Council Housing
I thank the Back-Bench speakers for their co-operation and discipline. We now come to the Front-Bench speeches, beginning with the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Showing every spoken contribution, including 5,575 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
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Council Housing
In the interests of order, I should probably make it clear that other private Members’ Bills are available.
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Domestic Farming and Food Supply
Carla Lockhart will move the motion, and the Minister will respond. I remind all other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and from the Minister. As is the convention in shorter debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.
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Covid-19 Inquiry Module 4 Report: Government Response
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Stuart, not least because, in generously taking over from me, you allowed me to participate in the debate. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), not just for his skill in securing the debate but for his long campaigning on behalf of those who have been injured by covid vaccinations. Between he and I, we must have met and discussed the issue with almost every holder of the Minister’s job and the Secretary of State’s job over the past few years. On reform of the vaccine damage payment scheme, the argument that I want to concentrate on is not about the wisdom or otherwise of mass vaccination. Quite remarkably in my judgment, many of those who were injured or lost loved ones in the mass vaccination process during the covid pandemic support the idea of mass vaccination, but they take the view, which we should all support, that it is only right that those who were doing what their Government asked them to do are properly compensated for any loss or damage that they have incurred.<span id="122WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="122WH"></span> People such as my constituent Kate Scott, whom my hon. Friend mentioned and the Minister has met, have maintained throughout that what is wrong with the vaccine damage payment scheme essentially comes down to two things: first, the amount of money available and the fact that it is an all-or-nothing amount; and secondly, the requirement for someone to have 60% disablement in order to take advantage of the scheme. It is fair to point out that when the scheme was developed, nobody ever claimed that it was designed to be the only compensation available, but, as I know the Minister appreciates, the reality is that it is extremely difficult to obtain compensation by any other route, including through the courts. It therefore seems that vaccine damage payment scheme reform is about two things: fairness to the individuals affected and the effectiveness of Government policy. I know this will concern the Minister, as I hope it does the rest of the Government. It would be brave of any of us to claim that this sort of widespread pandemic event will never happen again. If it does, we will once again rely on the confidence of the British public to literally roll up their sleeves and assist in the process of combating whatever disease we face next. Their confidence in a mass vaccination programme will depend on whether they think people who have been injured in that process have been fairly treated. Thus far, they have not been, so if the Government want to be confident of the effectiveness of a future pandemic response, they need to deal effectively with the fall-out of the previous pandemic response. Finally, let me simply make the point that my hon. Friend made: there is urgency to this. People who have been injured or bereaved do not just expect a fair response from the Government; they expect it soon. There is a mismatch between the urgency described in the report of Baroness Hallett and the approach that the Government have taken in their response. For example, with regard to the 60% threshold, Baroness Hallett said: “This part of the scheme should be reformed as a matter of urgency”. Let us compare and contrast that with the wording of the Government’s response. They accept that there is a “need for reform” of the scheme, which I welcome, and say that they are “committed to reviewing the scheme to ensure it is fit for purpose”. However, they then say that they “will provide further details in due course”. Those of us who have served in government know that that does not mean an urgent response. I know the Minister will recognise that this situation deserves just that.
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Covid-19 Inquiry Module 4 Report: Government Response
On the Minister’s point about whether graded payments might be available under the scheme, will she be clear that she is considering linking that to the disablement requirement? Of course, an outcome we would not want is a simple reduction of the £120,000 for those who are 60% disabled or more. We are interested in perhaps giving some money to those who are below the 60% threshold; will she confirm that is what she is thinking about?
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UK Nationals Detained Abroad
British citizens Ryan Cornelius and his partner have now been detained for 18—nearly 19—years, without due process, by the United Arab Emirates. The reality is that the UAE supports a huge amount of terrorism in Sudan, where it is responsible for huge loss of life. To make matters worse, it has nominated Lana Nusseibeh of the UAE to be UN Secretary-General. Apart from demanding the release of Ryan Cornelius and his partner, will the hon. Gentleman condemn the UAE for its brutal involvement in Sudan, and block its nominee for Secretary-General, who should never be allowed to take over the UN?
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Cask Ale: Intangible Cultural Heritage
I remember the first day I tasted a true cask ale—I think it was my 18th birthday, when I first supped a pint of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. It is a truly beautiful pint and something that I hope many 18-year-olds and people of advancing years continue to enjoy, but it is under threat. I congratulate the hon. Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) on <span id="60WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="60WH"></span>securing the debate because it is important. In the historical boundaries of Staffordshire, we have been under assault, with the shutting of some of our greatest, best and longest-standing breweries. First, Carlsberg decided to close the Park brewery in Wolverhampton and then the Marston’s brewery. Frankly, a company that thinks Special Brew is a good alcoholic beverage does not have much care or consideration for true, quality cask ales. We see a real challenge in our brewing industry. The Swan in Brewood has a bar serving some of the finest cask ales from across the country, with 12 always on tap. That was once seen regularly across the country, but it is increasingly rare today. Although the number of small brewers has grown over the last 30 years, with some 1,500 breweries across the country, some major breweries—as we have seen with Carlsberg—have been pulling out of cask ale. The point has already been raised that major breweries are misleading customers by making them think that they are getting a true cask ale, because it is served from a traditional handpump, when in reality these are not cask ales. As companies such as Carlsberg shut historic brewery sites such as the Park brewery in Wolverhampton and Marston’s in Burton, skills and traditions are being lost. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood), I note that the Chancellor is not a passive observer. Tomorrow, he can do something important for the brewing industry and all our communities by making changes to the duty relief for cask ale. He can also support our pubs, because if we do not have vibrant pubs in our communities, we do not have a cask ale industry. If the breweries do not have anyone to sell to, they will simply wither and die. Yes, it is about duties, but it is also about rates. So many pubs across my constituency still feel the squeeze from a double impact imposed by this Government not just on rates but on the cost of employing young people. There is an opportunity for the Chancellor to stand up, with a traditional alcoholic beverage by his side—I would suggest a nice pint from the Lymestone brewery in Stone—to celebrate and toast our brewers by not only helping them with the duties charged on cask ale but by helping out every single pub in our constituencies by getting rid of the national insurance increases imposed by the previous Chancellor. I very much support the arguments advanced for special heritage status for our cask ale industry. Everything that we can do to promote the industry, and to make sure that people understand how special it is and how much work goes into every single cask, is for the best. I would also be interested to hear from the Minister about whether the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has dragged the chief executive of Carlsberg into the Department to demand to know why he is wrecking and doing so much damage to our brewing industry. She should demand answers and a commitment to investment in these incredibly important historic breweries, which are at the heart of so many of our communities.
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Cask Ale: Intangible Cultural Heritage
I welcome the work that the Government are doing, but has the Secretary of State dragged in the chief executive of Carlsberg? This seems to be a pattern of behaviour, happening not just in Burton, but in Wolverhampton as well. It seems intent on closing down all its cask ale breweries.
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Electronic Monitoring of Offenders
The Government have not yet set out the number of domestic abusers who have been released under the early release scheme. Will the Minister set out to the House what that number is, and the total number of domestic abusers who will be released under the scheme?
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Strengthening Community Resilience
We all know that at points of emergency, such as power outages and so many other things, mobile networks are incredibly important. The villages of Huntington and Hatherton have virtually no signal at all. With the withdrawal of the shared rural network, which provides funding for rural communities to get better mobile services, what should such villages do to ensure that they have access to the mobile networks that are so important at critical times?
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Strengthening Community Resilience
In the early 1980s, along with other enthusiasts, I set up the National Council for Civil Defence, and worked with Willie Whitelaw. We achieved a major milestone in the form of the Civil Protection in Peacetime Act 1986. The NCCD was taken over by the local government office as a serious organisation. When the cold war ended, the whole civil defence effort atrophied, because there was considered to be no threat. We now live in a very different world, so will the Minister make an attempt to improve our entire civil defence structure? There was a leaflet issued by the then Conservative Government called “Protect and Survive”. I know a war is very unlikely, but it is best to be prepared.
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Cask Ale: Intangible Cultural Heritage
Hon. Members should rise in their places repeatedly if they wish to catch my eye.
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Cask Ale: Intangible Cultural Heritage
Order. Can interventions be a little shorter?
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Cask Ale: Intangible Cultural Heritage
Order. May I suggest five minutes for speeches?
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Cask Ale: Intangible Cultural Heritage
Order. I am imposing a formal five-minute limit.<span id="61WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="61WH"></span>
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SEND Provision: Rural Communities
I remind hon. Members not to rise to catch my eye unless they have the permission of both Mr Jermy and the Minister to speak.
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Covid-19 Inquiry Module 4 Report: Government Response
I beg to move, That this House has considered the Government response to the Covid-19 Inquiry Module 4 Report. It is refreshing to see the Public Health Minister in this debate. If anybody will be empathetic on this topic it must be the right hon. Lady, as she has campaigned fearlessly on behalf of another group of victims: the victims of contaminated blood scandals. Although I do not want to overdo the comparison between the victims of contaminated blood and victims of vaccine damage, the responses of successive Governments to those tragedies have had a similar pattern: total denial of responsibility to start with, then recognition that people have suffered but not because of anything for which the Government were responsible, and then eventually conceding the cause and effect of the damage but still stalling on providing any effective redress. It is that stalling on which I wish to concentrate. The Hallett inquiry made clear recommendations in April this year. Recommendation 5 stated: “The UK government must reform the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme as soon as possible. The reform should include as a minimum: increasing the £120,000 payment, at least in line with inflation to date; subsequently applying annual increases in line with inflation; introducing multiple levels of payment, commensurate with the degree of injury suffered; and any transitional arrangements necessary to provide for fairness between applicants to the existing scheme and applicants to the revised scheme.” The Government’s response, published earlier this month, is inadequate. That may be because the Minister has been in post for only three months; it may be because Government officials have not done the review work that for the last several years they have assured me and others that they were doing. We will hear from the Minister in due course. I hope she will be able to say that the Government agree to increase the £120,000 payment, that they will apply annual increases in line with inflation, that they will introduce multiple levels of payment, commensurate with the degree of injury, and so on.
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Covid-19 Inquiry Module 4 Report: Government Response
I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. It is fair to remind everybody that he participated in the first debate I had on this subject, on Friday 10 September 2021. That was the occasion on which I moved the Second Reading of a private Member’s Bill and, in so doing, drew attention to what were then 1,632 yellow card reports of deaths having taken place shortly after vaccination.<span id="118WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="118WH"></span> I also drew attention then to the public petition that had been put to Parliament, and the Government’s response. The petition called for improved support for those injured or bereaved through covid-19 vaccines. The Government response stated: “Once more is known about the possible links between the vaccine and potential side effects, it will be considered whether a wider review of the VDPS is needed.” Well, that was more than five years ago. We have now had that review, had the public inquiry and had the outcome, yet we have not had the Government’s acceptance of the clear recommendations to which I have already referred. Back in September 2021, I requested that the then Secretary of State establish an independent review of disablement caused by covid-19 vaccines and the adequacy of the compensation awarded. I was not requesting a mammoth public inquiry, but only a short, judge-led inquiry into how we should most fairly compensate those who suffered adverse consequences. I also contrasted the Government’s pessimistic view with the World Health Organisation’s COVAX scheme, which, as the Minister will know, indemnifies claims for vaccine damage in third-world countries. We, the British taxpayers, pay for that, but we do not have an equivalent scheme in our own jurisdiction. On 2 March 2022, I raised the specific subject of the Vaccine Damage Payments Act 1979 in an Adjournment debate. In that debate, I referred to Kate Scott, whose husband, a fit 44-year-old software engineer, spent 124 days in hospital following a severe brain injury caused by the vaccine. Boris Johnson, the then Prime Minister, had written to Kate Scott and her family back in August 2021, stating: “You’re not a statistic, and must not be ignored.” He said that the Government would—I use the word again—consider Kate’s suggestions for reform of the scheme. In concluding my speech on that occasion, I referred to what David Ennals, Labour’s Secretary of State for Social Services, had said back on 5 February 1979, when introducing the legislation. He said: “For most people, vaccination is a beneficial procedure, and it is right for the community to give financial aid and support to those who suffer as the result of vaccinations given as part of the public policy programme.”<span id="vol962_col32" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="32" data-volume-number="962">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 5 February 1979; Vol. 962, c. 32.]</span> That was the rationale for the vaccine damage payment scheme, a scheme introduced by the then Labour Government in their dying days. I will not criticise them for having made that a priority at the end of their term of office. In responding to my Adjournment debate in March 2022, the then Minister, Maria Caulfield, refused even to accept any causality. She said that there had been 920 claims by then, but: “The work currently going on is establishing whether there is a causal link between the vaccine and the adverse events that people have been suffering.”<span id="vol709_col1151" class="cross-reference" data-house-id="1" data-column-number="1151" data-volume-number="709" data-external-id="D795F2B4-8938-4783-AD77-128F267095AB">—[<em>Official Report</em>, 2 March 2022; Vol. 709, c. 1151.]</span> Fast forward to today, and we see that we have the findings, to which I have already referred, and then the Government response: “The government…accepts that there is a need for reform of the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme, and is committed to reviewing the scheme to ensure it is fit for purpose and delivered effectively.”<span id="119WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="119WH"></span> That implied that it was a review that would start after the inquiry had reported; however, when I and other people campaigning on behalf of the victims met the then Public Health Minister, the hon. Member for West Lancashire (Ashley Dalton), probably about a year ago, she told us that the Government were already reviewing the scheme. We asked her in what respect they were reviewing the scheme, but she said she could not say, although she conceded that they were reviewing it. It now seems as though the Government are starting afresh, saying they are “committed to reviewing the scheme…we will work closely with the vaccine injured and their families as we consider how the scheme could be strengthened in the future.” That is a long way from the specific, clear and strong recommendations made by Baroness Hallett. Let us think about what the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said to Kate Scott in in August 2021: he said he would review it. Has the review not already taken place? I assume it must have. There is another issue here. We now know that, as of 30 June, 264 claims had been successful and 582 claims under the scheme had been rejected where causation had been established but the claimant did not meet the 60% disability threshold. On my calculation, that means that about £32 million has been paid out in compensation, yet in answer to a question I asked, which was answered on 3 September, I found out that over four years the costs of the staffing, the non-staffing, the medical assessment and payments to health care bodies is no less than £82 million. All that public money was spent on bureaucracy to try to block people who have suffered damage—in some cases, bereavement—as a result of doing the right thing and taking the vaccines. That is just unacceptable. I hope that the Minister will include within her response an explanation of what the Government are going to do to simplify the scheme, stop blocking legitimate claims through technical measures, and ensure that instead of spending another £82 million over the next four years on bureaucracy, we actually use some of that money to compensate the people who have suffered as a result of the vaccine programme. I can help the Minister because I anticipated this debate, in a sense, when we had the private Members’ Bill ballot. I put in a number of presentation Bills, one of which is the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (UK Covid-19 Inquiry) Bill. That is set for Second Reading on 15 January 2027, so it is ideally timed to be able to incorporate any recommendations that the Minister comes forward with in this debate. The long title of the Bill is: “A Bill to require the Secretary of State to publish proposals for the implementation of Recommendation 5 of Module 4 of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, relating to the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme; and for connected purposes.” The Bill represents a legislative opportunity for the Government, and I hope that they will take advantage of it. In the meantime, during this Session, the Government have been blocking my Covid-19 Vaccine Damage Payments Bill. It has already been published, and the explanatory notes to the Bill set out a number of suggested reforms, including looking at the benefits of having a system that does not cost the Government anything but would ensure that people got recompense. That would be done <span id="120WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="120WH"></span>by introducing a scheme similar to that which covers motor insurance, for example—the Motor Insurers’ Bureau scheme or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme—where the industry pays for the costs of the compensation arising from problems with the way in which those schemes have operated. What could be more equitable than that? Instead of doing that, both the previous Government and the current Government are indemnifying big pharma against any costs associated with vaccines that do not work properly, which is intolerable. My Bill has a number of recommendations and suggestions. I hope that the Minister will be able to engage with me on them, if not in this debate then privately afterwards.
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Covid-19 Inquiry Module 4 Report: Government Response
I am grateful to the Minister for that response and grateful to everybody who has participated in the debate. Nobody can doubt the sincerity of what the Minister said. I hope that she will talk not just to the families but to parliamentarians because this issue affects lots of our constituents. A headline in <em>The Daily Telegraph</em> states: “Paralysed vaccine victim ‘not ill enough for payout’”. That is an example of the issues. That particular victim worked for the NHS as a nurse. We need action. The tone of what the Minister said seems more like a placebo. Placebos have their place in healthcare but we need to go further. She talks about the spring; we are still in the autumn. Why can we not get some action now? All the time the Government knew what was going on at the inquiry. The victims gave evidence to the inquiry. The inquiry made its recommendations. Why can the Government not accept the four parts of recommendation 5? I do not understand that, and I am not satisfied in that respect. I shall continue to campaign on this issue—I hope not for another five years. <em>Question put and agreed </em><em>to</em><em>.</em> <em>Resolved</em><em>,</em> That this House has considered the Government response to the Covid-19 Inquiry Module 4 Report.
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Electronic Monitoring of Offenders
The Minister says that the Government are building new prison places, yet she will be aware that there are fewer prison places today than on the day Labour took office. She will also be aware that this vast flood of prisoners being released early has overwhelmed the ability of the Probation Service to find them accommodation and that some prisoners are now being issued with tents, setting them up to fail. Can the Minister tell us how many prisoners have been issued with tents on their release? Has the rate been higher or lower than she expected?
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Defence and Security: European Partners
In the discussions that the Foreign Secretary is holding with European countries, is he also emphasising the vital role that soft power and the international development budget play in promoting security? Does he realise that since this Government’s cuts in spending on international development, we now allocate less for Africa from the development budget than we allocate to UK postcodes from that same budget for first-year asylum seeker costs?
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Council Housing
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy, and to take part in this debate about the delivery of council housing. It is a debate on a very important topic and I thank the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff) for securing it. Building more homes is a critical mission for anyone governing England and Wales today, in order to make the dream of home ownership a reality for even more hard-working families. With a record number of people homeless, and with 177,530 children and 49,120 adult households in temporary accommodation, clearly the priority must be to build more council homes. That is what the Opposition want to happen, but that is what the Government are currently failing to do. Let us take a look at the Government’s own data. Just 208,600 net additional dwellings were added in England in Labour’s first year of power. That was a 6% drop from 2023-24, which was the last Conservative Government’s final year in office. Of these, 190,600 were new homes, a fall of 8,000, around 4%, on 2023-24. Taken together, the Government are on track to build around 400,000 fewer homes than they promised at the election, meaning yet another broken promise made to the British people. The Government know that—the Minister’s boss, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), admitted this on national media. That poor showing on homes directly impacts the pressing issue we are debating today, which is the delivery of council housing. We heard the Prime Minister proudly making his summer promise of the comeback of the council house, but what little details we do know on that policy show that the money he has earmarked would equal just 15,494 homes a year, barely 5% of the Government’s annual housing target. That is in exchange for another £79 billion added to the housing subsidy bill, despite the fact that the UK already spends the most on housing allowances as a percentage of GDP of any OECD country. One might have been forgiven for thinking that the aptly-titled Social Housing Bill introduced earlier this year might have been the answer to get local authorities, the Government, industry, and the nation building again. However, as is becoming a theme in this Government, we are left severely disappointed by the reality. The Government have presented a Bill to the House that fails to build a single new council house. Instead of making social and affordable housing sites viable and pushing developments through the pipeline at pace—the Government love to use that phrase—to get people off the street and help children into permanent homes, they have chosen to use up parliamentary, Government and civil service time on an ideological assault on right-to-buy. It is a shameful course of action, and far from what the 1.34 million people on the social housing wait list need. Even worse is that the Government know this Social Housing Bill will not deliver new homes. According tousb data from the Minister’s own impact assessment, in 2026-27 the pre-November 2024 baseline <span id="103WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="103WH"></span>was 8,050 right-to-buy sales, leading to 5,450 replacement homes. The document goes on to show that if this Bill were to pass and the legacy impacts were to wind down in the period of 2031-35, annual right-to-buy sales would fall to around 1,100 a year, with around 1,450 replacement homes. That means that by their own analysis and admission, the Government will be overseeing a housing system in which there would be 4,000 fewer new social homes funded every year. Moreover, research conducted by the House of Lords Library shows that only a net 3% of social homes become available each year to new tenancies. That means that around 90 additional homes will be available for a new tenant each year instead of 5,000. The Bill would not only mean no new homes built, but would actively prevent them from being delivered. The Government really must refocus their efforts on building more council housing, and that requires serious reforms to the viability of sites for social and affordable homes. We are halfway through a Parliament in which we have spent much time debating the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025, various updates to the national planning policy framework and the aforementioned Bill, yet after all of that we are still left without a clear route to building more homes. Projections from the Government show they will have managed to build just 26% of their target in 50% of the time.
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Council Housing
Of course, it is always important to reflect on any of the legacies but we have to talk about the here and now. It has rightly been said that this Government are in control; the Social Housing Bill is supposed to unlock the system and yet it will not do that. Our questions should be directly to the Minister about how the Government will unlock the potential that everyone in this room wants to see. That is why the Conservative party proposes taking £50,000 off the cost of building a new home in England and Wales by cutting back on regulations and taxes; backing a genuinely brownfield-first approach to see new homes built on the existing 1.41 million sites viable for development; building, not blocking; a genuine council house comeback; and supporting aspiration.
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Council Housing
I am just concluding. I call on the Minister to commit to changing the Social Housing Bill, to back the delivery of council housing and to help bring the shocking number of people in temporary accommodation down. That is the only way to see more council houses built, to see more people into safe and affordable accommodation and to get Britain building.
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Draft Renewables Obligation and Electricity Capacity (Amendment) (British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme Excluded Electricity) Regulations 2026
It has just occurred to me that the cut-off date is 1 December. If firms miss that, will they have to wait a whole year to reapply, or is there some sort of mechanism to support them?
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Building Safety (Remediation of Unsafe Cladding etc) Bill
The hon. Member is right to point out the stress on residents. Those at Northpoint in Bromley are part of a residents’ management company, but RMCs have no assets, so they lean into the service charges in order to pay some of the company’s liabilities. Would he agree with me that people in RMCs need to be protected as well?
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Social Housing Bill (First sitting)
Will the Minister give way?
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Social Housing Bill (First sitting)
I appreciate the Minister’s point about recouping councils’ investment, which is why there are elements of the Bill that change that deal for councils. What my residents and I do not understand—and what people across this country do not understand—is why the Government are restricting access to right to buy for a whole group of people, including young people, young parents and people at the beginning of their professional lives, who might want to get on to the housing ladder. It seems they are tackling one problem by focusing on the completely wrong element of the issue.
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Social Housing Bill (First sitting)
Would it be possible for the Government to present some kind of analysis on the impact that this policy will have on the number of sales made available to tenants? That would be important to establishing the long-term economic impact on properties across the country.
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Social Housing Bill (First sitting)
The hon. Gentleman talks about council houses being lost to right to buy; it would be remiss not to say they are being gained by tenants who own a property—part of a property-owning democracy that we hold dear in this country.
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Social Housing Bill (First sitting)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
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Social Housing Bill (Second sitting)
I am losing track of the narrative in this debate. The Government do not want to sell the unit to the tenant, but that means they will forgo all the long-term health, economic, social and community benefits of home ownership. At the same time, you want to lock them into lifelong tenancies, which would take their house out of action and reduce its availability to other households that are more in need. Perhaps I have misunderstood the Bill, but that is the narrative that I understand the Government are setting out. Can the Minister confirm that for me?
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Social Housing Bill (Second sitting)
I apologise, Mr Western.
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Electronic Monitoring of Offenders
<em>(Urgent Question):</em> To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will make a statement on the electronic monitoring of offenders.
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Electronic Monitoring of Offenders
You would not believe, Mr Speaker, listening to the Minister that the numbers of prison places and prison officers are actually down. It all sounds like it is going very well according to her version of events. Labour told us that to keep the public safe from the dangerous criminals it is releasing early, the Justice Secretary would implement the toughest tagging regime in British history, and that there would be a new presumption that offenders will be electronically tagged and monitored when they leave prison. But the Metropolitan police told Sky this weekend that it will not act on all breaches of tag conditions by bailed offenders, blaming the pressure created by Labour’s early release scheme. Just in London, there have been 100 tag breaches a day by released prisoners since the first early release scheme started, with two to three released prisoners now being rearrested every week. The Met commissioner said that “95%-plus of the tagging breaches that we arrest are simply being bailed back into the community on the same condition”. He says, “there is zero sanction”. One sergeant said: “There are not enough cops” to handle Labour’s early release of thousands of prisoners. The Justice Secretary, when he stops hiding in his Department and sending junior Ministers to answer for him, needs to be straight with the House and the public. Four days after his early release scheme started, he told the BBC that he did not know—that it was impossible to know—how many prisoners had been tagged. He wrote to me yesterday admitting that he still does not know, and that is 26 days later. <em>The Times </em>reports that most prisoners will not be tagged as they are released from prison, and we know that more than 5,000 offenders went unmonitored in the first half of this year because they were not fitted with tags. This is a mess. So chaotic is Labour’s early release scheme that prisoners are being given tents instead of housing upon release. As a matter of policy, these prisoners will be in probable breach of their licence and tagging conditions, which require them to have an approved address, all because the Probation Service is overwhelmed. We know that two thirds of prisoners who are sleeping rough go on to reoffend within the first year. Ministers keep telling us that the full data on tagging and reoffending cannot be published until the regulation publication dates. I ask again: will Ministers publish full data on how many released prisoners have been tagged? Will they publish comprehensive data on reoffending by prisoners let out through Labour’s early release scheme, and will the Justice Secretary apologise to the House for telling the public that they would be kept safe?
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Strengthening Community Resilience
I call the Chair of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.
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Strengthening Community Resilience
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
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Strengthening Community Resilience
I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.
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Strengthening Community Resilience
I call the Father of the House.
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Strengthening Community Resilience
Order. I am just as interested in the response, as it covers my constituency too, but we need to make sure that questions are much shorter and answers are on point.