Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Grayling and Paul Goggins

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I can confirm exactly that, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and her constituents. Her work in this area is clear evidence that a Back Bencher bringing a genuine constituency case to the Government can make a real difference. She did that, she has made a difference and the world has now changed for such businesses, so the impact will be known.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State indicated earlier that he was planning a consultation on mesothelioma victims. Does he accept that the review that his Department recently carried out simply did not fulfil the requirements of section 48 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Grayling and Paul Goggins

Tuesday 12th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) certainly has those qualities, and he will undoubtedly look at all the issues carefully. Another quality he has is that, when he needs to take a difficult decision in the interests of the country, he will do so.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

The Justice Secretary intends all those who are given short prison sentences to be supervised on release. How many will be allocated to the national probation service, and what funding is he making available?

Electronic Tagging

Debate between Chris Grayling and Paul Goggins

Thursday 11th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. In fact, we are about to launch a revolution in tagging generally. The arrival of GPS tagging will enable us not simply to monitor whether an offender has left their home, but to understand whether they are breaking a curfew or, for example, whether a paedophile is going close to a school. That will transform the way in which tagging works and will do so—I can assure him—at a much lower price than we have paid up to now.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I join others in commending the Justice Secretary for the action he has taken and the statement he has made today. I say that as the Minister for prisons and probation in 2004, when the contracts were awarded. If there has been wrongdoing, he is right to root it out in the way that he has set out.

May I press him a little further on his plans for the probation service? I can only ask him to accept my word that I do so not in a partisan way, but because, like him, I care about the protection of the public. Given that two major players are facing serious questions and are likely to be out of the game, does it not make sense to look at having a more limited competition for certain services in one part of the country, rather than moving so rapidly to a national roll-out?

Transforming Rehabilitation

Debate between Chris Grayling and Paul Goggins

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The latter point is an important one and I rather agree with my right hon. Friend on that. I look forward to having discussions with him and his Committee about it. I am also strongly supportive of the voluntary sector. It is simply not the case, even though the Opposition keep saying that it is, that the voluntary sector is not involved in the Work programme. That programme supports well over 100,000 people in the voluntary sector, using the real expertise of small and larger organisations such as the Papworth Trust and the Salvation Army. I want to see more of that in this process.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

May I ask the Secretary of State about accountability to the courts? When a medium or low-risk offender is on a programme run by a private company and fails to keep to the conditions of that order, who will make the decision to return that offender to the court? Will it be the private company, which clearly has an interest in a successful outcome to the programme, or will it be a probation officer?

[Chris Grayling]

It will be a probation officer. I expect to have in every centre a seconded or attached probation officer who will be responsible for enforcing the legal side of things. In much the same way as happens in the Work programme, where Jobcentre Plus does the sanctioning, it will be a contractual duty of providers to report a breach but it will be the job of the public probation service to decide how to respond and whether to refer it to court or do something else.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Grayling and Paul Goggins

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

As I have indicated, we have some high-quality probation professionals in this country. It is a profession that will remain important to us. We need specialist skills, particularly in the protection of public security, risk assessment and harm prevention. Such skills will remain integral to the way in which a public sector probation service works.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

16. What plans he has to extend the use of restorative justice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Grayling and Paul Goggins

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I would have been very uncomfortable about inheriting a policy that allowed people to escape prison sentences by pleading guilty early. The National Audit Office report suggests that financial issues might be created for us. I can say that in the two weeks for which I have been in the Department, I have looked at the financial position, and I am comfortable that it is on track to achieve the savings that it should achieve during the spending review period. However, I want to ensure that that happens while also ensuring that the right people are still in our prisons.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

One way of reducing the number of short-sentence prisoners would be to extend the intensive alternative to custody programme, which has been pioneered in Greater Manchester. When the Secretary of State makes his early visit to Manchester following the invitation issued earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), will he take a look for himself at how that programme is reducing reoffending, and how it could be rolled out still further?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Grayling and Paul Goggins

Monday 13th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chris Grayling)]

We have already introduced mental health champions to the network of health care professionals who carry out the assessments, and we believe that the changes introduced at the beginning of April will bring more people with mental health conditions into the support group. However, we now have on our desks a new set of proposals from the charities which we asked them to supply to us. We are considering them carefully, and hope to respond in the very near future.

[Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

One important purpose of crisis loans is to cover emergencies when claimants have no money and payment of their benefits or tax credits is delayed. Because applications are now limited to three per year, families in my constituency already face the blocking of that route to help, not because they have failed but because of failings in the system. Will Ministers look at the system again and establish whether a more flexible approach could be adopted?