Prisoner Release Checks

Debate between David Lammy and Liz Saville Roberts

Monday 27th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is right to mention the end of the early supervised licence scheme that was set up by the last Government and revised four times, and under which 10,000 people were released. It was effectively done on the quiet, in a chaotic way, and that is when we began to see the spike. It is not about making partisan or political points, but the truth is that we all know that the prison system that we inherited was in a dire situation. We now need to get a grip where mistakes are being made, which is why the officer involved has been suspended under investigation, the checks and balances in place are now the toughest we have had, we are asking duty governors to look at cases the night before, particularly in relation to foreign national offenders, and we have Dame Lynne Owens doing a further investigation.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I put on the record my role as the co-chair of the justice unions parliamentary group. Everyone here will want to make sure that this kind of outrageous error never happens again. The chief inspector of prisons warned today of a “systematic problem” of increased releases in error, citing “very busy people, often quite inexperienced, with huge caseloads”. He also warned that prisons are dependent on west African officers whom we might now lose thanks to the changes to visa thresholds that are expected to cause “an enormously damaging effect” on some prisons. With that in mind—because the Government have control over it—will the Justice Secretary press the Home Office to look again at how changes to the skilled workers visa are directly causing prison staff shortages and worsening prison performance?

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for putting on the record the challenge we have with junior staff. I am very grateful for the work in our prison system of those staff, who are much beloved, who have come from west Africa, largely Nigeria, to support the system for a period of time. I recognise the challenges that the right hon. Lady articulates and, of course, as she would expect, all such matters are under discussion.

Sentencing Bill

Debate between David Lammy and Liz Saville Roberts

2nd reading
Tuesday 16th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

That is a very good summary. We must have punishment that works, and I will talk about that later in my speech.

When we look at the record of the previous Government, and I have looked at the figures very closely, we see that the recidivism rates were running at 60%, 65%, 68%. Something is not working when people go back to prison over and over again. I got the Department to give me the figures: over 5 million offences. All those offences have victims. We have to do something about it, and the Bill will begin to get us into the right place, because the first duty of government is to keep the public safe.

But the Bill is not only about preventing an emergency; it also takes us back to the purpose of sentencing, which must be, as has been said, punishment that works—punishment that works for victims, who deserve to see perpetrators face retribution; punishment that works for society, which wants criminals to return to society less dangerous, not more; and punishment that works to prevent crime.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

There is much to welcome in the Sentencing Bill, including the inclusion of restriction zone measures, which are testament to the tireless work of my constituent Rhianon Bragg and her fellow campaigners. Details need to be clarified, however. Which offenders will be automatically included? Will the measures be applied retrospectively and, if so, to which offenders? Where will the zones be in relation to victims, and how will they be used and monitored in ways that are different from the current exclusion zone arrangements?

[Mr Lammy]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Member’s constituents for fighting to ensure that we got the balance right. At the heart of this—again, I will come on to this, and I know it will be explored in depth in Committee—the system of exclusion zones we have effectively excludes people from areas, and a lot of women who face domestic violence, who have had stalkers or who have faced violent men have had the situation where someone has been excluded. What we are doing is turning that on its head and restricting the individual to a particular place, house or street, which will give those women much more safety than they have had previously. I hope that her constituents will welcome that, because I know it is something that domestic violence campaigners in particular were calling for.

I want to thank David Gauke and his panel of criminal justice experts for carrying out the independent sentencing review, which laid the groundwork for the Bill. It was a thorough, comprehensive and excellent piece of work. I went through it in detail, obviously, when I got into the job. I also thank my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), for her work in bringing the Bill to this point.

When it comes to prison places running out, the constituents of Members right across the House ask, “Why don’t we just build more prisons?” That is what they ask on the street. In their 14 years in office, how many prison cells did the Conservatives find? I have shadowed the Foreign Affairs brief or been in the Foreign Affairs job for about three and a half or four years, so I could not quite believe the figure when I arrived in the Department. I thought it was wrong. In 14 years in office, 500 cells were all they found—500!

Iran-Israel Conflict

Debate between David Lammy and Liz Saville Roberts

Monday 16th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

Yes, I will do all that I can.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

It was reported that the Israeli Government planned to kill the leader of Iran over the weekend. As history shows, attempts to collapse a regime with nothing to put in its place risk creating a power vacuum and state collapse. They also risk creating further waves of refugees and instability in the energy market. What assessment has the Foreign Secretary made of those reports and the wider implications that such a strategy would have on the UK?

[Mr Lammy]

I remain hugely concerned about the appalling human rights record of the Iranian regime, but who runs Iran must, quite properly, be a matter for the people of Iran.

Middle East

Debate between David Lammy and Liz Saville Roberts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

I am conscious of how many Members are on their feet. I will attempt to go a little quicker.

The Palestinian cause is a just cause. A two-state solution is where we have to be. A political process is necessary. I will play my full part, and I reassured President Abbas that we will do that over the coming days and weeks.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

We live in hope of a ceasefire and the release of the hostages. However, we cannot forget everything that has come before: the mass atrocities on 7 October were followed by 15 months of destruction waged against Gaza’s civilians by the Israeli Government. The Foreign Secretary mentioned how we eradicate extremism. Extremism is also eradicated by justice. Only justice can redress crime. What steps is he taking to support the International Court of Justice and the ICC to hold all perpetrators of war crimes to account? Will he publish the full record of the UK’s political and military involvement in the conflict so far?

[Mr Lammy]

We have always been clear about the importance of international humanitarian law, and we have always been clear about the importance of its being determined by international courts. Let me be crystal clear: many men and women from this country died in the second world war to achieve the settlement that gave us international humanitarian law and the architecture on which we all rely. It is for that reason that the Labour party will never renege on our responsibilities in relation to international humanitarian law.

Disclosure of Youth Criminal Records

Debate between David Lammy and Liz Saville Roberts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Lammy]

rose—

[Liz Saville Roberts]

rose—

[Robert Neill]

Let me just make one more point and then I will give way. I want to deal with the Government response to our report and then I will happily give way again.

Those were the guts, to put it inelegantly, of our recommendations. The Ban the Box approach should be extended to all public sector vacancies, with a view to that becoming in due course mandatory for all employers. That would be the right response. We pointed out also that the disclosure regime may well fall short of the UK’s obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child, which prioritises the best interests of the child and requires states parties to promote the establishment of penal laws and procedures “specifically applicable to children”. The broad-brush approach here does not seem to us to meet that test.