Oral Answers to Questions

James Gray Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Lady makes an important and compassionate point. It is absolutely right that we should invest in the estate, and I am pleased that we are investing in a new secure school, which will open soon. She makes an important point about the decision to remand. Those decisions are made by independent judges—that is correct—but I hope that she will join me in recognising that the reduction in the overall number of children in custody by 82% since 2010 is a positive thing. When I was prosecuting, young people were going inside for being passengers in vehicles taken without consent. Now, they are inside only for the most grave offences.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

Will the Lord Chancellor take into consideration one of the recommendations of the Wade report on sentencing for murder? The definition of “children” should be reconsidered. At the moment, someone who is 16 or very often 17 might be tried when they are 18, but they are sentenced as if they are a child. Surely the question should be the crime rather than the age.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Chalk]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising that important point on behalf of her constituents, and I will write to her.

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

T10. It is now five years since my constituent, Ellie Gould, was brutally murdered in her own home. Her assailant been given a paltry 12-and-a-half-year sentence. Recently, a man who killed a stranger in the street was given 25 years, but simultaneously, on the same day, someone who cut his wife up into hundreds of pieces and disposed of the parts in a river was given a sentence starting at only 15 years. The Wade review recognised the terrible disparity between domestic murders and non-domestic murders, and called for that disparity to be corrected. Will the Secretary of State now tell us when he is going to reply to the Wade review? I hope that he will take due account of it and will equal up the sentences so that people who are guilty of domestic murders pay the same penalty as those who kill someone in the street.

[Gareth Bacon]

In response to the Wade review, we have increased sentences by introducing statutory aggravating factors for murders that are preceded by controlling or coercive behaviour, that involve overkill or that are connected with the end of a relationship. We have also consulted publicly on sentencing starting points for murders preceded by controlling or coercive behaviour and for murders committed with a knife or other weapon. The Government are carefully considering the responses to the consultation and will publish their response in due course.