Voting Eligibility (Prisoners)

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

There is a perfectly coherent argument to be made by those who believe that, and it is undoubtedly one of the areas I expect to be discussed by the consultative Committee. I should also say that I would expect the different Select Committees with an involvement in this area to want to contribute to the process, too. I have no doubt that what the hon. Gentleman has just described will be one of the options discussed.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

The option that gives prisoners with lower sentences the opportunity to vote would therefore include some prisoners who have been convicted of electoral fraud. Does the Secretary of State regard that as appropriate?

[Chris Grayling]

We have different rules for those convicted of electoral fraud, who are banned from voting for an extended period. The Government have no plans to change that, but the issue will be discussed as part of the review process and we will see the will of Parliament. I do not believe that that is necessarily the same legal issue as the broader one about the availability to prisoners of the right to vote.

Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Burley]

I understand that the survey to which the right hon. Gentleman refers was commissioned by the police authority. It might be that it posed the question to get the answer it wished to get.

A more recent survey has found that a typical police authority receives just two letters per week from the public. Let us compare that with what the de facto police and crime commissioner for London, Kit Malthouse, told the Home Affairs Committee in December last year. He said that when he was first given the title of deputy mayor with responsibility for policing,

“the postbag at City Hall on community safety went from 20 or 30 letters a week up to 200 or 300…We had a problem coping with it. That indicated to me there was a thirst for some sense of responsibility and accountability in the political firmament for the police”.

He said that having one person

“allows there to be a kind of funnel for public concern”.

However, the absence of a direct line of public influence is problematic not only for the public, but for police forces. Back in the 19th century, the founder of modern policing, Sir Robert Peel, said:

“The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.”

After a decade in which public approval of the police fell, it has now started to rise again. That is a welcome trend, but still only 56% of the public say that the police do a good or excellent job, and a survey by Consumer Research last year found that nearly a third of those who come into contact with the police—I do not mean criminals —were dissatisfied. Of the minority who complained, nearly two thirds were unhappy with the way the police dealt with their complaint. The police were among the worst performers of the public services.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that people feel dissatisfied with the police—unfairly, in many cases—because of the lack of visibility of police on the streets compared with previous years, and the ludicrous deployment of police in back-room jobs, rather than out in customer-facing roles?

[Mr Burley]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. For me, the natural corollary of that frustration at not seeing police on the streets or feeling that there are too many in back and middle offices, is that the public feel that they have no one to complain to. People do not know how to complain. They do not know who their police authority is—we have seen that from the surveys—and there is no single, high-profile, accountable individual to whom they can complain. That compounds the frustration that my hon. Friend talks about. They do not know to whom to go to say, “We want more police on the streets and we are going to hold you to account at the ballot box unless you deliver it.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

The timetable was worsening, but more resources have been put in and we hope that the situation will improve.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

T7. Can the Minister please tell me what steps his Department is taking to tackle the levels of drugs that are available in our prisons and the levels of drug addiction among prisoners?

[Mr Blunt]

We announced proposals in the Green Paper on drug-free wings and drug-recovery wings, which will work in conjunction with the wider application of the payment-by-results scheme in the community. That sits alongside all the efforts to police prisons effectively and to keep drugs out of prisons, through the effective use of all the resources available to the Prison Service and the police.