Ms Marie Rimmer
MP for St Helens South and Whiston · Labour · United Kingdom
“I was thinking to myself about coming to this debate and what is going on in the world now. I was thinking about religion and belief and why people are fighting when they should not be. Every single religion is in this book and is represented with beads on this bracelet.”
“Thirdly, because the evidence before us shows that China’s repression is becoming more systematic, more legalised, more normalised and more exportable.”
“We should condemn the persecution of Uyghurs as what it is—a genocide. We should press for transparency in administrative and criminal detention, an end to secret detention practices, proper access to lawyers and families, and due process consistent with international standards.”
“It shows how the law in China is drafted in deliberately vague terms to condemn believers, vaguely accusing them of “harming national interests”, “disrupting social order”, “resisting infiltration” or “extremism.” Such phrases are not carefully bounded legal concepts; they are instruments of selective enforcement.”
“It means that every religious tradition must first be made subordinate to the ideology, priorities and authority of the Communist party. The goal is not merely to make religion Chinese, but to ensure that religion is stripped of its independence and made to serve the party’s political project.”
“The so-called Three-Self Patriotic Movement, a state-sponsored form of Chinese Christianity, is presented by the authorities as the legitimate framework for Protestant worship. This is not simply a matter of registration; it is a matter of subordination.”
The complete record
Every one of 606 lines we hold for Ms Marie Rimmer, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 12 of 13.
“This is a commendable step brought about through Marie McCourt’s tremendous efforts over 32 years and the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (Conor McGinn). Does my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) agree that although we still have a long way to go, this is a huge step in the right direction for justice for victims?”
“If we look at the Green Budget published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in February 2016, we see: “The current structure of alcohol duties is not well targeted at harmful alcohol consumption.” In fact, because local pubs cannot afford to offer the same prices as supermarket chains, people drink excessively at home in pre-drink sessions. They feel under pressure to drink as much alcohol as they can before going for a night out at a pub or wine bar, where prices for drinks are higher than in supermarkets, partly because of the way in which our taxes are applied.”
“We have many fantastic pubs across the constituency, including the Cricketers Arms, which deservedly won the 2017 national pub of the year award, but we have seen dozens of pubs close. Many local pubs across the country are struggling under current taxation arrangements, which makes it extremely difficult for local pubs to compete with massive supermarkets and large pub chains. People in the UK pay almost 40% of all the beer duty in the EU, while consuming only 12% of the beer. If we compare ourselves to similar sized nations such as Germany, their beer duty is 11 times lower than the UK’s rate. We need to ask ourselves why our taxation rate is so much higher. Some will argue that it is to discourage people from excess drinking: an aim I completely agree with. It is vital we make sure that people drink responsibly.”
“Pubs have always sat at the heart of our communities and our societies. I remember how my dad, at the end of a hard day’s work, would go to his local for a pint to enjoy the companionship and relax. If we look back at history, we see how many of our rights originate from people sitting down in the local and planning for a better world: democracy, workers’ rights, trade unions. All of those had many of their roots in this country in the local pub. Even today, pubs play an important role. They are where we celebrate our success in work, love and life. It is where we cheer on our nations in sport and mourn our losses in wakes, raising a parting glass for those we have lost. Pubs remain an integral part of the St Helens, Whiston and Prescot communities.”
“I also call on the Government to implement a modest cut in beer duty so that we can help our local pubs. As the hon. the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood) has said, 250,000 people have signed up to the Long Live the Local campaign, showing that the British people want to protect our pubs. Let us take the steps necessary to ensure that our great British institutions do not have to call for last orders permanently. I urge the Government to act.”
“Of course it is. We have heard colleagues talk about it today. If the aim is to raise money for the Exchequer, I agree with that aim, as taxes are important and pay for the vital things our society needs. However, the brewing and pub industry is a massive employer, with almost 900,000 jobs across the UK. The loss of those jobs would have a major impact on our economy and offset much of the income from the high taxes. We also find that the taxes are not applied evenly, with wine and spirits’ duty rates per litre of pure alcohol on an almost constant decline since 1978, yet beer has largely stayed constant and has gone up in some cases. I therefore call on the Government to look at the way in which we support our local pubs. One way to do it is by improving the current structure of the small brewers relief.”
“2. What assessment he has made of trends in the number of looked-after children in out-of-area placements as a result of the unavailability of a place in their home local authority.”
“The Minister clearly does not understand the reasons for the increasing use of out-of-area placements. It is because of a lack of resources to meet the needs, and these children are going into out-of-area placements in unregulated care that is not registered with Ofsted, without the support they need. It is also because of a lack of available places in their area. It is a massive problem. The Minister clearly does not understand that the increasing use of out-of-area placements, and particularly unregulated supported living, has left more children at risk of not receiving the appropriate health and social care and support from Government and the police, and at risk of exploitation by criminals. This is happening—not just in my constituency, but in Conservative Members’ constituencies.”
“We have heard declarations from Members on the Government Front Bench, including the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, that austerity is over. The Queen’s Speech refers to cross-party consensus on social care reform. I therefore call on Ministers to put this into action. The Government must release the long delayed Green Paper on the future of social care funding. They must also begin a bottom-up review and restructure the way in which we fund social care for children, young people and adults. We must also see an end to austerity and an increase in local government funding that matches the ever-growing responsibilities and pressures that it is facing. It is councils that are looking after the public, not us. They are facing the problems, and we have to provide the resources and structures to enable them to do so.”
“Councils continue to see their responsibilities increase, with the deprivation of living safeguards, the independent living fund, the Care Act 2014 and transforming care—to name a few. Despite this increase in responsibility, local councils have not seen their funding increase in line. In fact, much more they have seen it decrease. Knowsley, which is one part of my borough, has seen £100 million in cuts in its budget since 2010, with St Helens making £90 million of cuts. The increase in social care funding recently announced for 2020-21 is welcome, but it is not enough to meet current, let alone future, demands. However, there is no news on 2021 onwards. How can local authorities properly plan to meet this statutory duty?”
“In the past two weeks, an additional 52,000 hours of domiciliary care have been commissioned by St Helens Council—not far off £1 million—which can be at between £12 and £20 per hour. This shows an increase in demand as finances are being cut, with more pressure on the care system and people not receiving the care they need. Without this care, many are driven into hospitals, leading to increased pressures on hospitals. Just on one day last week, Whiston Hospital pleaded with the public not to go to A&E. It had 35 ambulances parked outside waiting for space—space, rather than beds, because the corridors were filled with patients receiving inappropriate care on stretchers. It is now applying to install a two-storey Portacabin to create 60 beds. And this is in an outstanding hospital in this country that has been built for only 10 years.”
“But those young people who are being placed in unregulated or unregistered care because of a lack of other provision, many of whom have learning difficulties, are far more likely to be vulnerable to predatory groups such as county lines gangs, which are so prevalent in communities like mine. This situation has worsened since I last spoke. It is not just our youngest who are being let down by a lack of funding. On the opposite end of the spectrum, our adult social care system is on the brink of collapse. Vulnerable adults are also facing the impact of austerity policies. Some 44% of expenditure by Knowsley Council is on adult social care and adult services budgets, and in St Helens we have seen a 40% net reduction in available resources due to austerity cuts. Every £1 million of shortfall equates to 62,500 hours of domiciliary care.”
“In St Helens, the greatest financial pressure on the council is children’s social care costs, and particularly looked-after children. In just 10 years, expenditure on those children is expected to have risen from £10.5 million to £25.5 million this year. That is an increase of £15 million—143%. I ask Ministers to consider the challenge presented to that local authority, and there are many more like it. Often we are not necessarily speaking about good-quality care, as more and more councils are being forced to rely on unregulated care, care not registered with Ofsted and out-of-borough care, away from the child’s support network. I have spoken about these issues before, so I will not go into too much detail; Members can look at what I have said.”
“There are now more than 78,000 children in care in England alone, and as of 31 December last year a total of 529 young children were in the care of St Helens local authority—63 more than the previous year and approximately double the national average. It is an unfortunate reality that there will always be children in need of care. However, I am sure that Members would agree that those numbers are far too high. Demand is outstripping provision and resources. Another fundamental reason why care is so pressured is a lack of funding right across local authorities, affecting youth services and education. Support staff are no longer in schools to help keep children in mainstream education, which drives them out. Last year, councils had to overspend by £800 million to keep children safe.”
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes) on his speech, which gave much laughter. I wish him luck on receiving those cheques, and I hope that those of us on the Opposition Benches will get some as well. One of the most important responsibilities of any Government is the protection of society’s most vulnerable people. It is not some utopian ideal to believe that we must protect our young and look after our elderly. It is, in fact, a basic measure of a just and compassionate society, as well as a statutory duty for local councils. Sadly, in both those respects, this nation is falling short. In the past decade, we have seen the number of children in care increase by 28%.”
“Does the right hon. Lady remember that the last Labour Administration picked up the biggest ever debt from any previous Government? And that was a Conservative Government.”
“We in St Helens have integrated adult social care and health, and it is superb, but we could do far more with just a little extra funding in social care. It needs to go there as well as health. It is superb. Please invest more in public services.”
“I implore this and any future Government to implement regulations and oversights for private children’s homes and supported children, as well as procedures for placing a child out of borough. We need to increase the resources for care, education and safeguarding activities. Basically, we need to invest in children. I applaud St Helens and Whiston Hospitals, which are among the nine most outstanding hospitals, but they suffer from recruitment problems and nursing shortages for the very reasons my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton mentioned in her speech. We must safeguard our children and invest in our public services—for children, adults and children in need of care—and in adult social care and health.”
“I reiterate that we have vulnerable children who have been moved miles away from homes, families, friends and neighbours—essentially, any positive support structure that they might have had—to an area that they do not know, into an unregulated private accommodation system of inconsistent quality. Is it any wonder that we have seen the travesty of county lines drugs gangs expanding? It is completely unacceptable. We are failing these young people. We are responsible for their hope, safety and future. The system and procedures are not safeguarding these vulnerable children. We must safeguard them and stop exposing them to criminal exploitation by these 21st-century Fagins.”
“The corporate parenting responsibility is the home borough’s. In St Helens alone, there are roughly 25 unregulated children’s homes, hosting up to 120 out-of-borough children. The management and staff of these homes do not have the authority or skills to prevent these vulnerable children from going out into the hazardous world, where gangsters target them and promise them status and money that they have never seen before trapping them in a world of intimidation and fear, where they get locked into criminal activity, trafficking drugs across county lines. Essentially, these are apprenticeships into organised crime.”
“Supported children are at serious risk of exploitation by drug smugglers, county lines operators and gangsters. Management and staff are not trained to the level required to adequately support these children, who are going through the difficult transitional years from childhood to adulthood. There are no minimum standards set out in law for unregulated 16-plus provision. Compounding that issue is the fact that these children are classed as self-sufficient. They manage their health and finances and may leave accommodation as and when they please, as they are deemed autonomous. We are seeing more and more of these children being sent to north-western towns, where housing costs are well below the national average, with some hosting authorities having as many as 300 out-of-borough children.”
“Drug gangs are empowered by these underfunded public services, as they feed on families suffering from income poverty and its physical and mental strain. These strains on families and insufficient local resources have led to an expansion in the number of children who have been placed in supported living—an unregulated provision not monitored by Ofsted—and children being placed out of borough. The resources available are not meeting the needs of children—as shown in the shortage of adoptive parents and fostering parents and the lack of resources for looked-after children and supported children—and that has driven up costs and led to a lack of specialist provision and the expansion of unregulated private children’s homes. A system that was designed to be flexible and used in extremes is now used to plug a hole in the system.”
“I applaud local police and the National Crime Agency for the UK’s biggest ever drugs operation recently, in which we saw countrywide dawn raids and arrests from London and Manchester to St Helens. They smashed the UK’s biggest ever drug-smuggling gang and seized the largest ever drugs haul. I commend those public services. That leads me to what we can do in this House to make things better and how we can help to attack the rapid expansion of the complex issue of county lines drug gangs. The financial inability of public service departments to provide necessary early interventions to struggling families, prevention services and distracting and diversionary safeguards, such as youth activities, is another factor.”
“I would first like to commend my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes). I agree with all her speech, but in particular the part about dangerous driving. The family of Violet-Grace Youens, aged four, and the community of St Helens, will be deeply let down by the lack of action following the Lord Chancellor’s commitment relating to death by dangerous driving. We will not cease until the law is changed, and we want that to be done quickly. I welcome the uplift in police funding, but it will barely begin to fix the damage caused in the UK by austerity and the symptoms that that has created. We must, could and should provide more.”
“First, will the Leader of the House advise the House when the Government intend to share with it their black swan scenario for a no-deal Brexit? Secondly, have the business and health sectors been advised accordingly?”
“Someone serving a short sentence is much more likely to go back to prison. The revolving door of reoffending goes round about 11 times. The reoffending rate among young people is 65%. I beg the Minister: please get someone to sit down and do some strategic planning and thinking, because at the moment it is just a case of hand-to-mouth spending and putting sticking plaster over where it is needed. There is a lot of money, but it is not being used efficiently because this is not being planned.”
“The cost of keeping young people locked up—and that is what they are, locked up—is much higher. In one young people’s prison, Werrington, it is just pounds less than £125,000 a year. I am sure that there are much better ways in which we can help those young people to become better citizens and contribute to society when they come out of prison. The prisons are violent, ineffective and overcrowded. The cost of imprisoning an adult is £40,000 a year. We need to do something radical to reduce the prison population, so that people who need to be and should be in there can be rehabilitated, and those who need help outside and can be dealt with outside are dealt with outside. The spending has been chaotic. As we heard earlier, the rate of reoffending is at 48.3%, and the rate among those serving short sentences is 64%.”
“I sincerely hope that it is, because previous allocations have not been spent. The £385 million went over to resource spending and the £230 million under the previous Prisons Minister was spent on increasing prison capacity. This leaves just £685 million of the £1.3 billion allocated for new spend. The outturn—actual spending—on allocations is down to 39% in some years and that is not good. It is all very well to make the announcement, but if the money is not spent, we have an announcement with nothing to show for it. The basic conditions in our prisons are absolutely shameful. Most of them are Victorian. The cells are deplorable. People come out brutalised. Some of them have to remain locked up for 23 hours a day. What chance is there of rehabilitation?”
“Here’s the interesting part: the MOJ agreed with the Treasury that the capital funding not being utilised could be used to fund current spending—that is day-to-day resource allocation—and £385 million was transferred from capital to resource. This was a one-off, so it won’t be there next year. Once it is spent, it is spent. It is not sustainable. It was essential to providing the day-to-day services and to paying the salaries of people in the prison system. There was not enough resource allocation. The £385 million could be seen as a further cut to planned, shall we say, capital investment in our prisons, on top of what we talked about earlier. In 2019, we had an announcement of £2.5 billion, which we were told was capital investment and would be spent on creating modern and efficient prisons.”
“This is capital investment not going into this old estate that people are living in. We are supposed to be rehabilitating them so that they do not reoffend. In 2016, the Government announced £1.3 billion for a prison estate transformation programme to create 10,000 prison places by 2020. That was then revised to 2022. Two new prisons were to be constructed and four were to be redeveloped. In 2017, the planned maintenance programme was postponed. Two of the redevelopments were put on hold. The building of a new prison in Wellingborough has started and the construction of a second, Glen Parva, is planned for 2020.”
“Those women could be treated much better outside, with the support they need to keep them away from crime. They could be rehabilitated and it would save us money as well. It has been chaotic in the prison system. Most of the prisons are Victorian. There is no planned maintenance programme. Everything is reactionary. It is an inefficient use of what capital resources we have. The capital allocation for 2009-10 was £716 million in real terms. In 2010-11, that changed to £63 million, a real-terms cut in the allocation—it is important to remember that this was a one-year allocation—of £654 million. That was a 91% cut in the first year. The annual allocation steadily reduced from £63 million a year to just £33 million a year, a real-terms cut of 47%. It was as low as £13 million in 2015-16, a real-terms cut of 50%.”
“I want this to be considered against a backdrop of increased demand, which is not in the MOJ’s control. We have seen budget cuts of 40%. Planned efficiencies taken into account in budget planning did not materialise. We have also seen cohort changes: historical sex offenders and elderly people with ill health issues requiring care, attention and hospital escorts for heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, rheumatism and mental health illness. It is shameful to see these people in prison. We have young people with learning difficulties, autistic people, people with drugs and substance addiction and women, particularly young mums, separated from children. There is the issue of short-term sentences. Ten per cent. go through the gates—thank God it is 10% and not more.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (David Hanson) and particularly the Chairman of our Select Committee, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). I want to repeat some of what previous speakers have said. The Department has seen its budget slashed by more than 40% since 2010—the greatest cuts of any Department. A great man, Winston Churchill, said, “You judge a society by the way it treats its prisoners”. He would not be very proud of the way we have treated them in recent years. Last year, the Ministry of Justice’s total budget was £8 billion—just 1% of total Government expenditure, as the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) said—but the cost of reoffending has now risen to £18 billion a year. I want to focus on prison and probation.”
“It is time that Governments got together and took heed. We do not know what other countries are paying. It might be less than our £300,000 or it might not, but something must happen. Get together and put the pressure on, but please, please secure these drugs for our children.”
“I thank the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) for securing this urgent question. Will the Minister, while working to secure the funding of the drug Brineura to help sufferers of Batten disease such as my young constituent Kaycee Bradshaw, look at how we can help to prevent companies such as BioMarin from charging extortionate fees for life-changing drugs? Sadly, this company also charges beyond the NICE framework for Kuvan, a vital drug needed by my young constituent Liam, who suffers from PKU. BioMarin made a net-product revenue increase for 2018 of $31.3 million from Brineura and $26.1 million from Kuvan, and $1.5 billion from across its range of drugs. This, by my standards, is a clear example of playing profits with people’s lives. It hurts even more that it is children who are suffering. It is not on.”
“Even then, we can see the negative effect on adults. I therefore call on the Government to follow the lead of countries such as Belgium and step in to deal with gambling mechanics and their impact on the mental health of our children.”
“Within the box, they might get a piece of very good equipment, a rare boost or a character that will give them an edge when playing online against other people, or they might get something that is rubbish. If they already have it, it is virtually useless to them. To put it in plain English, loot boxes or “surprise mechanics” are essentially gambling. The mechanics also have no impact on the age rating for a game, meaning that young people of all age ranges can be exposed to what are basically gambling mechanics. I am not someone who believes that video games are bad for young people and rot their brains, as some would put it, but such gambling can have a negative effect on young people’s mental health and cause addiction. There is a reason why we have age restrictions for fruit machines and gambling websites.”
“The lesson material is often put together by a teacher who happens to have the time or by a third-party company that knows little to nothing about it. Neither of them may have the necessary subject matter expertise. I call on the Government to get to grips with the issue and make PSHE a statutory subject with guidelines on the content of the subject area, so that the situation does not essentially amount to, “It’s up to you.” There should be a key focus on mental health, which is too important to have such vague guidelines. Finally, I want to touch upon the subject of loot boxes in video games. For those who do not know, loot boxes are a mechanic in video games that require someone to pay money to get a box or a pack.”
“Frankly, the provision is woefully inadequate for the issues it is trying to tackle. There is little to no guidance from central Government, and how the provision is conceived and delivered is almost completely up to the school. That has produced an almost laughable system where each school can have a completely different interpretation of the curriculum and its requirements. One school might require just 15 minutes a week during form time, yet 30 minutes down the road, another school might give an hour’s lesson once a week. Within that time, teachers are expected to cover everything from mental health to how mortgages work, to sexuality, to how Government and this place works, all with little to no guidance. Many schools simply do not provide the time required to tackle the subjects properly.”
“I emphasise that when we look at the Government’s funding plans for young people’s mental health—they are welcome, but could stand to go further—we should not forget the vulnerable young people who have been taken out of mainstream schools and placed under the care of the UK’s judicial system. Many of those young people may not understand why they are there, and they are placed under stress and pressure that even we as adults would struggle to cope with. We must ensure that does not lead to the degradation or further degradation of their mental health, which may damage their chances of rehabilitation. Secondly, I want to raise the issue of personal, social, health and economic education—also known as PSHE, and formally known as citizenship—for those young people still within our education system.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I applaud the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) for securing this debate. Children and young people’s mental health is incredibly important. I appreciate the contributions of other Members. I have similar situations of children suffering in my constituency, but I will not repeat them. I want to focus on three issues that are important to the mental health of our young people. First, I want to raise the issue of young people’s mental health within our judicial system, which I spoke about in this Chamber only a few months ago when I highlighted how young people with mental health issues had been forgotten in the Government’s response to the Justice Committee’s report on the disclosure of youth criminal records.”
“I ask everyone here today, is that truly a sentence that fits the crime that was committed? I believe that most, if not all, of us would say no. Clearly, the 164,632 people who signed the petition would agree.”
“She was so pleased, and she used to dance around singing, “I’m the boss of the angels, I’m the boss of the angels.” Her kidney and pancreas were donated to save the lives of two other young children. Nan, a nurse who trained at Great Ormond Street Hospital, suffered numerous injuries and was in a critical condition. It was a miracle that she survived, but she had life-changing injuries. Grandad, a university lecturer, has had to retire to take care of her—all that while the driver was in Amsterdam clearing his head. Earlier, I said that all we are asking for is a sentence that fits the crime that has been committed. The two men responsible for Violet-Grace’s death will serve less time in prison than she was alive—less than four and a half years. In fact, by pleading guilty, and with good behaviour, the driver might be out even sooner.”
“They knew her as a loving, caring child, always wanting to help others. They courageously decided to donate her organs to help to save other young children’s lives. They say that that is what Violet-Grace would have wanted. It was suggested that Rebecca get into bed with Violet-Grace, but she was reluctant to do so with all the tubes and equipment around her. She was persuaded to do so. She prayed and pleaded, “Please breathe, please breathe.” Violet-Grace passed away with the local priest, Father Tom Neylon, saying prayers around her. He checked the time: it was 11.58 pm on 25 March. He said, “Ah, today is the day that the angel Gabriel came down to tell Mary she is to have a baby called Jesus.” The family wept. Violet-Grace was the angel Gabriel in her school’s nativity play.”
“A fireman working in the area heard the noise and saw two young men running at speed. He ran to the main road, found the scene and Violet-Grace, and worked with a local dentist to resuscitate her. The driver fled the country and travelled to Amsterdam to “clear his head” by getting some weed. He then fled to Alicante. Glenn Youen received a phone call at work to tell him to get to Whiston Hospital urgently. Rebecca, who was working in Warrington Hospital, received a similar call. She set off driving—sobbing—and spotted a parked police car. She got out, banged on the window and pleaded for help, so the police took her under blue light to Whiston Hospital. Violet-Grace’s injuries were horrific, and it was essential to move her to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. Rebecca and Glenn were told that she could not survive her injuries.”
“Her nan had lifted her up to carry her safely across the road, but had not put a foot on the road when she was struck by a stolen vehicle, which had been recklessly driven at 83 miles per hour in a 30-mile zone before it collided and mounted the pavement. The stolen car that struck them was fitted with false numberplates and had a cloned key. The driver had no licence or insurance. The Independent Police Complaints Commission later reported that there had been complaints about the car being driven dangerously since noon that day. The driver and his passenger then fled the scene, running over Violet-Grace, who had been thrown 50 yards away. The passenger ran back to the car, stepping over the child again, to retrieve a bag that he needed. The whole incident was witnessed by her four-year-old cousin.”
“The judge accepted that, so the CPS barrister gave the parents a copy of the victim impact statement with the parts that they could not read out in open court highlighted. The whole purpose of the victim impact statement is the impact on the victims and the survivors, not the defendant. Guidance should be given to the judiciary that the overriding consideration is for the victim and their family, not whether the impact statement may upset the defendant. We are asking for a sentence that fits the crime. Violet-Grace was a beautiful, angelic-looking four-year-old child. Some hon. Members may find the following upsetting—my family have not been able to say it or hear it. On Friday 24 March, she was simply walking home from pre-school and calling on her aunty and her four-year-old cousin with her nan.”
“Rebecca and Glenn are asking for the law to be changed and for a sentence that fits the crime: “Life sentences for Death by Dangerous Driving”, as the petition states. That will hopefully deter others from reckless driving, so that what happened to Violet-Grace does not happen to another child—or, if it does, so that those responsible receive a sentence that fits the crime they have committed and that gives them the time necessary to reflect, to be rehabilitated, and to have proper regard for, consideration of and understanding of their actions. The law must be improved for victims and survivors. In the case that we are discussing, the defendant’s barrister objected to the parents reading out their full impact statement and argued that the defendants would find it too upsetting.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I compliment my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) for her excellent introduction and the work that she has obviously put into the debate. I pay tribute to other hon. Members who have contributed. I praise the three people who have made the debate happen: Rebecca and Glenn, who are present in the Chamber, and Violet-Grace, whose tragic and senseless death is the reason for it. I praise everyone who has signed the petition, and I praise the St Helens Star and the whole St. Helen’s community for supporting Rebecca and Glenn’s tireless work to get their e-petition signed, to get the debate and to prevent something similar from happening in future.”
“How can we not give our judges the option to deliver a sentence at least on a par with gross negligence manslaughter for dangerous driving? Another issue that I wish to raise on behalf of Rebecca and Glenn, and that I believe falls within the scope of this debate, is concurrent sentencing. Rebecca, Glenn and many others think it is unacceptable that criminals can serve two sentences at the same time. They describe it as “buy one, get one free”. The crux of this issue is that the current legal system does not adequately explain to victims what is happening, and thus it does not appear to be delivering the justice it is supposed to deliver.”