argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Burgon (Labour, Centre-left): The number of questions being shouted out by Government Members makes me wonder whether they know what they are presiding over. There are risks with sending people to prison, particularly for the first time. [Interruption.] There is laughter from the Government Front Benchers, but the situation in our prison system is not a laughing matter. They should take this debate seriously We throw people into the prison river, and the currents sweep them towards more drugs and more crime than they experienced outside. If rehabilitation fails, it is a failure to protect society. I must ask what the Justice Secretary is doing about imprisonment for public protection sentences. She urgently needs to come up with a scheme to release those whom it is safe to release. She should consider how that can be done—perhaps by releasing those people on a licence period in proportion to their original sentence In November last year, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) published the interim findings of his review into the treatment of and outcomes for black, Asian and minority ethnic people in the criminal justice system. The stark findings of the review have implications for our prisons. For every 100 white women handed custodial sentences in the Crown court for drug offences, 227 black women were sentenced to custody. For black men, the figure was 141 compared with 100 white men. BAME men were more than 16% more likely than white men to be remanded in custody. Those figures ought to be of concern to the Justice Secretary, and she has a duty to find out why that is happening and what can be done about it. The findings are troubling in and of themselves, but such disproportionate sentencing adds to the strain on our prison system Rehabilitation is essential to any serious criminal justice system, but we are not yet getting it right. Most people who are in prison will one day leave prison, so if we are to protect the public and keep our communities safe, rehabilitation must be properly funded and taken seriously by politicians as an aim. It must not be treated as a soft option. Between January and December 2014, 45.5% of adults released from prison had reoffended within a year. Of those released from a sentence of less than 12 months, 60% went on to reoffend. When the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell introduced the transforming rehabilitation programme, the probation service was reckoned to be performing well. Many stakeholders issued a warning against the breakup of the probation service but, as with many Ministry of Justice consultations at the time, the public were simply ignored and the proposals pushed through regardless. Community rehabilitation companies received negative reports last year in Derbyshire, Durham and London.
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Roberta Carol Blackman-Woods (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Durham used to have the best probation service in the country, which did an amazing job of trying to rehabilitate prisoners, but it has, alas, fallen by the wayside because of the Government reforms. Does he agree that it would be nice to see Government Members taking some responsibility for what has happened to our prison and probation system? It is an absolute disgrace that it is failing in such a way.
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Burgon (Labour, Centre-left): I certainly will do so, if the right hon. Gentleman will just bear with me The inspectorate of probation’s report of May 2016 found that the work of the national probation service was considered better in a number of important areas. As I have said, privatisation of the probation service has failed. Of course, it is not just down to the Ministry and to probation to support people; if people are leaving prison faced with the same conditions as before they entered it, that will make any meaningful change difficult Support is needed: it is needed for employment and for housing. One women’s prison had inmates leaving with nowhere to live, and it was handing out tents and sleeping bags to people when they left. This cannot be a feature of a modern justice system in the fifth-richest country in the world. The Prisoners Education Trust, while welcoming the White Paper, has said that "in today’s economy, gaining meaningful employment depends on more than just the ability to read and write. If the government is serious about lowering reoffending, it needs to equip people in prison with the attitudes and aspirations"—[Interruption.]
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Burgon (Labour, Centre-left): The increases in the number of prisoners convicted of historical sex offences and in the number of people in prisons obviously have an effect, but does cutting the number of prison officers by a quarter mitigate that situation or make it worse? It seems to me that the answer to that is quite simple Before I draw my remarks to a conclusion, I want to turn—[Interruption.] The prisons Minister has an unfortunate habit of heckling at really inappropriate points. He has demonstrated that before and he has demonstrated it again now. I want to talk about the case of Dean Saunders, who tragically committed suicide in Chelmsford prison. An inquest jury found a number of errors in his treatment. Although prison staff recognised that he had mental health problems, they did not follow the procedure under which he might have been moved to hospital. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), has said that he is "seeking the details of all those cases to see whether there is a pattern".—[Official Report, 24 January 2017; Vol. 620, c. 156.] Deborah Coles of the charity Inquest, who supported the family, said that Mr Saunders "should never have been in prison in the first place. His death was entirely preventable." The fact is that there is evidence in abundance from the various independent monitoring board reports and inquest jury findings. The Ministry must ensure that the recommendations of such bodies are acted on In conclusion, we need to be tough on crime, wherever it is found, and we need to protect the public. At the same time, we need to make prisons places where effective rehabilitation is a living, breathing reality. We want people to leave prison and become productive members of society, having left crime behind. At present, when it comes to the Prison Service, as in relation to so much else, this Government are failing. They are failing prison staff, they are failing prison inmates and their families, and they are failing the public. Ultimately, the mess this Government are making of our prison system means they are failing society. I commend the motion to the House.
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Matthew Toby Perkins (Labour, Centre-left): It is good news that there is some additional money and that some more prison officers are coming into the service, but the Secretary of State is right to say that the scale of violence in our prisons is terrible. She and the Government must take responsibility for the lower number of prison officers that we now have. Will she tell the House how many prison officers are currently off work sick as a result of assaults received at work?
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Law and Crime
David George Hanson (Labour, Centre-left): I am really grateful to the Lord Chancellor for giving way. I want to help her on the staffing point. The benchmarking by the Ministry of Justice indicates that 89 prisons are under the staffing levels that her Ministry thinks is right for them. When the 2,500 prison officers are recruited, how many of those prisons will still be under her own benchmarking staffing levels?
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Stephen Pelham Pound (Labour, Centre-left): I think the whole House will sympathise with and support the right hon. Lady’s comments on the morale of prison officers. When the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) and I were prison officers together in Dartmoor prison, it was evident to us that prison officers felt that they were out of sight and out of mind. They felt that nobody had any interest in their work until something went catastrophically wrong. Does she agree that it would be an excellent idea for right hon. and hon. Members not just to contact the Prison Officers Association, but occasionally to visit prisons to show that we do care and that they are not out of sight nor out of mind?
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Keith Anthony Vaz (Labour, Centre-left): May I put to the Lord Chancellor the question I put to the shadow Lord Chancellor about foreign national offenders? She will know that an easy way to reduce the number of people in our prisons is to follow through on the excellent work of her distinguished predecessors, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who are both in the House today, in signing these agreements to send people back to their countries of origin. Why has progress been so slow?
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Law and Crime
David George Hanson (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove). He, like me, is one of a number of exes in the Chamber who have had responsibility for the prison service; we know how difficult it is to deal with these issues in the post of Secretary of State or prisons Minister The right hon. Gentleman made extremely important points about who we imprison, how we use imprisonment and how we use alternative sentences. Those points should be listened to. However, even he will recognise that there are many challenges in the current system. Judging from the current Secretary of State’s contribution, she knows that as well, as does the Labour Front-Bench spokesman, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), who moved the motion. I speak today as a member of the Justice Committee, supported by the hon. Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), in the absence of our Chair, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). I want to set out some of the challenges as we on the Justice Committee see them My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) told us some of the statistics, and the situation is extremely challenging. We have had six major incidents. We have also had an escape—such occurrences have been unusual over the past 13 to 14 years. Sadly, we have the very high level of 107 self- inflicted deaths, which is an increase of 13% over the previous year, and I expect that number to rise still further in the figures that will be announced tomorrow.
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Education
Margaret Greenwood (Labour, Centre-left): On that point, there was an event in the House of Commons yesterday that was organised by the Cultural Learning Alliance, of which I should declare my sister is a member. The actress Fiona Shaw and artist Grayson Perry were here in Parliament to support the publication of their most recent research, which shows that young offenders who take part in arts activities are 18% less likely to reoffend. That is of huge benefit to the public purse and, of course, to the prisoners and their families. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is important that we invest in arts education in prisons?
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Centre-left): The Labour party also introduced IPP sentences, and I was not one of those who favoured that provision. I will touch on its impact on our prison system. The Secretary of State spoke about the fact that the Government are trying to deal with the issues caused by the remnants of the IPP regime. One problem is that people who have served their IPP sentence cannot get out of prison until they have done specific, designated training courses, but unfortunately there has been a lack of funding for those courses. The Government have to take responsibility for the fact that many thousands of people in that position have not been released from prison As I have said, this has been a very good and interesting debate. Many experienced people have spoken, including former Ministers and Secretaries of State. I think we can all agree that everyone is concerned about this issue. It is not a big vote winner or an issue that is often spoken about on the doorstep, but it is important because it shows what we stand for as a society. The one thing on which most people agree is that we have got problems, and there is a crisis in our prison system My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), a former Minister, talked about some of the proposals in the White Paper that the Government have brought forward to deal with this issue. He set out all the shortcomings and all the questions that have not been answered. The White Paper seems to suggest that each prison will be run by its governor and then every problem will somehow be resolved. However, it does not provide answers to questions such as whether governors will have complete autonomy from the centre, and whether they will have enough money to be able to carry out everything they want to do. For example, if a prison governor thinks that 500 inmates require a two-month detoxification and rehabilitation programme, will he or she have the money to carry that out? It is all very well to say that governors can do such things, but where will the funding come from, or will they have an unlimited pot of money? How will people be recruited, and to whom will they be answerable? The White Paper raises a lot of questions that have not been answered, and it does not deal with the problems.
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Centre-left): I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker They are the Government. They have been in power for the past seven years, and prisons have been under their control. It is under their watch that 6,000 staff have been cut.
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman is trying to deflect attention from what the Government should have been doing for the past seven years As I was saying, about a quarter of all prisoners are held in overcrowded or unsuitable conditions. In the past 12 months, there have been 6,000 assaults on staff and 24,000 assaults on prisoners. There were also 105 self-inflicted deaths of prisoners, which is a record increase of 13% on the previous year. The levels of poor mental health and distress among prisoners are higher than those for the general public. The number of incidents of self-harm in prisons has increased by more than 25% in 2016 compared with the previous year. When we look at all the statistics provided by the Ministry of Justice, we can see that the number of incidents of self-harm has gone up and the number of assaults has gone up, and that deaths have occurred and suicides have happened. I am afraid to say that that is the responsibility of this Government because they have been in charge of prisons for the past seven years.
Prisons — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Matthew Toby Perkins (Labour, Centre-left): In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman), the Minister was unable to accept any responsibility for what has happened. He is right that staffing is not the only problem, but it is part of the problem. We are down 6,000 prison officers. Will he replace them?
School Funding — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Education
Angela Rayner (Labour, Centre-left): I beg to move, That this House regrets the impact of school funding cuts on the ability of children to reach their full potential; and calls on the Government to ensure that all schools have the funding that they need to provide an excellent education for every child I will try to keep interventions to a minimum, Madam Deputy Speaker; I warn hon. Members of that as I start my contribution We have heard much this week about respecting the mandate that the British people have given us, so today I am giving Conservative Members the chance to do that, by implementing the pledge that they gave to the country in their election manifesto. It stated: "Under a future Conservative government, the amount of money following your child into school will be protected. There will be a real terms increase in the schools budget in the next Parliament." That pledge was repeated by the last Prime Minister—the one who actually fought an election—and he was very clear about what it meant. He said: "I can tell you, with a Conservative Government the amount of money following your child into school will not be cut." There is one question that the Secretary of State has to answer today: will she keep her party’s promise to the British people The National Audit Office has revealed that, under the current spending settlement, there will be "an 8 per cent cut in pupil funding" between 2015 and 2020. That same conclusion was reached by the Institute for Fiscal Studies. That means that schools in every region, every city, every town and, yes, every constituency will lose money because of the failure of this Government to protect funding for our schools.
School Funding — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Education
Angela Rayner (Labour, Centre-left): I want to make some progress Let us consider the context "Britain has a deep social mobility problem, and for this generation in particular, it is getting worse not better"— as a result of— "an unfair education system, a two-tier labour market, an imbalanced economy, and an unaffordable housing market." That was the conclusion of the Government’s own Social Mobility Commission. And what about our education system "We still have too many underperforming schools and low overall levels of numeracy and literacy. England remains the only OECD country where 16 to 24-year-olds are no more literate or numerate than 55 to 64-year-olds." Again, that is not my conclusion, but that of the Government’s own industrial strategy Green Paper, which quite rightly makes it clear just how central education is to our economy, especially following Brexit.
School Funding — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Education
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is talking about the broken pledge on increasing funding for schools. Is she aware that 74 out of 77 schools—that is 96% of them—face real-terms cuts of more than £200,000 by 2019? How is that defensible? How is it evidence of a Government who care about education?
School Funding — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Education
Angela Rayner (Labour, Centre-left): I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend—there is no justification for these cuts The Secretary of State has, of course, unveiled the proposed solution, her so-called national fair funding formula, which she presented to her Back Benchers as a kind of reverse distribution. On the Government’s own figures, they are quite literally robbing Peterborough to pay for Poole, but it will not take long for Members on both sides of the House to discover that not only is there nothing fair about the proposed funding formula but that it will not make up for overall real-terms cuts. Concerns about what that means for our constituents are shared on both sides of the House. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) has said that his message to the Minister for School Standards is: "I don’t get this and I don’t think it’s particularly fair." I hope that we will see the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle in the Chamber this afternoon and that he will put his concerns forward. I hope he will speak The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady) has said: "Every secondary school in Trafford will lose funding, even though it is one of the places famously underfunded for education." Perhaps we will hear from him, too. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk), who of course co-chairs the f40 group of historically underfunded local education authorities, said just this morning: "The bottom line is that it’s created some distorted outcomes which we think require some significant remodelling." No wonder he is concerned, because nearly half of the f40 group face further cuts, rather than increases, under the Minister’s national funding fiddle Of course there is one Government Member who seems quite happy to accept the cuts in her own constituency: the Secretary of State herself. Schools in her own constituency are set to lose some 15% of their funding per pupil. Perhaps she will be lobbying herself.
School Funding — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Education
Angela Rayner (Labour, Centre-left): I hope that the hon. Members I mentioned will make contributions today, because the motion before the House makes it clear that our schools are facing a cocktail of cuts that will see 98% of schools lose out in the funding formula. I hope that the Government think again about their proposals.
School Funding — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Education
Seema Malhotra-Saluja (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. In my constituency we are looking at cuts of £437 per pupil between 2015 and 2019. With the Government saying that they believe in and want to support social mobility, and with a third of our children across the country not achieving even five good GCSEs, does she agree that this is absolutely the wrong time to be cutting school funding for the pupils who most need it and that it is an own goal when it comes to thinking about our future shared prosperity?
School Funding — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Education
Angela Rayner (Labour, Centre-left): I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I would go so far as to say that the meritocracy that the Prime Minister talks about is already in tatters The National Audit Office has said that the Secretary of State expects schools to make £1.7 billion of savings by "using staff more efficiently." Can she guarantee today that those so-called efficiencies do not mean fewer staff? A £1.7 billion cut could mean up to 10,000 redundancies for teaching staff in our schools. She has resolutely failed to give us figures on the impact of the planned cut, but her own analysis of the research conducted by the education unions shows that, for example, the cuts in my region—the north-west—would amount to well over £400 million, requiring the loss of more than 2,000 teachers. Given that the Government have failed to meet their own teacher recruitment targets for the past five years in a row, I urge her to think again before she tries to solve school budget crises on the back of hard-working staff Make no mistake, this is a crisis. Indeed, schools are already resorting to staff cuts in order to cope. A Unison staff survey conducted last year showed that, even then, more than one in 10 respondents were reporting redundancies in the past year and in the coming year. More than one in five said that their school had left vacant posts unfilled over the past year or had cut maintenance. Nearly a quarter had seen increased class sizes, and over a quarter had experienced cuts to budgets for books and resources over the past year.
School Funding — House of Commons, 2017-01-25
Topic: Education
Angela Rayner (Labour, Centre-left): The Labour party is for fair funding, but this is not fair funding; this is unfair funding for every school in our nation. The hon. Gentleman should take heed of what that might mean for his constituency. Pulling people down is not the way forward. If we want to make the best of our economy post-Brexit, we must ensure that we invest in all our schools, not take from one school, robbing one group of young people, to give to another, leading to an overall cut in distribution.