Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Those who have visited prison libraries will know that they are well stocked and well supported by high-quality staff. In most prison libraries one will find local projects helping prisoners to read, and I pay tribute to the work done by our prison librarians in tackling literacy problems in our prisons. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the fuss made about this issue has been wholly disproportionate and detached from the reality.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

But will the Secretary of State give Parliament a report on how many minutes each week each prisoner is able to visit a prison library? We regularly hear reports of lack of staff preventing prisoners from visiting prison libraries, and lack of space preventing toe by toe and similar reading programmes from being mounted.

[Chris Grayling]

The challenge we have in our prisons is not making space available in libraries for prisoners to visit but encouraging them to visit. That is why we are pursuing projects such as toe by toe and encouraging literacy programmes. To be frank, I wish more prisoners wanted to go to our libraries.

Deaths in Custody (Legal Aid)

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I am very sorry to have to rise in my place tonight to bring this debate to the Floor of the House of Commons. For nearly three years I have worked to avoid this debate, and I come here tonight because I have been left with no other choice.

Let me say at the outset that there is no more determined campaigner for the police of my city than me. For 10 years as a Member of this House I have campaigned for bigger, stronger police teams. I have run half-marathons and triathlons to raise money for the West Midlands Police Benevolent Fund, and it has been my privilege on the Floor of the House to praise the bravery of officers such as PC Adam Koch and his colleague who literally risked their lives to save worshippers recently at a Ward End mosque. I am motivated tonight by their courage, because I believe our police are so important to our communities that they deserve to have the best team around them, but I am motivated too by an injustice that I want to bring to the attention of the Government.

Because the police service is a human and not a divine organisation, sometimes there are shortcomings, but if we want the best police service, it is important that we do not stand by when there are shortcomings; it is important that we act. For three years now I have been seeking to help a constituent of mine to act. My constituent’s case is sub judice, but I can give the House the essence. My constituent’s son, a boy she loved, died in police custody—a tragedy the pain of which I, as a father of three children, cannot possibly imagine—but this tragedy is deeper and darker for the alleged culpability of police officers who were paid by us on that night to keep my constituent’s son safe.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I am very glad my right hon. Friend has brought before the House this issue of people who die in custody. I have informed the Minister of the case of my constituent Philmore Mills. His case is very unusual. He was in hospital in a lung ward, and on 11 December 2011 the staff were made anxious by his behaviour. They called the police and the police restrained him, and he died under police restraint. The inquest into that death is due on 1 April—two and a half years later—yet his family still do not know if they are going to have legal aid for representation at that inquest and they are thus made more anxious still. Their dad was in hospital with a breathing problem, yet he died at the hands of the police. They should be legally represented without having to pay.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I remind Members that they should be very careful about reference to live cases because of the sub judice rule?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Shailesh Vara)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) on securing this debate, which is on a subject that we can all agree is extremely important. On behalf of the Government, I extend my condolences to the Butler family. It is bad enough that somebody should die—it is difficult for any family member to put up with that—but the circumstances in which Mr Butler died makes it even harder to accept.

I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will accept that I cannot comment in specific details about any case. I hope that the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) will appreciate that, too. I can, however, speak in general terms. I will try to address as many of the issues that the right hon. Gentleman has raised as I can, and if there is anything left over, I will certainly write to him.

I understand that this case deals with legal aid legislation, but I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the Access to Justice Act 1999 was introduced by a Labour Government. It is under that legislation that decisions about exceptional funding cases concerning deaths in police custody, or during the course of police arrest, search, pursuit or shooting, are dealt with solely by the director of legal aid casework at the Legal Aid Agency, which is the successor body of the Legal Services Commission. Ministers have no role in those individual decisions. However, I fully appreciate the clear frustration of the right hon. Gentleman, which he has made abundantly clear to us, and the even greater frustration of Mr Butler’s family. It appears that a long time elapsed between the initial application and the final decision on funding. I believe that, along the way, there was also an inquiry conducted by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

My constituent’s family have been told that there will not be a decision about eligibility for legal aid until the opening of the inquest on 1 April. The Minister seems to imply that there could be a decision before that date. Will he explain why the coroner from Berkshire has said that no decision will be made on whether there will be a Middleton inquiry until the inquest is open?

[Mr Vara]

The hon. Lady seeks to tempt me into territory into which I cannot go. What I will say is that as far as her constituent’s case is concerned, the process is still ongoing. As I understand it, a decision on legal aid has not been made, and dialogue is still going on. I trust she will accept that.

Although I cannot comment on the decision concerning Mr Butler’s family, I understand from the Legal Aid Agency that there was an issue concerning financial eligibility and whether it was appropriate for the family to pay a contribution, which is something that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. I hope I can assist the House by explaining how the means test is applied to inquest cases. Legal aid for the representation of bereaved families at inquests is means-tested, like nearly every other element of the civil legal aid scheme. It is important that we focus our limited resources on those who need them the most, and the means test is an important and long-standing part of the legal aid system which has been in place since well before this Government came to power.

There is discretion to waive the financial eligibility limits for inquests if, in all the circumstances, it would not be reasonable to expect the family to bear the full costs of legal assistance at the inquest. Whether that is reasonable will depend in particular on the history of the case, the circumstances, the issues raised against state institutions, the applicant’s assessed disposable income and capital, the other financial resources of the family and the estimated costs of providing representation. Contributions from the applicant can also be waived in whole or part.

That is the position under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, but it was also the position under the Access to Justice Act 1999, the legislation that applied to Mr Butler’s case.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend has identified a real problem, which we are indeed addressing. A small number of cases cost a disproportionate amount of the legal aid budget: for instance, a recent criminal case cost about £8 million in legal aid. That clearly cannot continue in the current economic climate, and we are therefore reducing the cost of long-running criminal cases—known as very high cost cases—by 30%. We are also consulting on revised models of payment for advocacy fees.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

On 2 July, the Secretary of State promised me that if he closed a women’s prison, the savings would be invested in reducing offending by women. Will the new all-male team at the Department ensure that ring-fenced action is taken to prevent women’s offending?

[Damian Green]

I am happy to reassure the hon. Lady that the good work that was conducted by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), who has moved on to pastures new, will be continued. As the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), said in answer to a previous question, if hon. Members can be patient for a few weeks, they will learn more about the prison estate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend is right to identify that problem. We have just published a wide-ranging transformation of the criminal justice system, which will include much better use of technology to ensure that information available to the court helps the case go ahead on the day. There is also the use of more specialist courts for high-volume regular business that can be taken out of magistrates courts. That will enable magistrates to use their expertise where it is used best—in more complex cases—and enable cases to go ahead more often on the day planned, for the greater convenience of victims.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State promise the House that if he were to close a women’s prison, he would ensure that some of the savings that arose went towards preventing women from going into prison in future?

[Chris Grayling]

The answer is yes. Our probation reforms will also involve greater mentoring support for those who receive community sentences. Our aim is to stop people going to prison in the first place, and help prevent them from going back if they do end up in prison.

Protecting Children Online

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Alun Cairns]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for highlighting the IWF—I should declare an interest as one of its champions—and would encourage all the industry to join and support its greater funding in the way that Google announced earlier today.

Before the Government’s welcome statement in response to their consultation on the debate over opting in and opting out of adult content, we ran the risk of presenting the situation as one that was relatively simple and where responsibility to protect ourselves could be conveniently passed over to others—for example, to ISPs. In reality, it is not that straightforward; it is far more complicated, and that is my issue with the motion, which, rather than helping, confuses the subject. Thankfully, however, the evidence to the consultation was clear.

I pay tribute to Reg Bailey, the chief executive officer of the Mothers’ Union, who recognised that complexity, against the general direction of the debate at the time and against those calling for a simple opt in/opt out approach—or an appropriate variant of it. A filter not only passes responsibility from parents to large organisations, whose judgments might be completely different from those of individual families, but makes false promises, because of the avoidance measures I mentioned earlier. Encryption, for example, is a typical problem that an ISP filter would not overcome, but a parent would not necessarily understand that.

At the moment, about 30% of customers choose to have an ISP opt-out. If the policy was reversed—so that people had to opt into adult content—the proportion would likely be much higher, which would run the risk of legal adult content providers using common avoidance techniques, such as encryption or proxy servers, which create further problems. Web proxies, which are a more recent development, and peer-to-peer networks are also not covered by ISP-level filters, but, believing their household computer to be safe, parents would be led into a false sense of security.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Would the hon. Gentleman not admit that some of these measures would make it safer for the average parent than the present situation?

[Alun Cairns]

I am coming to that very point. Challenges remain, but the last thing we want to do is create the impression that this is a simple issue and that children and families can be protected at the flick of a switch; it is much more complicated than that and deserves an intelligent debate. We need to recognise the differences in these areas, rather than giving the impression, as some Members have, that the flick of a switch will make the difference. An ISP filter would be oblivious to the very risks from which we need to protect children. Furthermore, such filters would not protect against bullying, grooming or other serious risks, but at the same time they would give parents a false sense of security.

One of the most effective answers—there will be several answers, and filters have a part to play, but they are not the only solution—is for a parent to show a genuine interest in what is being viewed online. I am pleased that the debate over the past year or so has focused the minds of technology providers on making device-level and even profile-level security features and filters easier to use and understand. Google has its SafeSearch, for example, while Windows 8 has made significant steps: it can e-mail parents a list of all the sites viewed by a householder so that they can check themselves what the child has been looking at. Furthermore, now when someone signs up to an ISP or sets up a new router, they are asked what settings they want, not only for the household, but for each computer. It needs to go even further, however, down to profile level, because the same computer can be used by different people. It is important, therefore, that we have the right profile filter settings to protect the children using the computer. Clearly, technology companies need to do more to communicate that message and help parents further.

My comments so far have related to legal adult content, but we would all agree that the far more serious issues surround illegal content, particularly that involving the abuse of children—the area on which most of the recent public debate has focused. It is extremely important that we distinguish between legal and illegal content. This should not be a party political issue and there are no easy solutions. Some content might be distasteful, but might well be available on shelves of newsagents or shops in Soho.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The motion rightly starts with the issue of child sex abuse, recent cases of which have caused so many of us such distress. I want to start by praising the brilliant work of the Internet Watch Foundation; like many other Members, I am one of its champions. I thank the EU for funding it, and I say to Google, “We’re glad you have increased the amount you give to the foundation, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want your taxes.”

I want to focus on the second part of the motion, which considers the broader issue of child protection on the internet. We know that 90% of children live in homes that have internet access, and more than half of those children have internet access in their bedrooms. I got those figures from the report produced by the inquiry on which I was proud to serve with the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry). It includes some excellent recommendations, and it has moved this agenda forward in an important way. She described me as fulfilling the need for a representative on that body from the leftie atheist end of the spectrum. We were able to put on the agenda an issue that had not been sufficiently addressed before. Since then, I have been thinking about how many children have internet access not only in their bedrooms but on the mobile devices in their pockets. I suggest that that applies to a substantial proportion of our children.

[Mr Burrowes]

This right-wing Christian served on the inquiry along with that left-wing atheist. Does the hon. Lady agree that the momentum created by the inquiry has led to internet service providers becoming more receptive and that it has moved things on? In some ways, it has created a sea change. We now need to work with them to ensure that they bring about real, practical change, rather than simply positioning ourselves.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I do not think that that is what is happening in this debate. I will come to that point in a moment, as it has also been raised by other hon. Members.

The conclusion of our cross-party report was that parents need help, a topic that has been dealt with to some extent already in the debate. We need to think of better ways of helping parents, because what we have is not enough. I genuinely think that home-level security controls can make a huge difference. The technocrats on the Conservative Benches might suggest that such controls are much less powerful than we think, but they are much more powerful than what is often used currently. We must not make the best the enemy of the good.

Companies need to step up to the mark, and we have been able to put pressure on some of them to do so. During our inquiry, TalkTalk showed how it would be possible to have home-level security arrangements, even though other companies said that it would not be possible to do it in that way. Now, those other companies are beginning to face up to the fact that it is possible.

[Alun Cairns]

I still want to underline the point that there are relatively easy ways of getting around some of those filters. We must not give the impression that having such filters will protect families and individuals.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The hon. Gentleman might well be right. Most filters are too complicated for someone like me to implement—a point that I kept making during the inquiry. I simply cannot do that thing where you have to type in about 25 digits and letters in order to make a filter work; and that is chronically true of mums.

[Ms Abbott]

The problem with those filters is that it takes a long time to master their installation, but it takes the average self-respecting child less than an hour to get round them.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

My hon. Friend is right. However, what we can do by installing home-level filters is increase the base level of security. It is true that some people can get round them, but if we increase the base level of security, we are giving some extra help to some parents.

We also need to help children to protect themselves. I was really disappointed by yesterday’s debate, which I connect to this subject, on whether sex and relationships education in schools should be compulsory. We do not have to take the word of a leftie atheist on this; let us take the words of Ofsted, which has stated:

“A lack of high-quality, age-appropriate sex-and-relationships education in more than a third of schools is a concern as it may leave children and young people vulnerable to inappropriate sexual behaviours and sexual exploitation. This is because they have not been taught the appropriate language or developed the confidence to describe unwanted behaviours or know where to go to for help.”

The report also found that, in just under half of schools, pupils had received lessons about staying safe but few had developed the skills to apply their understanding effectively, such as assertiveness skills that enable them to stand up for themselves and negotiate their way through difficult situations. We need to give children those skills, and to ensure that they can keep themselves safe. Ofsted also pointed out that children understand the importance of applying security settings on social networking sites but that they did not always know how to set them, or did not bother to do so. Our sex and relationships education is failing children, leaving them unable to keep themselves safe.

The work of Laura Bates and the Everyday Sexism project was honoured at a dinner, held in memory of Emily Wilding Davison, that I attended last night. Everyday Sexism was honoured because it recognises how sexism can be really dangerous for young girls. I have heard Laura talk about how young girls who have been shown gross images of pornography and sexual violence by young boys are often frightened of sex. They think that sex is something cruel, horrible and dangerous. We have to bring back the connection between love and sex; it is being destroyed by what my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) has described as our “pornified” society. She is right; it makes society a dangerous place for young girls to live in. First of all, we need to help parents to protect them; we secondly expect the companies to improve their levels of protection; and we thirdly need to enable children to protect themselves. For that reason, I believe this debate is closely related to the amendment that Labour moved yesterday on compulsory sex and relationships education in schools, which needs to include the issue of consent.

Some Members said earlier, “Let’s make this a cross-party issue”, and I am willing to do that. I have worked across party on the excellent inquiry on the safety of children on the internet. If the Minister said to the Opposition Front-Bench team, “I will invite you to the summit dealing with URLs and providers, as you should be there”, I would then believe that this was a genuinely cross-party issue, and I would invite my Front-Bench team not to press this motion to the vote. I am thus challenging the Minister to do that in his response. I would hope that if he did so my Front-Bench team would say, “Okay, we do not need a vote; this is genuinely cross-party; we are unanimous and we will together do more to protect our children from a violent society that is making them frightened of sexual relationships.” We should feel very guilty if the result of what we do is to create a world in which sex is scary.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he did as Justice Minister on improving the availability of work in prisons. It is to his credit that we saw an increase of 800,000 in the number of hours worked in our prisons last year. My hon. Friend the Prisons Minister is building on that work and it is my hope and expectation that we will see that increase continue.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Will there be resettlement prisons for women?

[Chris Grayling]

There are of course a smaller number of women’s prisons, but it is our intention to have the same geographic links between detention and release for women as well.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

1. What assessment he has made of the value of the work done by women’s centres with women offenders; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mrs Helen Grant)]

Women’s centres are a key element in our approach to women in the criminal justice system. Since April 2012, we have been monitoring referrals made by probation trusts to the 31 women’s centres funded by the National Offender Management Service. Feedback indicates that users, staff and magistrates see the centres as a valuable resource.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

May I first declare an interest as chair of Commonweal, a charity that established the Re-Unite programme, which helps women offenders to reunite with their children when they come out of prison? The programme is run by many women’s centres and those we have been working with are anxious about their future funding and about the lack of strategy from the Ministry for women offenders and women in the criminal justice system. Will the Minister meet me, together with representatives from the women’s centres, to reassure them about future funding for the wonderful programmes they run?

[Mrs Grant]

I am happy to meet the hon. Lady, and I hope to reassure her. During the last few weeks, I have been visiting women’s centres around the country, in Gloucester, Reading and London, and I have been very impressed by what I have seen. Overall, I want to see more provision for women in areas where it does not exist at the moment. I also want existing provision in the centres deepened and strengthened further. Funding may be readjusted for some services; there has to be redistribution and some centres may have to do a little more with less, but I assure the hon. Lady that funding is continuing and we are increasing it by £300,000 for this financial year.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

As I hope I made clear in my answer to the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma), I want to restore human rights and the basic ideas behind them to their place as not only a central part of our political debate but something that is unquestioned on either side of this House or anywhere outside it. That is what we should think about human rights; the problem is that they have been abused in both the European Courts and our domestic courts and in other parts of the system. We need a proper balance and, once the commission has come up with recommendations on that, that is what this Government will achieve.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

12. What estimate he has made of the number of women in prison who have been victims of domestic violence; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mrs Helen Grant)]

Estimating the number of women in prison who have been victims of domestic violence is difficult, as the information is not recorded centrally. However, surveys tell us that half of female prisoners report having been the victims of abuse of some kind. That includes abuse at any age, and is not necessarily domestic violence. The figures could also be a significant underestimate, as the hon. Lady knows, because admissions from victims of domestic violence are not always forthcoming.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I warmly welcome the Minister to her responsibility; she is a rare creature who cares seriously about this issue in her bones and not just in her words. If it is right that half or more of women in prison have been victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse and other kinds of violence, should not those victims be diverted from the criminal justice system rather than incarcerated in it?

[Mrs Grant]

The hon. Lady is very knowledgeable on such matters, having worked hard and effectively for a number of years, campaigning for both victims of domestic violence and female offenders. It was to my absolute delight that I was given this brief as a new Minister by the Secretary of State and I hope to draw on some of my experience before I came to this place while I undertake the role. Tackling domestic violence and women’s offending are priorities for the Government and me, and I am delighted to note that the National Offender Management Service has been working very closely with Women’s Aid to develop policies, strategies and training to support women who are in prison and to identify domestic violence. Considerable work needs to be done and I look forward to working closely with the hon. Lady and other Labour Members to drive through change and make a difference in this area.

Defamation Bill

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

I accept that, and I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s work, which has been gleaned from his experience in his previous life as a journalist.

What we are trying to do between us is ensure that if we are to replace the common-law defence with a statutory defence, we not only deal with the general proposition that if something is in the public interest, that should be a defence, but find ways of giving the public a remedy—which they do not currently have, short of going to law—and ratchet up the probability that a public interest defence will be unsuccessful if the defendant has been malicious.

As the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, the definition of “malice” in the new clause is not my own handiwork. Others have been working carefully to craft what they consider to be the right second-tier definition. The aim is to establish two tiers of consideration: there should be a general public interest defence, but the situation should be deemed to have gone beyond that when a publisher has flown in the face of the facts or the evidence. That would not apply to the example given by the hon. Gentleman, because if a newspaper could honestly argue that the statement that it had published was ignorant and innocent and that there had been every reason for believing that it was true, it would obviously have a much more complicated public interest defence case to argue. In the absence of my new clause, it would then have to rely on something like the clause that is currently in the Bill.

Let me make just two more substantive points. I am keen for us to end up with legislation that will give people a way out of the legal process when that is possible. Who knows what the Leveson inquiry will produce? I sense that one of its main recommendations will concern how we should deal with the public’s desire for inaccuracies to be corrected. I gave evidence before Lord Justice Leveson, as did others, and that was a major subject of debate. We may have to legislate if Lord Justice Leveson proposes legislation, and I hope that that would happen in the Session that will begin next May. It is therefore possible that we will return to this issue.

There is a debate about when the Leveson report will be ready, but if it appears as early as October, it may give us time to incorporate any proposals in this Bill. If it does not produce its recommendations until December, which now looks more likely, I sense we will have to come up with further legislation specifically to deal with the Leveson recommendations. Although we may not come up with a perfect solution in this Bill, however, both Government and Opposition parties have said they want to try to get this issue sorted now and get a better definition of public interest defence.

I want the House to agree to a measure that adds to the current clause 4, with a new defence available to publishers who are prepared to correct the record or publish a right-to-reply response promptly and prominently, thereby avoiding the use of lawyers. That answers the need in the internet age for a much speedier response—otherwise many readers are unlikely to see both the original content and the later clarification. It offers newspapers and other publishers a way of being responsible after the publication of the initial story, too, because they can be shown to have corrected what they have published. It will also serve not to permit the repetition of a defamatory allegation that has been promptly or prominently corrected or clarified. It would, therefore, take disputes out of the courts, thus saving people money, and it would speed up justice and make it more publicly accessible. It would not apply if the author were motivated by malice in its widest definition, which includes political or personal ill will or vendetta, rather than just the old honest opinion defence. The information must also be understandable to the public.

The Reynolds defence no longer works. Everybody accepts that we must move on from that common-law position for all sorts of reasons. We are in the age of the citizen-journalist, and we need to adapt the rules to accommodate that. We need something that will work for conventional newspaper groups and new media organisations. The Reynolds defence has outlived its time. It will no longer be sufficient to have a checklist of tests in every court case. Perhaps we ought to debate again whether to have early strike-out clauses in order to get other kinds of cases out of the courts, too. We need a measure that sorts out at the beginning of proceedings, rather than the end, whether there is a public interest component.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman referred to strike-out clauses. He is probably aware of the case of my constituent Hardeep Singh, who was the subject of a lengthy and unfair—and extremely expensive, for him—case centring on a matter of religious dispute. The judge eventually clearly ruled that the matter should not be dealt with by the courts. A similar doctrinal dispute could arise in future, so if there is not an early strike-out opportunity someone else could suffer as Mr Singh did. What can be done to end this?

[Simon Hughes]

I know about that particular case; indeed, it has become something of a cause célèbre. I support having an early strike-out provision. We had a long debate on the subject in Committee, which is why Mr Speaker did not select an amendment on it for debate on Report. I hope we can persuade the Government that an appropriate public interest defence, plus a remedy for resolving disputes along the lines I have suggested, plus early strike-out is the right combination not just to address cases such as that of the hon. Lady’s constituent, but to prevent other kinds of unacceptable attack. I hope she will work with us. I am sure that she will. She also has relevant experience that I hope she can bring to the debates after today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

I recently met David Ahern, the chief executive of the Shannon Trust, and I assured him that we will continue to support his excellent scheme. I would be surprised if the new arrangements we have put in place for getting the commissioning of offender learning much closer to prisons and the institutions themselves did not see a much greater take-up of schemes such as toe-by-toe.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

In view of the very poor performance in Ofsted inspections of provision by A4e, which provides much of the education in prisons, what conversations has the Minister had with colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills about how, when the contract is re-let, the quality of provision and the achievements of the prisoners will be at the fore of decision making about who should provide it?

[Mr Blunt]

I understand that a written ministerial statement has been made today by the Department for Work and Pensions in respect of A4e, which will be of interest to the hon. Lady and the House. In addition, a review of offender learning has been undertaken by the Skills Funding Agency. It was organised by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and I am happy to say that its findings have been positive as far as A4e is concerned—I know that will be of interest to the House. As for the future provision of offender learning, we are going through a re-tendering process, whereby prison governors involved in clusters of prisons that represent the offender’s journey through the system are able to ensure that they are satisfied with what is being commissioned into their prisons. That will mean a much more satisfactory state of affairs than we have had before.