Sir Nicholas Dakin
MP for Scunthorpe · Labour · United Kingdom
“My hon. Friend is right. A local library is a very special place. It is a place of potential in every sense of the word by introducing children to the world of reading, shaping young minds through Baby Rhyme Time and giving agency and choice to young readers—no book is the wrong book—but also by helping people of all ages to develop wider…”
“Friend also specifically asked about the Government’s superintendence responsibilities. It is for the local council to determine how it will meet its statutory duty to deliver a comprehensive, efficient library service.”
“Between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026, DCMS directly engaged with 40 local authorities, which involved 62 conversations either in person or virtually. None of those conversations took place with Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council.”
“This Government are committed to restoring the stability of council funding, but there cannot be cuts of that scale over that period without a significant impact on services, including public library provision.”
“Certainly. It is always a negative thing when libraries’ time is cut, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East demonstrated in his speech. It is important that we remember that the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 requires all local authorities in England to provide a “comprehensive and efficient” library service.”
“It is important to note that the majority of funding in the local government finance settlement is not ringfenced for a reason. Local leaders are best placed to identify local priorities. It is for them to determine how funds are used to finance their activities to best meet local needs.”
The complete record
Every one of 601 lines we hold for Sir Nicholas Dakin, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 7 of 13.
“In fulfilment of that statutory obligation, the first review of the whiplash tariff was completed on 22 May 2024 and the Lord Chancellor published her report of the statutory review on 21 November 2024. Upon reviewing the 2021 regulations, the Lord Chancellor concluded that the structure and component parts of the whiplash tariff were effective. However, she recommended that the tariff amounts be uprated to account for consumer prices index inflation between 2021 and 2024, and to incorporate a three-year buffer to account for expected inflation until 2027. She did not consider that any other changes to the 2021 regulations were necessary.”
“The 2018 Act measures were supported by additional secondary legislative changes to increase the small claims track for road traffic-related personal injury claims from £1,000 to £5,000, and the introduction of a new pre-action protocol for personal injury claims below the small claims limit in road traffic accidents. At the same time, the insurance industry-owned and developed Official Injury Claim portal was launched to assist claimants affected by the reforms. The first whiplash tariff was set by the Whiplash Injury Regulations 2021, which came into force on 31 May 2021. The 2018 Act requires the Lord Chancellor to review the 2021 regulations, and thereby the whiplash tariff, within three years of its implementation and every three years thereafter.”
“The aim of the reforms was to ensure an efficient, proportionate and reliable system for both claimants and defendants involved in road traffic accident-related whiplash claims. At their core, the measures aim to reduce the number and cost of whiplash injuries and deliver savings to consumers via reduced motor insurance premiums. Elements of the reform programme were delivered by the Civil Liability Act 2018, which introduced several important changes to the civil claims process. Alongside measures that introduced a legal definition of what constitutes a whiplash injury and banned the settling of such claims without medical evidence, the 2018 Act empowers the Lord Chancellor to set a fixed tariff of damages for road traffic accident-related whiplash injuries lasting up to two years.”
“I beg to move, That the draft Whiplash Injury (Amendment) Regulations 2025, which were laid before this House on 20 March, be approved. This draft instrument amends the fixed tariff for whiplash compensation set by the Whiplash Injury Regulations 2021 by applying an inflationary uplift to the tariff values. In doing so, the amendment gives effect to recommendations made by the Lord Chancellor on 21 November 2024 following the completion of her statutory review of the 2021 regulations. By adjusting the whiplash tariff values to account for inflation, the Government will ensure that claimants can continue to receive proportionate compensation until the next review in 2027. The whiplash reform programme changed the way claimants are awarded damages for low-value whiplash injuries following road traffic accidents.”
“It was produced by His Majesty’s Treasury, which worked with the Financial Conduct Authority to fulfil its statutory obligation under section 11(7) of the Civil Liability Act 2018. Although it is a factual reporting of the information from insurers provided to HMT through the Financial Conduct Authority, it does not represent the Government’s view, so it is right and proper that, separately from the report, the Ministry of Justice will undertake a post-implementation review of the whiplash reforms later this year. I thank hon. Members for their contributions.”
“I thank hon. Members for their contributions to the debate and for the support of the Liberal Democrats and the official Opposition on the direction of travel. I am grateful to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller), for reminding us that behind every claim is a person, and that this is about helping real people and real lives. The official Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), rightly mentioned the report on reducing insurance costs for consumers. We share his and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson’s concern about that, which I think is felt across the House. The report was published on 27 March and shows that the whiplash reforms have reduced insurance costs for customers.”
“The Lord Chancellor was clear about her discontent with the guideline when it was published. It is our view that there should not be differential treatment before the law. The House will be pleased to hear that the Lord Chancellor met the chair of the Sentencing Council last week, and the discussion was constructive. It was agreed that the Lord Chancellor will set out her position more fully in writing, which the Sentencing Council will consider before the guideline is due to come into effect.”
“The Sentencing Council is independent of Parliament and Government. The council decides on its own priorities and workplan for producing guidelines. The Sentencing Council consulted the previous Government on a revised version of the imposition guideline, which included new guidance on pre-sentence reports. That consultation ran from November 2023 to February 2024. The previous Government responded to the consultation on the guideline on 19 February 2024. The former sentencing Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), who is now the shadow Transport Secretary, wrote to the chair of the Sentencing Council thanking him for the revisions to the guideline. In particular, he thanked the council for fuller guidance on the circumstances in which courts should request a pre-sentence report.”
“The former Minister for sentencing wrote a letter of welcome to the Sentencing Council setting this out on 19 February 2024. There is a process in place now that needs to be allowed to play out. We will not pre-empt that process.”
“There is one thing that we know about Labour Governments: they always have to clear up the mess left by Conservative Governments. That is what the Lord Chancellor is doing at the moment. She is clearing up the mess left by the previous Government: the clogged-up the courts, the overflowing prisons and the overworked Probation Service. Getting back to the facts of the case, the Lord Chancellor met the Sentencing Council last Thursday and had a constructive discussion. It was agreed that she will set out her position more fully in writing, which the Sentencing Council will then consider before the guidance is due to come into effect. This is serious government, not auditioning for government. The Conservatives were not only consulted; they welcomed these guidelines when they were in office.”
“My hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee makes a good point about the way in which the shadow Justice Secretary conducts himself. The important thing is that the Lord Chancellor had a constructive meeting with the chair of the Sentencing Council and there is now a process in place to address this issue.”
“The hon. Member is perfectly right to underline the importance of equality before the law. He gives me the opportunity to give a plug to the independent review of sentencing being conducted by David Gauke with an independent panel, which will address the issues that he has raised.”
“My hon. Friend is right to contrast the approach of the soundbites from the shadow Justice Secretary with the Justice Secretary’s approach of rolling up her sleeves and getting on with the job of sorting out the mess left in our prisons, Probation Service and courts.”
“The Father of the House and my constituency neighbour brings a constructive note, and I agree with exactly what he says. We have an independent judiciary that we should let get on with the job.”
“My hon. Friend is exactly right that pre-sentence reports play an important role, and we ought to applaud the work that the Probation Service and others do in preparing those reports. She is exactly right to point to how effective they are in helping with sentencing.”
“To be fair to the Conservatives, they did not work on the guidelines, but they were consulted on them, and they did respond to them in a positive way.”
“My hon. Friend is exactly right. The previous Government were fully involved in the consultation, and not only were they fully involved, but they welcomed it.”
“This is the third consecutive week in which we have discussed this in the House. We discussed it in the Lord Chancellor’s statement, we discussed it at Justice questions last week, and we are discussing it again today.”
“To be fair, the chair of the Sentencing Council met the Lord Chancellor last week, and it was a constructive meeting. He is awaiting a letter from the Lord Chancellor, which he promises the Sentencing Council will consider and respond to before 1 April.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend that the last Government appear to have been asleep at the wheel, rediscovering their mojo only once they were in opposition.”
“If the right hon. Lady stops gabbling and listens, I will attempt to answer her question. I think the right hon. Lady is getting a little ahead of herself. There is a process in place, and there has been a constructive meeting with the Sentencing Council. A letter is being sent to the Sentencing Council, and the Sentencing Council will respond.”
“Certain things are a matter of policy, and they are for the Government and for Parliament. We have had a constructive meeting with the Sentencing Council, a letter is going to the Sentencing Council, and the Sentencing Council will respond. We totally respect the independence of our judiciary.”
“I thank the right hon. Member for the constructive tone of his question. I refer him to the point about our not wanting to get ahead of ourselves. We need to allow the process to go forward, and to respect the Sentencing Council’s role in it; we will address things when we need to address them.”
“I am afraid that I am becoming a bit repetitive. There is a desire from Opposition Members to rush ahead, and I have great respect for that— [ Interruption. ] Well, you had 14 years, and what did you do in them? [ Interruption. ] Sorry, Mr Speaker, not you. Opposition Members are trying to rush ahead; we will take things steadily, at the right pace, with proper respect.”
“There was a constructive meeting. If the right hon. Member had been in it, I do not think he would have seen it as somebody “asking”. There was a constructive exchange of views, and there is a proper process in place, which I am confident will come up with the right answer.”
“The Government do not believe that there should be differential treatment before the law. The Lord Chancellor has been very clear about that. The “Equal Treatment Bench Book”, to which the hon. Member alludes, is written by and for the judges. Ministers have no involvement whatsoever in its content.”
“Policy decisions should always be made by this House; the hon. Member is absolutely correct about that. The background to where we are today is that the Sentencing Council consulted the Government of the day, members of whom are now on the Opposition Benches. The members of that Government were asleep at the wheel. Now it is down to this Government, yet again, to pick up the pieces they left for us and sort out their mess.”
“I have tried to explain this, and I will explain it once more. The Justice Secretary, the Lord Chancellor, has been extremely clear that she believes in equality before the law, and she is not happy with the guidelines. That is why she wrote as soon as they were published, unlike Conservative Members, who had sight of them earlier in the consultation. They went further than ignoring them; they responded to them in a very positive way.”
“The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to learn that I agree with him. The victims Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), is sitting next to me; we take victims very seriously. That is why there is a victims’ representative on the sentencing review panel. We need to make sure that victims are at the centre of whatever we do. I have met too many victims already in this role, and every time I meet them, it is very difficult—a little difficult for me, but hugely difficult for them, because they live this.”
“The Lord Chancellor has made her position clear. She immediately met the Sentencing Council, and she is writing to it again to set out her concerns, and the Sentencing Council has committed to responding to them quickly.”
“The consultation was held under the previous Government, who not only expressed no concern, but welcomed what the Sentencing Council was doing. Immediately on seeing the guidelines as drafted, the Lord Chancellor acted to sort out the mess left by the Conservative party.”
“The hon. Member reads out a phrase that was welcomed by the previous Government, but that the Lord Chancellor is objecting to and talking to the Sentencing Council about.”
“The letter the previous Government wrote to the Sentencing Council during the consultation is clear. The previous Government were not just consulted; they welcomed the guidance. The initial version of the guidance included reference to specific cohorts of offenders, including ethnic minorities.”
“This draft order can be seen as a corrective statutory instrument that simply delivers minor updates to the statute book for continuity purposes. As such, it does not bring about any practical changes to those affected by court and tribunal fees, and in fact ensures that the fees payable by the relevant court users remain the same. The amendments made by this draft order and its accompanying negative instrument represent the most pragmatic approach to keeping the Department’s fees legislation up to date.”
“The two respondents who disagreed had incorrectly assumed that the fee was being increased. I reassure Members that the number of variations between costs and fee values being corrected by this draft order and the accompanying negative instrument is considered higher than usual. That is because of the revisions brought about by the Department’s updated costing methodology. Although the costs underpinning HMCTS fees will be reviewed on an annual basis, I do not anticipate the need to amend this many fees each year, thanks to the improvements made by the new methodology. The three fees in question are charged in England and Wales only. This draft order will therefore have no effect on court fees in either Scotland or Northern Ireland.”
“I reiterate that this draft order merely maintains the status quo by not increasing the value of any of the three fees restated under the 2014 Act. As a result, there is no anticipated impact on users of the courts and tribunals. The negligible bearing this draft order will have on HMCTS users is echoed in the response to the previous Government’s 2023 consultation on a series of updates to court and tribunal fees. The consultation included a proposal to enhance the CTLO fee, but the other two fees in question had not yet been identified as over-recovering at the time of the consultation. Of those who responded to the proposal, 63% had no view and no further comments to share, and 17% agreed with the proposal, stating that enhancing the fee would not negatively impact users given that its current value of 50p would be retained.”
“The admiralty court charges several fees, which are payable on the sale of a vessel or goods, but the amount payable varies depending on the value of the ship. The fee relevant to this instrument applies to ships valued over £100,000. Unlike the flat CTLO and warrant of entry fees, this fee is £1 for every £100 of a ship’s value up to £100,000, and it increases by a further 50p for every £100 of the ship’s value above £100,000, with a minimum fee of £205. Although this fee does not attract the same volume as applications for CTLOs or warrants of entry, it still provides an important source of income for HMCTS because some ships are sold for several million pounds, meaning that even low annual volumes can result in the generation of notable overall income.”
“Enhancing the fee will not only ensure this crucial income is retained, but it will also remove the cost to the taxpayer of adjusting the fee in line with its regularly fluctuating cost. The second fee is charged at £22 for a warrant of entry. Such warrants are mostly applied for by utility companies to gain legal access to private premises. Similar to CTLOs, high volumes of these warrants are issued each year, generating £7.2 million in fee income for HMCTS in 2022-23 alone. Reducing the fee to cost would place significant financial pressure on the Department at a particularly challenging time. The third fee relates to ships or goods that are seized in the event of a breach and then sold off at auction.”
“That is why the majority of the 27 fees in question will be reduced, in line with their newly estimated costs, by an upcoming negative instrument, with only three enhanced by this affirmative instrument. I will explain the services to which the three fees covered by this draft order are attached, and why the Department deems it appropriate that each should be enhanced for the purpose of cross-subsidisation. The first is the 50p fee charged for a council tax liability order. This fee is payable by local authorities to legally demand payment of council tax arrears. HMCTS receives a high volume of CTLO applications each year, which raises significant income to support the running of the courts and tribunals. In 2022-23, 2.1 million CTLOs resulted in £1.1 million of fee income.”
“The revised costing methodology is an improved, more nuanced model that relies on data sources that were not available in the previous methodology. The powers under which the 27 fees are currently set allow them to recover a maximum of their underlying costs, which means that the fees must either be reduced to their estimated costs or kept as they are, albeit restated under the 2014 Act as enhanced fees. In line with Treasury principles, it is prudent for the Act to be used sparingly when setting fees that over-recover their cost. The Department’s position is therefore that the enhanced power should be reserved for fees that can generate substantial levels of income to cross-subsidise under-recovering parts of HMCTS, provided that doing so has a minimal impact on access to justice.”
“In line with His Majesty’s Treasury’s “managing public money” principles, most court fees are set to recover no more than the underlying estimate of what it costs HMCTS to run the corresponding service. Others are set deliberately below the cost of service to ensure that access to justice is protected, such as proceedings concerning domestic abuse. A minority of HMCTS fees are set under what is known as the enhanced power, via section 180 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. Enhanced fees can lawfully over-recover their underpinning costs to cross-subsidise HMCTS services, for which low or no fees are payable. Following a substantial review of my Department’s costing methodology in relation to court processes, the newly estimated costs of 27 fees were found to have fallen below previous estimates.”
“It simply changes the legislative power under which the three fees in question are set without amending the amount charged to HMCTS users. The amendments will protect at least £3.5 million a year in estimated income to help ensure that the courts and tribunals remain efficiently and effectively resourced, thereby reducing the overall cost to the taxpayer. A properly funded and functioning HMCTS is critical to upholding the Lord Chancellor’s statutory duty to protect access to justice. Fees are an essential source of funding for courts and tribunals, with over 300 fees charged for the various administrative and judicial services provided by HMCTS.”
“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Civil Proceedings and Magistrates’ Courts Fees (Amendment) Order 2025. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. This draft order makes a technical amendment to three court and tribunal fees to ensure they can continue to be charged at their current level by His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. This forms part of a wider set of amendments to 27 fees, the latest estimated costs of which have fallen below their current value. The 24 fees not included in this affirmative instrument will be reduced by a negative instrument that will shortly be laid before Parliament. No one will be required to pay a higher fee as a result of the changes made by this draft order.”
“I thank the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle for his contribution. He is right that any future changes should have proper scrutiny, like the scrutiny we are providing today, and the Government are always willing to commit to monitoring the impact of such changes such as those made by the draft order. However, I note that these decisions maintain what is currently happening, rather than bringing about any change to charges. All the funds will go directly into the justice system, as he rightly encourages, and fees will always be kept under proper review. Question put and agreed to .”
“As the hon. Member will know from his meeting with the Minster for Prisons in the other place, currently there are no plans to release land at Springhill Road. The Ministry of Justice is working closely with local representatives to ensure that we bring benefits to the local community as part of the new prison build.”
“Under the last Government, only 500 prison places were created. By contrast, the last Labour Government delivered 27,830. The Lord Chancellor has set out her ambition to deliver 14,000 new places by 2031. Almost 1,500 of those will be provided by the new prison in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency. If he writes to me about the specific concerns of the residents’ association, I will be happy to respond.”
“The decision to remand or bail an individual is solely a matter for the independent judiciary. Courts are required to considered the likelihood of absconding as part of that decision. The courts have the power to impose a broad range of robust bail conditions in the bail package, including electronic monitoring, exclusion zones and curfews. This Government are committed to ensuring that criminals face justice and victims have peace of mind and closure.”
“I understand that the case to which the hon. Gentleman refers took place under the last Government, and the men he referred to were tried in absentia. The Home Secretary set out the steps that the Government are taking to tackle the terrible crimes of child sexual exploitation and abuse, including group-based child sexual exploitation. Through the Crime and Policing Bill, we are legislating to make grooming an aggravating factor in the sentencing of child sexual offences, to ensure that it is properly reflected in the sentencing of perpetrators.”
“The Ministry of Justice recognises the benefits of mentoring in resettlement and is currently reviewing our approach to peer mentoring to make sure it is consistent and effective. There are many excellent organisations delivering a range of peer-led rehabilitation support, including Ingeus, Wizer and the Wise Group.”
“I applaud the work that the hon. Member describes. It is certainly the sort of work that needs to continue. Overall, the levels of homelessness and rough sleeping that we have inherited are far too high. We are working closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to develop a long-term strategy to put us back on track to end homelessness. If he wishes to write to me about that particular case, I will follow it up.”