Voting Eligibility (Prisoners)

Roger Gale Excerpts

Thursday 22nd November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I have no evidence of such issues. Some people have suggested that if Parliament chooses to exercise its right of sovereignty, the UK would become a pariah state, but I must say very clearly that I simply do not accept that. I believe that Parliament has the right to exercise its sovereignty. It will be for Parliament to decide in this situation whether it wishes to exercise that sovereignty, but I do not believe that if it chooses to do so, Britain will somehow turn into a nation with an appalling human rights record. Our human rights record stands comparison with anyone’s.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

As a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I have had the opportunity to discuss the issue with senior members of the European Court of Human Rights in a particular context. There are 47 member states of the Council of Europe and very many of them—France is one; Malta is another—hold prisoners for very long periods without trial in clear breach of the convention on human rights, about which the ECHR chooses to do precisely nothing. Would it not be a good idea for the ECHR to concentrate on enforcing article 5 and such matters rather than meddling, as the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) has said, in matters that are not even within its remit?

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This is the problem; at the moment, we have a Court that is drowning in hundreds of thousands of cases in areas that the originators of the convention would never have considered relevant to what they were creating. That has taken the judges in Strasbourg away from the fundamental principles that they are supposed to be there to protect, so I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.

Courts Service Estate

Roger Gale Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Djanogly]

It is not the case that we have not reinvested. As I said in the statement, we are reinvesting in the remaining courts. The right hon. Gentleman asked about errors in the consultation data. There were 16 area consultation documents. A small number of errors were found, but none was considered to be material to the consultation. In one area—north Wales—even though we were advised that the errors did not affect the consultation, I personally decided that the consultation documents should be sent out again, and that was done. However, we do not maintain that the figures were put out in error—quite the opposite. On the whole, they were accurate.

[Mr Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

On 16 November, one Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Justice told me in a parliamentary answer that it would be highly desirable if more work that was currently done by Crown courts were carried out by magistrates courts. He agreed that there was waste in the Crown courts. On the same day, the other Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Justice told me that following the closure of magistrates courts the same amount and the same type of work would be done by the other magistrates courts. Which is right?

[Mr Djanogly]

It is true that in terms of capacity, Crown courts are almost bursting at the seams, which is why my hon. Friend will see that not a single Crown court is proposed for closure in the list. One of the great challenges that we face is to ensure that work that should more appropriately be carried out in magistrates courts does not go to the Crown court. Both the legal aid Green Paper and the sentencing and restorative justice Green Paper have provisions to encourage that.