Sir Jeremy Wright
MP for Kenilworth and Southam · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I applaud my right hon. Friend’s passion and clarity on this issue. On the subject of democratic accountability, he knows that if, as the hon.”
“I welcome the intent that the Secretary of State has set out this afternoon, and the urgency with which she will require the relevant companies to act.”
“The Electoral Commission has made no formal assessment of this. It would be a matter for Parliament to introduce such legal protections. It is prescribed in law that poll cards and ballot papers must be provided in English or Welsh, but there are no other prescribed language requirements relating to election materials.”
“We can all cynically speculate about the reasons why this sudden about-turn has taken place this week, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), who spoke from the Front Bench, said earlier, it is our job to scrutinise this legislation and to ensure that whatever we put in place does justice to the determination o…”
“In today’s version of the amendment paper, for the first time, that amendment has disappeared and been replaced not with the detailed compromise that Intelligence and Security Committee members, who have been engaged with this process, have been working towards, along with many others, but with Government amendment 157.”
“As the House would expect, we engaged with that process as diligently as we could, with no partisan politics, in an effort to make good law in the pursuit of greater state transparency while preserving our national security equities. As the hon.”
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“He will be pleased to hear that we have already announced that next year we will publish a refreshed strategy for tackling fuel poverty—the first such strategy since 2001. So we are already undertaking the work needed to ensure that we have the right framework in place for measuring fuel poverty, which will in turn allow us to target our resources on those whom we need to help most. My hon. Friend has put in front of us a very wide-ranging Bill, and the spirit of much of it is something that the Government entirely support. But I urge my hon. Friend to look again at the measures that are already in draft from the Government, which we believe address many of the problems that he has rightly identified.”
“Clause 13(2)(c) of the Bill makes specific reference to microgeneration measures having access to the green deal and financial incentives. That is something that we will look at and, in addition, we think that in a small number of cases consumers may be able to get green deal finance to help fund a part of the cost of installing renewable heating. We need to do more work over the coming months to ensure that this interaction is as smooth, as joined-up and as consumer friendly as possible. Ministers will say more about those proposals in coming months. On fuel poverty, we have concerns, as my hon. Friend will know, about the way in which fuel poverty is being measured, and we are looking again at that measurement mechanism.”
“That is because we as a Government are interested in the question of how to drive the long-term changes to heating systems in millions of domestic homes. We will need to do that if we wish to reduce emissions on the scale needed to avoid damaging climate change. My hon. Friend makes an interesting suggestion about the use of building regulations, and he may know that the Department of Energy and Climate Change will publish a heat policy options paper next year. Use of regulation is one of the options that the Department’s officials are exploring, in consultation with others. The Government are, therefore, already considering policy options that will seek to increase take-up of low carbon and renewable energy in buildings.”
“The Government recently consulted on proposals to tighten further the carbon and energy performance of new homes in 2013, and they have committed to introducing a zero-carbon requirement for all new homes from 2016. Because of that, separate legislation to improve energy efficiency for new homes is not necessary. Requiring level 6 of the code for all social homes would be disproportionate, and could add as much as £30,000 to the construction cost of each home. Alongside the regulations and the code, it is also worth noting that a national review of locally applicable standards for new housing is now under way to reduce the burden of red tape. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change is especially interested in the ideas in the Bill on heating.”
“Friend will be aware of what the Government are already doing in that area, led by the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Communities and Local Government. My colleagues in both Departments, and the Government as a whole, are supportive of the aims in that section of the Bill. My hon. Friend’s proposal to ensure that all new homes comply with level 6 of the code for sustainable homes is admirable but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East said, potentially an expensive ambition. Building regulations already require high levels of energy efficiency in all new homes—socially or privately owned—and a home built to current building regulations, which were introduced only in 2010, is well insulated and much easier and cheaper to heat than a typical older house.”
“Friend is being too radical and progressive for the Government on the ambit of reasonableness in capacity, but the measure he suggests is not necessary because it is already covered by the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Existing legislation already prioritises and protects capacity to the furthest extent that a person is able to exercise it, and without using the reasonableness of the person’s proposed decision as the criterion for capacity. Finally let me turn in the last few minutes to energy and fuel justice. The majority of today’s debate has focused on the family justice parts of my hon. Friend’s Bill, and I hope he will forgive me if I deal with other areas in a little less time. Clause 13 introduces a strategy to achieve lower bills and a more efficient use of fuels, and my hon.”
“The right to assert litigation capacity is also covered by existing law. Courts are required to investigate capacity when that issue is raised, carefully and on the available evidence, and even if there seems to be no dispute, medical evidence is invariably required as a minimum before holding that a party lacks capacity. A person interested in the protected party for whom the Official Solicitor has been appointed by the court as litigation friend, can apply to the court and seek to have the Official Solicitor discharged as litigation friend, and that person—or somebody else—appointed in their place. I do not believe that my hon.”
“Legal aid remains available for judicial review, however, and legal aid clients have cost protection and are not usually required to pay the other side’s costs if they fail. The law already contains provisions to deal with complaints about the Official Solicitor. I do not have time to go into those now, but I am sure that my hon. Friend can consider the matter at greater length if he wishes. On the recording of hearings, parties already receive transcripts of court hearings and, as other hon. Members have said, it is not sensible to set up a competing process. Other transcripts may be produced, and if they did not match a further layer of complexity would be required to resolve any conflict. I understand my hon. Friend’s concern, but he does not go about resolving it in the right way in the Bill.”
“In response to a debate in the other place during Committee stage of the Crime and Courts Bill, my noble friend Lord McNally undertook to consider the matter further in consultation with the judiciary and the devolved Administrations and return to it on Report, and that is what we will do. The proposal by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley to publish contempt of court details would be difficult because of the impact it may have on innocent third parties. Were we to do so, the risk is that it would be possible to identify the child involved, which is obviously of concern. We must remember that cost liability in judicial reviews is an important deterrent to unmeritorious litigation.”
“Existing legislation covers a great deal of the ground that my hon. Friend wishes his Bill to cover. The Government are currently considering whether to amend the law on contact for children in care, following their recent call for views on giving greater flexibility to local authorities when making contact arrangements. I agree with the reservations held by the hon. Member for Hammersmith about the definitions in clause 7 and the right to report wrongdoing, and a great deal of work would be required on that. The hon. Gentleman was also right when he spoke about the proposal to abolish the offence of scandalising the court, and the Government are currently considering that matter.”
“I would wish to cover a number of other matters in detail, but I am conscious of the other business to be discussed today, and I would not wish to deny my hon. Friends who are in their places the opportunity to discuss it. However, I need to say one or two things about other areas that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley has covered in the Bill. In relation to the duties of local authorities and other bodies, it is worth pointing out that, as I said earlier, when making any decision about a looked-after child a local authority must be satisfied that it is the most appropriate way to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. Under the 2002 Act, when the court or an adoption agency makes a decision about the adoption of a child, the child’s welfare must be the paramount consideration.”
“The clause would also place a duty on the court to consider whether it is both possible and in the interests of the welfare of the child to place him with one of his relatives before making an order placing him in the care of a local authority. However, section 52 of the 2002 Act is not about placing children in the care of a local authority. It is about parental consent for the adoption of a child. I and the Government share my hon. Friend’s central concern for the welfare of children and the need to keep them in their families wherever possible. We understand his intention in setting out his proposals, but we simply do not think that they are the best way of achieving what he wants.”
“The court is, however, already under a statutory duty to consider the welfare checklist, and that duty applies to any decision of the court relating to the adoption of a child, not just to a decision to dispense with parental consent. Furthermore, the 2002 Act requires the court to do more than just consider the welfare checklist when making an order. It must consider the child’s welfare and the whole range of powers available to it under that Act and the Children Act 1989. Current legislation already requires the family proceedings court to give its reasons for decisions. In addition, domestic law already makes it clear that the judge must go through, analyse and balance each factor in the welfare checklist in order to justify his conclusions.”
“First, it would require the court to give in its written judgment a full explanation of how it reached its conclusion on each aspect of the welfare checklist. Secondly, it would place a duty on the court to consider “whether it is possible and in the interest of the welfare of the child to place the child with one of his relatives” before making an order placing a child in the care of a local authority. I understand my hon. Friend’s underlying concerns, but I do not think it is sensible to amend the law in that way. The clause would place a statutory duty on the court to give a fully reasoned judgment for a decision to dispense with parental consent when the court makes a placement order or adoption order.”
“It may be helpful if I set out in a little more detail the effect that clause 4 would have. It would amend section 52 of the Act, which makes it clear that the court can dispense with the need for parental consent only where it is satisfied that the parents cannot be found or lack mental capacity, or that the child’s welfare requires it. As my hon. Friend will know, a placement order authorises a local authority to place the child for adoption by prospective adopters. The effect of an adoption order is that the parental responsibility of the birth parents is extinguished, and that only the child’s adopted parents have parental responsibility. Neither a placement order nor an adoption order has the effect of putting a child in the care of a local authority. There would be two distinct effects of clause 4.”
“Decisions about whether to appoint an independent visitor should be about the needs of the child, which are determined by examining a range of factors such as the distance from home of where they are placed and whether having an independent visitor will make a positive contribution to promoting their education and health. The independent visitor’s functions are to visit, advise and befriend the child. In relation to my hon. Friend’s proposal that looked-after children should be treated the same as other children with regard to criminal records, I simply say to him that that should be the case now. Enforcing that does not require a change in the law, but if there are difficulties, we will of course work with him to address them. I turn to the Bill’s suggested amendments to the Adoption and Children Act 2002.”
“All local authorities with children’s services responsibilities must ensure that independent advocacy services are provided for children and young people making or intending to make a complaint through the complaints procedures and the processes that are already required to be in place. We are currently exploring what more the Government might be able to do to support those processes. Under the Children Act, local authorities also have a duty to appoint a person to be a child’s independent visitor where it appears to them to be in the child’s best interests.”
“I am sure that my hon. Friend, who is an assiduous parliamentarian and familiar with how things work, will accept that, if a Bill is as wide-ranging as this one and if it has taken as long to debate as this one has, it deserves a proper response, which is what it will get from me. As I was saying, the underpinning principle of the Children Act, which is in question here, is reflected throughout the regulations and guidance on care planning and reviews. Each child is allocated an independent reviewing officer and the regulations and guidance that came into force last year strengthen further the independence of that role by clarifying that they cannot be involved with the management or resource of that case.”
“The UK Border Agency removed 4,649 foreign national offenders from this country in 2011, but there is, of course, much more to do, so we are seeking to negotiate more compulsory prisoner transfer agreements and to improve administrative processes so that foreign national offenders are removed at the earliest opportunity. We also hope to reduce the flow into the criminal justice system through conditional cautions and to reduce the number already serving prison sentences through the early removal scheme and the tariff-expired removal scheme.”
“My hon. Friend and his constituents are right to be worried. It is true that foreign national offenders will continue to challenge deportation under article 8 of the ECHR, but he will be pleased to know that this Government have changed the immigration rules. New rules came into force in July this year so that only in exceptional circumstances will family life, the best interests of a child or private life outweigh criminality and the public interest in seeing foreign national offenders deported where they have received a substantial sentence. That is a better balance between the interests of foreign criminals and the interests of the British public in being protected from them, which have been neglected for far too long.”
“I think that the right hon. Gentleman knows how difficult this exercise is. He knows perfectly well that prisoner transfer agreements are a matter of negotiation, and he also knows that compulsory transfer agreements are much more valuable than voluntary ones. Most of the agreements that he has described his Government as having achieved are voluntary, not compulsory. This Government will attempt to negotiate more compulsory agreements, so that we can continue to send home foreign offenders whom we do not want in our prisons.”
“Let me say again that I entirely understand my hon. Friend’s concern. He has spoken out about this a number of times. However, I have at least some good news for him. European Union nationals account for about a third of foreign national prisoners. A European Union prisoner transfer agreement came into force in December last year, and EU countries are implementing it this year. I hope that that will not only help to remove foreign national offenders, but rank as one of the very few measures coming out of Brussels of which my hon. Friend wholly approves.”
“Staffing of youth offending teams is decided by local authorities and their partner agencies, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that between 2009-10 and 2010-11 there were 835 fewer posts, which includes volunteers, part-time and temporary staff. That amounts to a 4% reduction. Over the same period, the number of young people supervised by youth offending teams dropped by 20%”
“I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman about the success of youth offending teams. It is the people on those teams—a mix from different agencies and organisations, working together—who are delivering the improvements he describes. It is not the case that the Government tried to abolish the youth offending teams. The Youth Justice Board is something different, but in any event the Youth Justice Board will stay, and we hope to work very closely with it to ensure that all the good things he has described continue.”
“Individual probation trusts determine their staffing requirements. The contracts negotiated and agreed with the trusts take account of the need to ensure that services are delivered effectively, efficiently and economically within the resources available. The performance data we collect indicate that probation trusts are making effective use of their resources to protect the public.”
“I do not think it is either of those two things. It is right to be concerned about the rate of recall to prison; the hon. Gentleman is perfectly right to say that. It is also right that I put on the record, because this is my first opportunity to do so, that the probation service comes in for a great deal of criticism but does excellent work. It looks very hard at risk when it releases prisoners from custody and it does its very best to minimise that risk. Where we find that reoffending or breaches of licence resulting in returns to custody occur, we will work hard with the probation service to learn the necessary lessons.”
“Prisoners must be released in accordance with the legislation laid down by Parliament. Parliament has consistently maintained the view that custodial sentences should be served in part in custody and in part in the community. Sentencers take that into account when determining the appropriate sentence in each case.”
“I am grateful to be in line for the same kind of treatment as my predecessor. My hon. Friend will find that I agree with him on many things, but I do not entirely agree with him on this. I think that there is merit in having a period, after a custodial sentence has been served in custody, when we can supervise and monitor offenders and send them back if they misbehave, so I am not in favour, as I know he is, of an entire sentence being served in custody. However, I think that there is scope for reform in sentencing, and we shall certainly look at those opportunities carefully.”
“Prison Service fitness assessments test whether prison officers are capable of safely and competently carrying out control and restraint procedures on prisoners when necessary. The assessment has been validated by academic study. As with all Prison Service policies, it will be kept under review.”
“The hon. Lady is right; I have not yet had the chance to do the test, but I have to tell her that I fancy my chances, because I understand that the pass rate is something like 99%. For her reassurance, the pass rate for those prison officers who are over 60 is something like 98%. It is worth making the point that most of our constituents would regard it as sensible that prison officers, who have to do difficult, challenging and sometimes very physical work, are fit enough to do it.”
“I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I have not had a chance to look at that report yet. I will look at it and come back to him. Generally, resettlement is hugely important. We are keen to see offenders get back into the community and straight into productive work, which is one reason we want offenders to be admitted quickly on to the Work programme that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State introduced so successfully in his last job.”
“I am sure that hon. Gentleman will accept that I do not know the details of the case that he is raising. If he lets me have them, I will look into the matter and come back to him.”
“Yes, I will happily meet my hon. Friend. What he describes sounds concerning, but we will obviously need to look into the details of the case.”
“I understand my hon. Friend’s point, and of course the situation is worse than that because some prisoners actually gain a drug habit while in custody. There is a great deal of work to do, not only with drug-free wings but in reducing drug addiction across the prison estate. We will continue to work on that.”
“I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend and congratulate him on receiving his knighthood. I will certainly look into the matter that he raises.”
“Members have said, we are discussing property that should not be in prison in the first place and that is used for a variety of nefarious purposes. We should do anything we can to prevent that and the Bill makes a significant contribution to that task. I commend the Bill to the House and wish it a safe passage through this House and the other place. Question put and agreed to. Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).”
“Members who have spoken will agree that the current situation is unacceptable, and the Bill is a good way of supplementing the Offender Management Act 2007 and the Crime and Security Act 2010, which introduced measures to reduce the smuggling of mobile phones into prisons, and made it a criminal offence to possess a phone in prison. There will be safeguards, and I am conscious of the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset about the right of property and how that should not be infringed without good reason and due process. We will consider that issue, and put measures in place to ensure that prisoners have the right to make representations about their property, and to appeal decisions. As hon.”
“Whatever happens to those phones after they have been confiscated, the state will save considerable money in storage costs if we proceed along the lines suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey. The Government therefore welcome the creation of a statutory power that will enable the governor or director of a prison to “destroy or otherwise dispose of” unauthorised property found in the possession of a prisoner. As such items can be obtained while the prisoner is in transit between prisons, or between prisons and courts, we also welcome the application of the power to prisoner escort vehicles as well as for property confiscated within a prison. My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon raised a point about custody areas in courts, and I am sure we can return to that matter in Committee. All hon.”
“The confiscated mobile phones must, of course, be kept somewhere, and hon. Members have spoken a little about where such items could be stored. Currently, those phones are in a central storage facility, and they will remain there unless and until the prisoner reclaims them on release, which in reality, very few do. In 2011, only 112 mobile phones were reclaimed from a total 41,000 currently being stored. Only 49% of those phones are attributable to specific prisoners, and the rest cannot be returned to a released prisoner. The cost of storing those phones is in the region of £20,000 a year, and around 800 are seized every month. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North made a point about the public purse and he is right to be concerned.”
“Such devices can, of course, be used to store images and recordings of the prison, which can undermine security by facilitating escapes or the smuggling of additional unauthorised items. Reference has been made to the Prisons (Interference with Wireless Telegraphy) Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), and it is important to look at that in the context of other measures that we can take to restrict the flow of illegal items into prison, and to confiscate items and destroy or dispose of them. Where we can do neither of those things—this relates to my hon. Friend’s Bill—we should at least try to restrict and hopefully prevent the use of mobile phones in prison. Let us look again at the problems that prisons face when storing confiscated items.”
“As we have discussed, other items may be confiscated only temporarily. The consequence of that limitation is that property has to be stored either locally or at the Prison Service’s central facility until the prisoner is released from custody. If the prisoner asks for an item to be returned, the prison must return it, and as hon. Members have said, that cannot be right. The Government hope that the legislation will improve the situation relating to the 2009 case to which I referred. Hon. Members have referred to the variety of uses that prisoners make of illicit mobile phones, and discussed what can be done about Facebook and the intimidation of witnesses by those using mobile phones and other similar devices.”
“I do not have time to go into the position of stored property now, but I am sure we can discuss it further in Committee if we need to. Of course, the Bill covers items of property that a prisoner should not have, which are either illicit by their nature or not recorded on a prisoner’s property card. We have talked a great deal about mobile phones, and there are obvious reasons why they should not be allowed in prison. It is a criminal offence to have a mobile phone while in prison, because they can be used for a variety of illegal purposes, such as those about which Members have spoken. The current arrangement for dealing with unauthorised property is that when it is discovered, it is confiscated unless it noxious, in which case it is destroyed, or something such as an offensive weapon or controlled drug, which is passed to the police.”
“Prisoners have access to certain property legitimately, and as I have said, some items of property will continue to be held for them by the prison if they are checked in appropriately when a prisoner arrives. My hon. Friend mentioned his visit to Leeds prison. I am glad that he enjoyed it and even more glad that they let him out at the end. What he said about that prison was important. As I understand it, the arrangement is that on arrival, prisoners are provided with detailed information about which items of property they can retain in their possession. That information is displayed across the prison, including in the residential units and the library. Prisoners in that prison, and I hope across the estate, should therefore be in no doubt at all about what they are and are not allowed to possess.”
“Friend the Member for Pudsey explained, it would enable prison governors and directors to confiscate and then destroy, dispose of or sell property that prisoners have in their possession that they should not have. We have talked about what those items might include, such as illicit drugs; items that can threaten prison security and good order, such as mobile phones, which are unlawful to possess in prison; unauthorised items that have been adapted to conceal illicit items; and items that have been smuggled into the prison by various means. Of course, it is right that all prisoners’ property needs to be managed efficiently, effectively and with care, and that maintaining a prison’s security and good order is paramount.”
“The items of property covered by the Bill are those that are not properly declared but are held illicitly while someone is in prison. In those circumstances, it seems to me entirely appropriate that the Bill should apply to remand prisoners just as it will to sentenced prisoners. My hon. Friends the Members for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) both made perfectly sensible points about the details and definitions in the Bill, what we can learn from the experience of Scottish prisons, which is a valid point, and what we might do with items that have been confiscated. That will be for individual prison governors to determine, but I am sure we will want them to consider all the excellent options that have been spoken about in the debate. I turn to the precise contents of the Bill. As my hon.”
“Of course, from some time ago until 2009, when that case was decided, prison governors routinely destroyed property as we hope they will now be able to do again. My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) raised a number of matters, and I am sure that some of them will be discussed at greater length in Committee. Both he and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) were concerned about the interests of remand prisoners. Of course, the items of property that the Bill will cover are not the ones that prisoners, remand or otherwise, properly disclose to the prison when they arrive. Those items are held for them and returned to them when they leave prison, whether following a not guilty verdict after a period of remand or following a sentence served.”
“He referred to several of the causes, one of which, regrettably, is that members of prison staff assist in the bringing in of illicit items. He will accept that it is only a very small minority of prison staff who do that. I think it is right for me to say, as this is my first opportunity to do so as Minister with responsibility for prisons, that those who work in our prisons, whatever they do, have a difficult and challenging job, and almost all of them do it extraordinarily well. We all have good reason to be grateful to them. The Bill will help them to do their job. For that reason, the Government are in favour of it and hope that it succeeds. The right hon. Member for Tooting rightly referred to the Coleman case, and I can reassure him that the Bill addresses the problems that it raised.”
“Friend the Member for Pudsey has provided the opportunity for a wide-ranging debate around its content. I will refer to some of the contributions that have been made by hon. Members in the course of that debate. I will begin with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who can never resist the temptation to speak in a debate with “prisons” in the title, and did not today. I am pleased to hear that he is happy with the comprehensive nature of the replies that he gets from the Ministry of Justice, even if, as I suspect, he is not quite so happy with the content. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley said that we should do all that we can to prevent the arrival of illicit items in prisons in the first place. I agree with him entirely about that.”
“It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to welcome the mood of general consensus, which was referred to by the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan). I accept his advice not to get used to it, certainly as far as those on the Opposition Front Bench are concerned, but I will enjoy it while it lasts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) on the Bill that he has brought forward and on his success in the ballot for private Members’ Bills. Both he and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) have made it clear that when one is successful in that ballot, one is never short of suggestions as to what one should do. I am sure the House will agree that both my hon. Friends have chosen well. In presenting the Bill, my hon.”
“Should the need arise, complainants will be able to bring proceedings against those truly responsible for statements.”