Manchester Terrorism Attack

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Luke Myer

Monday 13th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

No act of antisemitism, big or small, is acceptable, and we must all call it out and challenge it wherever we see it. The Government will act. We are already taking measures, and we will take more, to strengthen the response to rising antisemitism in our country. Let me assure my hon. Friend that the testimony from his constituent is devastating for all of us. It is a source of national shame that our fellow citizens feel that they have to hide who they are in this way. We must all commit ourselves to doing everything in our collective power to ensure that our Jewish community can live a full Jewish life here in Britain in the 21st century.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. Does she agree that slogans such as “Glory to our martyrs”, “Globalise the intifada” and “Zionists off our streets” are unacceptable and likely to encourage unstable individuals to carry out horrific actions and attacks on the Jewish people such as the one we saw so recently?

[Shabana Mahmood]

Let me reassure my hon. Friend that I am carrying out a review of the wider legislation on protest and thresholds for hate crime legislation, to ensure that our whole legal framework is as robust as it needs to be, so that we can strike the careful balance between our freedom of protest and freedom of speech, and keeping all our communities safe.

Independent Sentencing Review

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Luke Myer

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

We want to make sure that our prisons are used to punish offenders, that those offenders are made to abide by strict prison rules, that they engage with programmes in prison to bring down their propensity to reoffend, and that, ultimately, we succeed in keeping my hon. Friend’s constituents safe by turning out better citizens rather than better criminals.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

There are thousands of decent, moderate Conservatives all across the country who will have seen the ridiculous spectacle today of the Opposition denigrating David Gauke—of all people—on the prison system. The review was absolutely clear that short sentences are driving reoffending—60% reoffend within the year. Will the Minister set out the steps that she will take to cut crime and create fewer victims?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Luke Myer

Tuesday 28th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I have said on many occasions in this House that I believe in punishment and in prison. Prison has a core role to play in the punishment of offenders. However, we must not run out of prison places. We must balance the need to punish and imprison people with interventions that expand the use of punishment outside prison. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says, “Build more” from a sedentary position. We are. We are moving forward to solve the 14,000 prison place deficit left by his Government at the last election. This Government will build prisons, but as he knows, we cannot build our way out of the prison capacity crisis. We must consider other measures as well, but let me be clear: we will always seek to punish offenders, and prison will always have a place. This Government will build more prison places than the previous one.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

8. What steps her Department is taking to increase prison capacity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Luke Myer

Tuesday 10th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

The shadow Minister could at least have apologised to the country for being part of a Government and a party that ran out of prison places. It was the Tory party that ran the system at boiling hot—at over 99% capacity. I hate to remind him, but for months before the previous election, the Tory party operated its own emergency release scheme, which did not have any exclusions for offences connected to domestic abuse. I will take no lessons from him, as it is this Government who are cleaning up the mess that his party left behind.

[Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

10. What steps her Department is taking to reduce the backlog of Crown court cases.