Oral Answers to Questions

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

Last week, when told by my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies) that the Sentencing Bill would cut prison time for rapists and child groomers, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), said she that would have to “go away and check” whether that was true—the time to check was before she voted for the Bill. Surely the victims Minister knows and can tell the House what proportion of rapists and child groomers will have their prison time cut by Labour’s Sentencing Bill.

[Alex Davies-Jones]

Make no mistake: the Government had to make these choices because of the Conservative Government’s catastrophic mismanagement of our prison system. We are not abolishing short sentences, and judges will retain full discretion to keep offenders locked up. We have built safeguards into the systems to protect victims.

I remind the shadow Minister that the greatest threat to victims is the risk of not being able to lock up any dangerous offender in the first place. The measures that the Government are introducing will ensure that that will never happen again.

[Dr Mullan]

Yet again, we have a Government and a Victims Minister who cannot tell the House basic facts about the implications of their Bill. I will tell her: 60% of rapists and 90% child groomers sent to prison will have their prison time cut. That is appalling.

We also know that knives are all too often a feature of violence against women and girls. The House will have seen the tragic news that Katie Fox, the female victim of a brutal knife attack in Birmingham on Friday, has died. Over the last few weeks, the Labour Government have been talking tough on knife crime, but can the Minister tell the House what proportion of criminals sent to prison for carrying a knife will have to serve only a third of their sentence under Labour’s appalling Sentencing Bill?

[Alex Davies-Jones]

My thoughts and those of the whole House are, of course, with Katie’s family after the horrific crime that occurred in Birmingham. However, the hon. Member is clearly incapable of facing up to the reality that his Government left behind. It is this Government who are protecting victims and ensuring that violence against women and girls is a political priority, and that we are never again faced with the reality of having to let offenders out early without any safeguards in place. It is this Government who put those safeguards in place and it is this Government who are ensuring that we protect the public.