(5 years ago)
Commons ChamberI thank my hon. Friend for raising the profile of the work of prison officers in his Westminster Hall debate last year, as well as this morning in questions, and for participating and promoting the excellent Prison Service parliamentary scheme. He is right to refer to prison officers as “brave public servants”, and the Secretary of State referred to them in his conference speech as “unsung heroes”. We made offers to staff to reduce the pension age in 2013 and 2017, but both offers were rejected by the Prison Officers Association.
I welcome the Minister back to the Ministry of Justice in her new role. Like her predecessors, she comes to this House triumphant about the Government’s recruitment campaign. However, the reality is that we just have to look at the breakdown in the number of prison officers to see that it is far from the truth. Some 80,000 years of cumulative prison officer experience have been lost, a third of officers have less than two years’ experience and the number of officers is now falling again—still lagging 2,500 behind 2010 levels. Will the Minister in her new role simply commit to bringing prison officer numbers back to 2010 levels?
We have made a significant breakthrough in the number of prison officers. We have introduced the key worker scheme, which allows prison officers to build relationships with the prisoners, and during my visits to prisons I have heard that the scheme is extremely popular among prisoners and prison officers. We are professionalising our workforce in the youth estate, providing all frontline officers with a foundation degree—
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberI thank hon. Members for their important contributions, and I will respond briefly to some of the points raised. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain), made broad criticisms of the Department’s justice planning, but we in the Department take our governmental responsibilities very seriously. We have laid before Parliament several SIs for no-deal planning, many of which we have debated and passed; we have the £17 million from the Treasury to prepare; and we are liaising and working with Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and the judiciary to ensure that we are ready should we leave on 29 March without a deal. That said, the best way to avoid a no-deal outcome is to approve the Prime Minister’s deal. That is why I voted for it. If the hon. Gentleman would like to avoid a no-deal exit on 29 March, that option is open to him as well.
I will deal now with the shadow Minister’s specific points about the SI. We have always had very high mediation standards. Domestic mediations take place across the country in a wide range of jurisdictions; they did so to a high standard before this directive came into force a few years ago; and they will maintain those high standards when we leave the EU. As I said in my opening speech, we are revoking the EU directive because we cannot rely on reciprocity in the future—that is the approach we have taken in our SIs—and where we will not get reciprocity, we are revoking the instruments by which we are currently bound.
Will the Minister confirm that as a direct result of the SI standards will be lowered, particularly with regard to mediation, because time limits will be reduced?
If someone wants to stop a time limit running in mediation, they need only issue proceedings before a court, because that stops time running. If someone issues proceedings and asks for a stay of those proceedings, time stops running. That measure is available to people in mediation.
I will respond to the few points made by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands). I recognise that the Scottish system is a distinct legal system, but I challenge his claim that we have ignored the Scottish Government. I was in Scotland—in Edinburgh—two weeks ago sitting with members of the Scottish Government and other devolved Administrations, and I was pleased to hear Scottish Ministers praise my Department for our work at official level liaising with them on matters of justice. We have, then, been working hard to involve the devolved Administrations in these measures.
For those reasons, and because it will maintain clear and effective rules for our courts and citizens to follow during challenging EU cross-border mediations, I commend the instrument to the House.
Question put:
(5 years, 8 months ago)
General CommitteesI will respond to a couple of the points made by the hon. Member for Bradford East. He is right to identify this as an important matter affecting families across Europe and the UK. He said that the regulations are one-sided; we have been very up front that this is a one-sided relationship, because we cannot legislate for other member states. All we can do is ensure that our regime provides the best possible protection.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that the Government have failed to prepare. I made it clear at the outset that in this SI we are legislating for a no-deal scenario. The Government would very much like to have a deal. If we have a deal, the EU has been clear, in our discussions and in its written guidance, that it would like to have a strong relationship with the UK in family matters, and to develop further the basic requirements that we would have in a no-deal situation, so that families are protected.
We have liaised extensively with the EU on this matter, and the deal—as set out in the political declaration—makes it clear that the EU is willing to give us a deal on family matters on a reciprocal basis. We cannot come here today and offer that deal, because Parliament did not vote in favour of it. A large number of Labour Members did not support that deal, which is why the Government are in this position.
I would like to make clear the protection that these individuals will have. It is not the case that vulnerable people going to EU member states will have no protection at all; they will be able to make an application in a foreign court for the same protections. It is just that the measures currently in place give automatic protections, so that an order made here is treated like one made in another member state. There are protections, but it would just be more laborious and expensive.
The Minister conveniently forgets that many Government Members rejected that very bad deal as well. She must accept that some of the most vulnerable people will be put at risk in the case of no deal. She cannot provide any guarantees here to the contrary.
We have been up front that the current provisions in civil judicial co-operation in family law matters do provide some protection even without the EU regimes, but not the same level of protection, and this is an example of that. It is not the case that they will get no protection at all, but the protection they have at the moment is better. We accept that, which is one of the reasons I will be voting again for the Government’s deal when, or if, the opportunity arises.
The hon. Gentleman raised a legitimate point about consultation. I can assure him that we have liaised with a number of bodies interested in family law. We have a Brexit law committee, on which sit members of the Bar Council, the Law Society and the City. We also have sub-committees in different areas of law. There is a family sub-committee, with which I have held roundtable discussions. My officials met the sub-committee regularly to discuss these and other areas of family law. We have also met Resolution and the international Family Law Committee, and I have spoken with the Family Law Bar Association. The Ministry of Justice has not taken these decisions in isolation; we have very much engaged with stakeholders to come up with the best possible solutions. I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.