Worboys Case and the Parole Board

Debate between Yvette Cooper and David Gauke

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks. Where there is reconsideration, the second panel should be led by someone with legal, and indeed judicial, experience. One of the things that we are clearly going to have to look at is the degree to which proper legal experience is involved in this process. I agree that it is important that where the Secretary of State has a representative at one of these matters, they are well placed to make a strong case.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I welcome the Court’s decision. Many of us were shocked and appalled by the original Parole Board decision, given the number of vile sexual assaults and rapes in this case. The Secretary of State is right to put forward reforms and to say that there are serious questions for the Parole Board. I hope that he will make it clear that he recognises that there are also serious questions for the Ministry of Justice, which had to put forward the evidence in this case. It is not a good look simply to say that this is about the responsibility of the Parole Board, if we are to get to the reforms that we actually need. Does he recognise that one of the big failings in this case was about support for, and proper information for, victims throughout the process? Will he make that an urgent priority in the reforms that are put forward?

[Mr Gauke]

The point about victims is very important. The right hon. Lady will be aware that Dame Glenys Stacey undertook an immediate review of the facts in this case. There is clearly a lot to learn about how victims are treated. In this particular case, the fact that victims were receiving information from the media rather than being contacted directly is not something that we want to see repeated. She is absolutely right to raise that point.

On the MOJ’s position, as I set out in my statement, there is much more that we can do to ensure that information on things like sentencing remarks should be provided as part of the dossier consistently and as a matter of course. Clearly, there were failures in this regard. That is partly why my position in bringing a judicial review was weaker than that of the victims, because they were able to make these arguments in a way that was not open to me. We need to find ways in which we can make improvements across the system. I stress that the national probation service was clear that it did not think that Worboys should be released.

Parole Board and Victim Support

Debate between Yvette Cooper and David Gauke

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I also welcome the Lord Chancellor to his post. He will note that some of the victims have still heard nothing from victim liaison officers and still do not know what the Parole Board terms are and whether this man may end up living near them. Given that Worboys had their addresses, will the Lord Chancellor urgently ensure that all the victims are contacted by victim liaison officers before this man is released? Given that some of them had no opportunity to put statements to the Parole Board, is he confident that due process has been followed in making this decision? Further to the Justice Committee’s point about greater transparency in Parole Board decisions, will the Lord Chancellor introduce changes to the statutory rules that would allow the board to make open the decision in this case, not just in future cases, so that people can see what the reasons were?

[Mr Gauke]

The right hon. Lady makes an important point. There is clearly the potential to change the rules for forthcoming cases, but she particularly asks whether such a change could apply to cases that occurred before the change in the rules. I do not want to make any guarantees to the House at this point, because there are clearly complex legal implications and one would want to look at them, but if I may take that as a representation of what she thinks should happen, I very much take that on board.

On notification of victims, as I said, there will be cases where people do not want to be informed; there will be cases where people will want to receive a great deal of detail. We need a system that is sensitive to what victims want. The right hon. Lady raises the point about where Worboys will be and whether victims could be close by. The conditions of the licence are for the Parole Board, but I suspect I speak for the House as a whole when I say that we would expect the Parole Board to be sensitive to the concerns that victims might have about their safety, and indeed to the trauma of perhaps finding themselves accidentally in the presence of someone who has committed such terrible crimes.

Budget Changes

Debate between Yvette Cooper and David Gauke

Monday 21st March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

The decision was taken some weeks ago not to proceed with any changes to VAT on energy-saving materials in this Finance Bill because new evidence had emerged and we no longer believed that we needed to go ahead with what was previously suggested. It is also the case—the Prime Minister will say something about this later—that because the European Commission and other member states are willing to agree to our arguments about the need for greater flexibility on VAT rates, we do not believe that these changes will be necessary.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Five days ago, the Chancellor stood at that Dispatch Box and published the Budget scorecard with a £4.4 billion cut to PIP. Where is the revised scorecard without it? Is it true that this cut will instead come from elsewhere in the DWP budget? If the Chancellor is too scared to answer questions in this House on the issue, he is not fit to do the job.

[Mr Gauke]

The Chancellor will debate the Budget resolutions tomorrow evening, and he will be the first Chancellor of the Exchequer to have done so since my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke). In 11 Budgets, Gordon Brown never once participated in the debate on the Budget apart from in his initial speech. As far as the public finances and compliance with the welfare cap are concerned, we will set things out at the autumn statement. Let us be absolutely clear that with the Labour party appearing to be upset about the public finances, Labour Members should listen to what they have been saying for the last six years.