YouSaid · the spoken record
Josh Babarinde
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On the record 2024–2026
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“It means a lot to be speaking about this Bill as the Liberal Democrats’ justice spokesperson, but also as someone who has engaged extensively with the criminal justice system as a victim. When I came out the other end of a gruelling Crown court trial as a victim several years ago, I pledged to myself that I would do everything I could to play a part in fixing a system that too often re-traumatises and punishes victims. When I was part of survivors group therapy with Survivors UK a few years ago, I processed my experiences of abuse alongside 11 other brave men, some of whom are watching today. I swore to those lads that I would never forget their stories, and that I would do what I could to help transform our pain into justice for victims and survivors in the future.”
House of Commons20 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We look forward to supporting the Bill and its efforts to ensure that victims are heard, protected and respected. We will challenge the Government to go further and faster to ensure that victims and survivors get the support they deserve and that they do not pay the price for the neglect they were subject to under the previous Government.”
House of Commons20 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“She ought to have the right to it, so I hope the Government will be able to help us on that matter. A third gap is on national insurance contributions. We need support for victims’ charities, who have said that the hike in contributions in the Budget will take their services and the victims who rely on them to the brink. A fourth gap is on family courts. We need measures to prevent abusers from using parental alienation proceedings to perpetrate their abuse. A fifth gap is on the court backlogs, which leave so many victims in the lurch for years—when can victims expect to see measures to tackle them? In conclusion, the Liberal Democrats are concerned that these gaps in the Bill risk overshadowing many measures that I know Ministers have been working hard on.”
House of Commons20 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This is exclusionary justice, delivered at an eye-watering price. As well as campaigning for the pilot to be extended, we would therefore push the Government to expand it to cover a far wider pool of victims and survivors. On a similar note, as a constituency MP, I encourage the Government to take steps to encourage not just written but audiovisual records of court proceedings to be made available to victims and survivors. A mother came to a recent constituency surgery to share with me that her son, who has special educational needs and is non-verbal, was restrained on home-to-school transport, and legal proceedings were kicked off as a result. The mother did not get to see the video evidence of the incident until the court case, and has had no access to that harrowing and traumatic evidence since.”
House of Commons20 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is absolutely right; it is critical not only that victims’ rights are strengthened, but that victims have the knowledge of those rights and entitlements so that they can invoke them, enforce them and, fundamentally, benefit from them. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park has been urging the Government to make permanent the pilot scheme that affords victims of rape and other sexual offences a record of their sentencing remarks free of charge. She has campaigned on this issue for years, not just since the populist bandwagon has been in town, like some others in this House. With the pilot scheme ending imminently, we must not return to a world in which some victims are charged up to a staggering £22,000 just to see a write-up of their case.”
House of Commons20 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One of Eastbourne’s last surviving world war two veterans, the incredible Eric Deach, celebrates his 100th birthday three weeks today, on 9 June. Will the Secretary of State join me in wishing him a very happy centenary, and thank him for his service to our country?”
House of Commons19 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“This Government must urgently restore trust, and I have a few questions in pursuit of that. First, how will the Minister proactively communicate with all those affected about this breach to provide guidance and support? Secondly, will she consider launching a dedicated advice line, for example, for anyone who is worried about what it means for them? Thirdly, the Legal Aid Agency’s services were taken offline last Friday, as the Minister confirmed, so how will she ensure that that does not compromise people’s access to legal aid in the meantime? Finally, will the Government conduct a cyber-security review of all the systems they use across their remit to identify and address further vulnerabilities before they are exploited at the expense of our constituents?”
House of Commons19 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. Hundreds of thousands of people across the country, including many in my patch of Eastbourne, will be hugely concerned that their information is in the hands of deplorable criminals whose identities we do not know and whose further intentions are unclear, and who should face the full force of the law. The damage is especially profound, because the state’s inability to steward the public’s data undermines people’s trust in our justice system. More than that, given that legal aid applicants are the victims, the data breach risks disproportionately undermining the trust of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The previous Government should hang their heads in shame for ignoring the Law Society’s 2023 calls to address those vulnerabilities when they had the chance.”
House of Commons19 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“How is the MOJ robustly rehabilitating violent offenders to reduce the risk they pose to prison officers and our communities?”
House of Commons12 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“No prison officer should go to work in fear that they may leave in an ambulance. I therefore send my sympathies and those of the Liberal Democrats to the officer injured at HMP Belmarsh. Assaults on prison staff have doubled since 2015—a reality for which the Conservatives should hang their heads in shame. The Government must now get a grip. The Prison Officers Association, which is holding its conference in my constituency this week, has requested more protective equipment. The Ministry of Justice is reviewing that, but will it accelerate the review to ensure that officers get that support now, not next month? Recruitment and retention issues also compromise prison officers’ safety, so what are the Government doing to address that? Will not discontinuing prison officer graduate schemes such as Unlocked Graduates compromise safety?”
House of Commons12 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“East Sussex Hearing is a charity in Eastbourne that supports people with hearing disabilities to break barriers to opportunity through provision of life-changing hearing equipment and support. It is keen to work with the local hospital trust and integrated care board to take its services to more people. Will the Minister back its efforts to engage with the trust and ICB to help bring its charitable services to more people with hearing disabilities in Eastbourne and beyond?”
House of Commons7 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“2. Whether she has had discussions with Cabinet colleagues on the potential merits of creating a new offence of domestic abuse to help tackle violence against women and girls in Wales.”
House of Commons30 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I asked the Government via a written parliamentary question how many domestic abusers there are in prison in Wales, and what their reoffending rate is. The response was: “It is not possible to robustly calculate the number of domestic abusers in prison or their reoffending rate…because these crimes are recorded under the specific offences for which they are prosecuted”. There is no specific offence of domestic abuse in law, which means we are not recording this comprehensively, we are not rehabilitating comprehensively and we are not protecting victims comprehensively. If the Government do not create an offence, as I have proposed, what will they do to protect the victims and survivors and to better identify these abusers?”
House of Commons30 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Eastbourne war veteran Staff Sergeant Pauline Cole sustained injuries while serving our country. She was awarded military compensation, but because military compensation is currently considered income by this Government, her pension credit has been cut from £77 a week to just £11 a week. We have met the relevant Minister to try to address this to no avail. With the 80th anniversary of VE Day just next week, will the Prime Minister meet Pauline, who is in the Gallery, and I to address this injustice and ensure that no veteran is penalised for serving our country?”
House of Commons30 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That has left judges and magistrates with fewer resources and insights than ever with which to go about their work. Less informed sentencing means less satisfactory sentencing outcomes. It means more reoffending, more victims and more turmoil, and that is unacceptable. That is not justice. This is a product of the under-investment in our Probation Service—it compiles the reports—which was gutted under the Conservative Government. I therefore welcome the fact that the Minister, in his closing speech on Second Reading, agreed with me that “the debate should be about how we move to universality of pre-sentence reports, not about rationing.” —[ Official Report , 22 April 2025; Vol. 765, c. 1019.] I will come to new clause 1 shortly.”
House of Commons30 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I made the Liberal Democrat position on this very short Bill, and on this issue more widely, abundantly clear in the last debate that we had on this matter: we believe in equality before the law, we believe in the rule of law, and we believe that no one is above the law. That is why we believe that anyone facing the prospect of a custodial sentence should be the subject of a pre-sentence report. We believe that the state has that duty before dispensing its power to deprive someone of their liberty. There is no world in which judges and magistrates having more information about an offender, whoever they are, and their circumstances is a bad thing. That is why it is an injustice that the use of pre-sentence reports had fallen from 160,000 in 2015 to just 90,000 by 2023, which is a cut of 42%.”
House of Commons30 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not know whether the hon. Member has read the Sentencing Council’s summary of the responses to the draft guidance that was in consultation under the Conservative Government, but it paraphrased magistrates and judges as saying that driving the universality of pre-sentence reports would be challenging in the light of the limited resource for the Probation Service and of the court backlogs. I would suggest that he consult that document to see the phrases used by those legal professionals.”
House of Commons30 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Plainly and simply, this is about the shadow Justice Secretary attempting to hijack our criminal justice system for his own political ends. So desperate is he to score political points that he uses his platform in this House to undermine judges by name, in the full knowledge that they cannot respond and that there is a formal process by which judicial complaints can be investigated and addressed. So desperate are the Conservatives to score political points that they paint judges as activist villains and are working to undermine public confidence in them just because the shadow Justice Secretary does not agree with their rulings.”
House of Commons30 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) was making the point that these reports should exist come what may, the cash should be ringfenced and earmarked for the use of judges and magistrates to request them, but he and the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) cannot have it both ways. We know that if we best tailor a sentence to whether it will result in somebody not reoffending—if we best match the sentence to an offender—we can spend to save. If we can reduce reoffending by ensuring that people get the appropriate sentence, we will keep people out of our crumbling prisons who do not need to be there because they will not reoffend in the first place. We can spend to save. I regret that this issue has become a political football and one that is sowing the seeds of division.”
House of Commons30 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I refer the hon. Member to the comments the shadow Justice Secretary made at the last Justice questions—I think the hon. Member was not in attendance for that—when he named a specific judge and made a critique of or complaint about them outside the formal processes.”
House of Commons30 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I do not agree that vilification is the right approach from any side of the argument. This debate should be conducted with respect and courtesy, and I feel that that was missing from some of the comments I just referred to. Absolutely, there must be accountability. Indeed, the previous Government were held accountable in huge respect at the general election, where they suffered the biggest defeat in their history. So desperate is the shadow Justice Secretary to rise to the top of our democracy that he is prepared, in the ways I have described, to undermine our democracy itself.”
House of Commons30 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We make the call I have just made not only because we have grave concerns about the impact of the proposed changes, but because we remain steadfastly committed to evidence-based policy making. Against the backdrop of cynical culture wars and leadership manoeuvres, it is more important than ever for the Government to assess the outcomes of this policy, with assessments based on statistics, data and evidence as opposed to dogma and ideology. To conclude, we must not dance to the tune of the populists or the culture war fanatics, or undermine our legal institutions. As such, our position has not changed since last time and we will act accordingly. We will defend our judicial system and its independence, but we reject short-term reforms that fail to address the wider issues of disproportionality at play.”
House of Commons30 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One problem with the proposals is that consultation has been minimal. They come from a rushed place. They come from a place of responding to a culture war. We are voting on people’s liberties and we need to consider the issues in great detail before responding, not in a knee-jerk way. What I can say, and what I have discussed with Members, including the Lord Chancellor, is that, for example, in the guidance on pre-sentence reports, the circumstances of victims of domestic violence, modern slavery and so on should be considered. As I said at the very beginning of my speech, on pre-sentence reports we should lean toward a presumption of universality rather than one of rationing, so that for all the groups and individuals that have just been mentioned, and more, judges can access a pre-sentence report.”
House of Commons30 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I would argue that, in cases where there have already been criminal court proceedings, even one additional sheet of paper to fill in is too many. As a survivor of abuse myself, which I have spoken about in this Chamber, in the House and elsewhere, I personally found the prospect of the criminal injuries compensation scheme process too much to engage with.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The criminal injuries compensation scheme has become a maze of bureaucracy, and is unknown to swathes of victims and those who support them. I think we can all agree that it is in urgent need of reform. First, the scheme must be simplified in order to make sure that it is as accessible as possible to victims and survivors. When people like the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) encourage people to apply if they feel entitled, there should be minimal barriers. Submitting a claim involves a lot of paperwork. According to the Victims’ Commissioner, 40% of victims feel as though they have to secure legal advice to apply for this compensation. That often means giving away a share of their relatively small amount of compensation, which has not been uprated in line with inflation.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“While no amount of compensation can take away the damage that such acts cause to those victims and survivors, compensation can, as has been described already, represent a powerful acknowledgment from the state about what happened to an individual survivor, and the sum awarded—to be spent on whatever it might be—can contribute towards their healing. Often it is spent on trying to access court transcripts, even though they are extremely expensive, or on therapy to overcome some of mental impacts of the crime. For too long, victims and survivors of crime have been trapped by not only the trauma of their experiences but a criminal injuries compensation system that fails to recognise their suffering in a fair and humane way, often retraumatising them.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner) on securing the debate. I commend him on behalf of my party, and I am sure everybody in this room, for the bravery that he exhibited in sharing his own story of victimhood and engagement with the criminal injuries compensation scheme. Victims and survivors in Eastbourne and beyond deserve dignity, respect and meaningful support when someone has violated their safety, their rights, their property and the law that is there to protect them.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“ISVAs play a critical role in giving survivors the practical guidance and confidence to navigate our justice system, of which the criminal injuries compensation scheme is a part. One of my key concerns, which I have expressed several times before, is that charities report that their capacity to provide support is being diminished by the national insurance contributions hike and the cut to core funding for police and crime commissioners. Those are debates that the Ministry of Justice will need to have had with the Treasury. Some charities that provide such guidance and support to victims have told me, and said publicly, that these measures are tantamount to a 7% real-terms funding cut.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Significant numbers of victims and survivors are therefore missing out on the compensation that they need to rebuild their lives. I was not told about the scheme by the police; I was first told about it by an incredible child abuse solicitor, Dino Nocivelli, who I was connected with through a friend of a friend. As has been said already, awareness should not rely on who someone knows. The system is failing victims and survivors by leaving them in the dark. Thirdly, victims and survivors must receive the support they need to navigate the system. I have touched on some of the complexities, as have other hon. Members. In my case, although I did not end up applying, I discussed the scheme with my ISVA—independent sexual violence adviser—from SurvivorsUK, Alan Robertson, to whom I pay tribute.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Inefficiency costs time, and, to the point made in an intervention by the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), who is no longer in her place, no victim should have to wait years and years for their claim to be assessed, as is too often the case today. Alexis Jay, in her IICSA report, also suggested that, in cases where proceedings have already gone to court, there could be merit in empowering a judge to order the payment of criminal compensation from offender to victim. I would be interested to know what assessment the Government have made regarding the merit of that suggestion too. Secondly, the scheme must be more visible, because so many victims are unaware of it. Fewer than four in 10 victims recall being told by the police about the scheme, according to the Victims’ Commissioner.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“After dragging me through what is a shocking, adversarial and dehumanising criminal process, you’re going to ask me to jump through more hoops just to prove that what has happened to me has happened to me? You can go and take your paperwork and stick it where the sun don’t shine.” The sun shines in Eastbourne a lot, as many folks in this room know, so it did not have to go far. In scenarios where a court case has happened, and where the evidence has already been presented once, it must be possible for the criminal injuries compensation scheme to access that evidence with the consent of the victim and make some kind of compensation assessment without dragging the victim through another legal ordeal from square one. I would be interested to understand what exploration the Government have undertaken in this area.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I could not agree more that the burden of bureaucracy should not be on the victim. Having spent almost two years going through a police process as a victim, and then a very traumatising Crown court trial, the last thing that I wanted to do was rush to fill in application forms for compensation before the imminent two-year deadline from reporting to the police, which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss) described, was about to be hit, so I did not apply. For exactly the reasons that the hon. Member for Congleton (Sarah Russell) described, it takes more than two years to process a crime. In my case, it took many decades, and I still process those crimes today. The system is not conducive to that healing process. A question that I asked was essentially, “Is this system for real?”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the fact that the Government have taken steps to protect funding for organisations tackling violence against women and girls, but we know that there are victims and survivors beyond this cohort who will be left with less support at a time when they need more. The test of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. Right now, we are failing that test. Victims and survivors of crime deserve more than our sympathy; they deserve action. They deserve more than a criminal injuries compensation scheme that retraumatises those it is meant to help; they deserve a scheme that is fair, fast and fighting for them. The Liberal Democrats stand ready to work with the Government as they prepare the update to the victims code and forthcoming legislation, with a view to helping to achieve just that.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I could not agree more with the hon. Member. As someone who has used an ISVA service myself—I am not sure that I could have gone through the process without it—I think that the value of those services cannot be overestimated. It is of great sadness to me that across our country there are what I would describe as ISVA deserts, where it is very difficult to access those services. This should not come down to a postcode lottery. People should not be victims of these terrible crimes in the first instance, but if they are, then wherever they are in the country, they should be able to access those critical services and support to help them to navigate their trauma, their survival and their recovery beyond.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“My constituent—a child who attends alternative provision—was physically restrained by his passenger assistant on school transport, which caused significant distress to him and his family. The Department for Education has published guidance on the use of reasonable force in schools in England, but it appears that there is a gap when it comes to the use of reasonable force on school transport. Will the Minister meet my constituent and me to discuss this case with a view to closing this loophole with the funding that it requires?”
House of Commons28 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In fact, having been born in that hospital 31 years ago, I will be nearly 50 by the time it is set to be completed. In the light of the mismatch between the size of our maintenance backlog and our place in the queue, my key ask of the Minister is whether the Government will review our wave 4 position in the programme as it stands. If they will not, what extra support will the Government provide to address the growing, nearly £500 million maintenance bill across our trust? Eastbourne needs answers and deserves action, and Eastbourne, together with campaigners such as Liz, will be listening very closely to her answers.”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I fight standing on the shoulders of local campaigning giants for our NHS, such as Liz Walke. I have known her since I was seven, and I am proud to welcome her to the Gallery today alongside Rose Bunn. Beyond services, our DGH buildings are crying out for help. Our DGH bosses have said: “The age and standard of current hospital buildings presents challenges for the consistent delivery of safe, effective, responsive and efficient care.” The trust’s backlog maintenance bill stands at £460 million. That is one of the largest in the country, and it is why we were included in the new hospital programme in the first place. Our town was therefore appalled that the Conservatives put our hospital to the back of the queue when they were in office, and Eastbournians are further outraged that this Government are keeping us there in wave 4.”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I start by declaring an interest that will prejudice me in this debate: I was born in Eastbourne district general hospital; I have said farewell to cherished folks there; and I have been brought back from the brink in the DGH myself. I express huge thanks to the incredible staff in A&E, the resuscitation area, the acute medical unit and on Jevington ward who treated me and got me back into action last year. However, for years, our DGH services have been eroded, with core services like consultant-led maternity moved to the Conquest hospital in Hastings, an unacceptable 20 miles away. I will keep fighting for the return of consultant-led maternity services at the DGH, just as I fought alongside local campaigners to reopen our midwifery unit for births after months of closure.”
House of Commons23 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“One of the dying acts of the last Conservative Government was to shake hands with Serco on an electronic tagging contract that Channel 4’s “Dispatches” found was completely inadequate. People with serious convictions were left without tags for days and weeks. Victims and survivors were failed, including survivors of those released early under the SDS40 scheme. What will the Secretary of State do to hold Serco to account for these failures, and to clear up the mess that was fundamentally created by the failures of the last Government?”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Key agents of reform in our prisons are prison officers. Unlocked Graduates is an amazing scheme that supports the production of prison officers with new innovations, but it has had the rug pulled from underneath its feet, beyond its current cohort. There are mixed accounts of what has happened from different civil servants and other individuals in government. Will the Minister explain exactly what has happened? Why has the contract not worked? Will he sit down with me and Unlocked Graduates to see if we can find a way forward?”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is critical that in this debate and in any reform we make to sentencing policy, we lead with an evidence-based process and with a determination to tackle the injustices embedded in our criminal justice system, whether it is those disproportionately affecting women, ethnic minorities or white working-class boys—the list continues. We urge the Government to listen, reflect and return with proposals that work with the Sentencing Council, with the judiciary and with the findings of David Gauke’s independent sentencing review. Only then can we abolish the unjust two-tier system created under the two-tier Tories.”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Ethnic minority individuals, women and those with mental health issues continue to be over-represented and underserved, yet this legislation makes no attempt to address that. While I welcome the review of data that the Justice Secretary described, it is unwelcome that the outcome of that does not feature in these proposals. Finally, I am deeply troubled with the political context in which this Bill is being introduced. It may appear technical on the surface, but the legislation risks falling into a trap in which criminal justice is used by some in this House and beyond to stoke division, appeal to populist headlines and wage a cynical culture war. We must not allow our courts and sentencing practices to become pawns in that political game, nor part of a second stab at a Tory leadership campaign.”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“If the Government are convinced that primary legislation is required, why not wait for the Gauke review to report, take advantage of that independent insight, and then introduce coherent proposals in legislation later in this Session? An additional concern is that although the Bill ostensibly gestures towards fairness, it fails to confront some of the most pressing injustices in our criminal justice system—to which the Mother of the House, the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), referred—including those identified by the Lammy review. We know that there is disproportionality at most stages of the criminal justice process affecting various groups, from stop and search to charging decisions, early guilty pleas and sentencing outcomes.”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It seems to me that, in response to the most recent act of the Lord Chancellor, there is new-found space for an agreement to be reached, through dialogue with the Sentencing Council and the Lady Chief Justice, without a single minute of debate on primary legislation. Such legislation could then be devoted instead to patching up other injustices in our system. Another concern is that this proposal is being rushed through without comprehensive consultation or co-ordination with wider work that is already under way. David Gauke is currently conducting an independent review of sentencing, which is due to report this spring. That review ought to have provided a clear opportunity to examine these issues in depth and to ensure that any reforms are evidence-based, balanced and considered in the broader context of sentencing policy.”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We will therefore abstain on Second Reading, not because of indifference, but because of principled concerns that I will present constructively, to reciprocate the constructiveness with which the Secretary of State and her officials have engaged with me on this matter in recent weeks. One concern is that this Bill simply is not necessary to achieve its stated aim. The Sentencing Council has, in response to the strength of feeling in Parliament, paused the implementation of its guidelines. It has not said how long that pause will last. My understanding is that the Department has not asked the council how long it would be willing to pause the guidelines.”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is despite the sentencing code having a presumption in favour of their use, regardless of any personal characteristic or circumstance. The Liberal Democrats believe that that near-universal presumption is critical, because when the state is considering depriving someone of their liberty, judges and magistrates should be equipped with all the information possible to pass the sentence that is most likely to reduce reoffending and protect victims and survivors. Offenders need it and victims deserve it. The Liberal Democrats believe that we should really be having a debate about how we can resource a criminal justice system that can fulfil pre-sentence reports for all offenders who need them, rather than a debate that feels grounded in rationing their use.”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“According to the Sentencing Council, just one MP objected to the cohorting in the previous guidelines put out to consultation in 2023-24. I will give way to the then Home Office Minister, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), if he can confirm that it was he who made that objection. No—radio silence. [ Interruption. ] Our country deserves better than the circumstances that have given rise to the Bill. Those circumstances are ultimately that the previous Government underfunded our probation and courts system so severely that pre-sentence reports have since been rationed and are not used universally, or indeed anywhere near it. In fact, the use of pre-sentence reports has declined by 44% over the last decade almost, according to Lord Timpson.”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“10, while the rest of us missed funerals for lost relatives; two-tier Tories who unlawfully suspended Parliament to get their way, while lecturing us about the rule of law; two-tier Tories who unlawfully approved developments for their donor mates, while purporting to talk tough on crime; and two-tier Tories whose unlawfulness, chaos and double standards landed them with the biggest election defeat in their history. The Conservatives still have not learned, because that hypocrisy continues today in the context of the sentencing guidelines in question. They nodded through earlier editions of the guidelines when they were in government, yet they make a scene about them today now that it has become politically convenient for them to do so.”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Liberal Democrats believe in equality before the law, Liberal Democrats believe in the rule of law, and Liberal Democrats believe that no one is above the law, so it has been heartening to hear those words echoed across the Chamber today. But actions speak louder than words, which is why I regret to say that few have acted more to erode those legal and democratic values than the two-tier Tory party that occupies the Benches next to me—two-tier Tories who unlawfully partied in No.”
House of Commons22 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Victims in Eastbourne and across the country deserve that, as well as the robust action needed to tackle the gross injustice of these lengthy court delays.”
House of Commons8 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗