commissioners, accountable to the public, to ensure that they provide a high-quality service to victims.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bridget Phillipson Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Blunt
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question, which goes to the heart of our proposals in relation to the panels themselves, the development of restorative justice and the more effective delivery of community justice. Magistrates are the communities’ representatives in the delivery of justice and I would very much welcome their engagement in neighbourhood justice panels and their taking part in the training of restorative justice practitioners, for which we are putting in nearly £2 million. Those are proper roles for a modern magistracy representing the community in the delivery of justice.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
T8. Given that there is no replacement in sight for the victims commissioner, does not that send out entirely the wrong message to victims about the importance that the Government place on their needs?
Mr Blunt
I fear that the hon. Lady will share the frustration of the Opposition Front-Bench team. We will make clear the position on the victims commissioner along with all the other victims and witness issues when we properly respond to the consultation that we have just engaged with on our policies.
Oral Answers to Questions
Bridget Phillipson Excerpts(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the Minister both for his succinctness and his control of his breathing, which was impressive.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)
I begin by making a topical statement, Mr Speaker, controlling my breathing carefully as I do. Last week, as well as announcing plans to allow cameras into courts, I outlined plans to open up the justice system by publishing unprecedented local data. We will publish data on court performance, sentencing and reoffending, and provide information on what happens next following a crime, alongside street-level crime data. That will allow people to see how the criminal justice system operates in their area. We will also encourage consistent publication of the names of offenders unlawfully at large; that will help in apprehending them and returning them to custody. Those measures will place the crime and justice sector at the forefront of the Government’s policy on transparency.
Bridget Phillipson
We have seen real success across Sunderland in reducing reoffending year on year. Of course, more needs to be done to tackle that, but it has been put at risk by cuts to the local probation trust. Does the Lord Chancellor think that reoffending rates will be higher or lower by the end of this Parliament?
Mr Clarke
Criminal statistics are more reliable than they used to be, but I still do not have total confidence in them, and I would certainly never make forecasts with them because crime trends are very difficult to predict. However, I am glad that success has been achieved in Sunderland on reoffending, which we propose to make the prime focus of our policy: punish offenders effectively and, at the same time, try to stop them offending again.
Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill
Bridget Phillipson Excerpts(14 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Clarke
Yes, I will. I try to avoid jumping from subject to subject, because it is such an enormous Bill, but I promise my hon. Friend that I shall return to the whole question of alternative forms of advice and the CABs, and make an announcement at a later stage in the proceedings on the Bill.
Bridget Phillipson
Another aspect of the changes to legal aid is the removal of legal aid from women applying for indefinite leave to remain under the domestic violence rule. In an answer to a parliamentary question, the Minister for Immigration reported that only 710 women were granted that, so we are not talking about a considerable number, but they are very vulnerable individuals. Will the Secretary of State think again on that aspect of his proposals?
Mr Djanogly
We must make tough choices and target scarce legal aid on those who need it most. I am sorry to tell the hon. Members for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) and for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) and the right hon. Member for Manchester Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) that legal aid has never been available for all cases and that we simply need to prioritise our spending. The hon. Member for Sunderland Central said that everyone deserves their day in court. That might be so, but mediation can sometimes be more appropriate.
The Bill’s reforms are not limited to public funding but extend to provisions to implement a fundamental reform of privately funded no win, no fee conditional fee agreements. The changes we propose will rebalance the CFA regime.
The right hon. Member for Tooting, incredibly, refused to say whether he supports our attack on the compensation culture. Under current arrangements, claimants can bring cases without any financial risk. Risk-free litigation encourages unnecessary or avoidable claims to be pursued and puts businesses and other defendants under pressure of excessive legal costs. Under our changes, claimants using CFAs will have to think carefully about whether it is necessary to pursue their claim. I confirm to the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) that CFAs will still be available for group actions against multinational companies.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed rightly mentioned fixed costs and referral fees, which we need to look at. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans) mentioned the disgraceful episode involving referral fees in relation to miners’ compensation. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) felt strongly about referral fees and made a number of valid suggestions that are outwith the direct scope of the Bill but do, I agree, need to be looked at.
We are aware of the strong concern that the payment of referral fees in personal injury cases adds to the costs of civil litigation. We are considering the issue and will announce the way forward in due course. I point out, however, that in 1999 claimant costs represented 50% of damages but that by 2010 the figure had risen to 150%. The previous Government lost control of the situation. Under the relevant provisions in the Bill, the legal costs of all defendants facing CFA-funded claims will reduce. That said, we recognise that there are complex and difficult cases, such as clinical negligence cases, which the Chairman of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friends the Members for Dewsbury and for Mid Bedfordshire and the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) raised. Our Jackson and legal aid reforms will address such cases. CFAs are a viable alternative to legal aid for these cases and the Bill will, exceptionally, enable the recovery of after-the-event insurance premiums for expert reports in clinical negligence cases, in recognition of the fact that they are important.
Bridget Phillipson
Will the Minister answer the question I asked the Lord Chancellor earlier about whether the Government will rethink their proposals to scrap legal aid for women applying for indefinite leave to remain under the domestic violence rule? It is a very small number of women.
Mr Djanogly
It is a small number but it is a complicated point, so I shall write to the hon. Lady.
Taken together, this is a balanced and sensible package of reforms of the kind that the Government were determined to achieve when we published our proposals. The overall effect will be to achieve significant savings while protecting fundamental rights of access to justice.
Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time.