argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): Just before my right hon. Friend moves on, may I ask her a question about magistrates? She rightly values the work that they do, so when can we expect the Government to allow them to send people to prison for 12 months, rather than six? This Government have been promising to do that for quite some time.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Transportation
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for his dogged support for magistrates; he is absolutely right about the fantastic work that they do. I am looking into this issue, and I would be happy to discuss it with him further Part 5 tackles the rampant compensation culture that has developed around whiplash claims. The number of road traffic accident personal injury claims is over 50% higher than it was 10 years ago, despite there being fewer accidents and safer cars on our roads. The Bill will enable us to introduce a transparent tariff system of fixed proportionate compensation for whiplash claims with an injury duration of up to two years, and to ensure that all claims will be supported by good quality medical evidence provided by accredited experts.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that we have changed the figures in response to the consultation document. Those were judged to be fair and reasonable for the level of injury that we are talking about in this case.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Chris Ian Brian Mynott Philp (Conservative, Centre-right): I strongly welcome the provisions in the Bill to clamp down on whiplash fraud. Will the Lord Chancellor consider widening very slightly the definition of "whiplash injury" in clause 61 to include injuries to the lower back as well as the upper back?
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Elizabeth Mary Truss (Conservative, Centre-right): That issue was covered in the consultation, and we have brought it back after listening to what people fed through in the consultation. The Bill will end the unfairness of higher premiums for motorists while ensuring that fair compensation remains available for genuinely injured claimants The Prisons and Courts Bill will usher in a new, modern era for our prisons, courts and justice system. It will do three key things. It will ensure that our prisons are places of reform so that offenders have the skills they need to return to society, to secure employment and to turn their back on crime. It will create a courts and tribunal system that protects the most vulnerable and is more straightforward and accessible for all. It will also enable the judiciary to meet the demands of a modern justice system and enhance our reputation for legal excellence around the world. I commend the Bill to the House.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I, too, want to support and help to protect our prison officers. I intend to table an amendment whereby a prisoner who assaults a prison officer should no longer be automatically released halfway through their sentence. That would have a big impact on the Prison Officers Association—it would welcome that support—and it might deter some of the violence in prisons. If I table such an amendment, will the hon. Gentleman show his backing for prison officers by supporting it?
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Shailesh Lakhman Vara (Conservative, Centre-right): Lord Thomas certainly said that, but the hon. Gentleman will be aware that Lord Thomas also supports all the Bill’s measures on reforming the courts, particularly on using technology to allow the access to courts that so many people were saying was going to be denied. Lord Thomas supports all the measures.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Transportation
Shailesh Lakhman Vara (Conservative, Centre-right): The shadow Minister’s tone suggests that he agrees with much of the Bill—that is welcome—but how does he explain the fact that while the number of accidents is going down enormously, the number of whiplash claims has nevertheless increased by 50%? Does that have something to do with fraud?
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Labor
Jonathan Simon Djanogly (Conservative, Centre-right): If someone can get something for nothing, are they not likely to take it up? That was the core problem with employment tribunals when people had to pay nothing to get access. It is right that if one goes to court, one pays some sort of fee.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State, as did her shadow, for the courtesy that she has shown to me as Chair of the Select Committee in keeping me apprised of the progress of this Bill. That is very welcome. Although there have been occasions when the Committee has come up with constructive—I hope—criticism or intentions contra to the Government’s, the whole ministerial team has always engaged with us very positively. I very much welcome the Bill and the tone of her speech. This is an important Bill because, first, it deals with some very important topics; and, secondly, it is wide enough in scope to merit acting as a framework for further improvement as we go forward I will start with, but not confine myself to, prisons, because that is obviously the most significant issue on my right hon. Friend’s agenda, and perhaps the matter of greatest concern to the Justice Committee. We have issued a number of reports during this Parliament, as in the previous one, about the situation in our prisons. Let us be blunt: the situation is grim. That is not the doing of my right hon. Friend; it has grown up over a number of years and under the watch of Governments of different political complexions. We now need to tackle it as a matter of real urgency. There is no single reason why we have got into this difficulty in our prisons; a number of factors are involved. Similarly, therefore, there is no single silver bullet as a solution The Bill contains a very valuable and worthwhile framework on which to hang a wider suite of reforms. I very much hope that my right hon. Friend will take courage to be bold and radical in those reforms. Conservative Members should not be afraid of being advocates of prison reform, which is a fundamentally important social cause. I am proud to be a member of a party that has a long tradition of advocating social reform running back through Wilberforce, Shaftesbury, and the reforming work of Disraeli’s second Administration that was done by Richard Cross, his Home Secretary, and others. My right hon. Friend, who takes on the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), follows in a radical Tory tradition that I welcome and for which we should not be afraid to make the case.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Daniel Leonard James Poulter (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is making a valuable contribution. I agree with him about the many merits of this Bill. Does he not agree, though, that it is a missed opportunity to improve opportunities for prisoners and reduce reoffending, because improving and protecting the mental health of prisoners is not mentioned in clause 1?
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes a perfectly fair point. I imagine that it will be almost impossible to put every single objective into the Bill, and I suspect that Ministers will say that the objectives are intended to be broad and overarching, but the issue of mental health in prisons is a most profound and important one, and I would have no objection were it to be in the Bill. Equally, however, the most important thing is the political good will of Ministers in ensuring that it is made a top priority within the framework of the Bill as it stands. I hope that he and I, and others who share our concerns about this across the House, will be able to work hard to make sure that that is delivered, as this is one of the areas of prison reform that we need to tackle We are seeking to provide a legal framework. Part of that is in the Bill; the rest is set out in the important measures in the White Paper, which was a very significant and progressive—in the right sense of the word—document.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): Let me just make this point and I will give way to my hon. Friend again, because I know of his expertise and interest in these matters We need to recognise across the House that we must have the political will to tackle reform. That includes creating a climate of public opinion that accepts that prison reform is not a soft option—that it is done not out of a kind of soft-headed liberalism or do-goodism but for sound and profound social, moral and ethical reasons—and that it brings with it real societal and economic benefits.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Daniel Leonard James Poulter (Conservative, Centre-right): As my hon. Friend will be aware, the White Paper sets out a whole range of proposals to deal with increasing violence and self-harm, and persistently high levels of reoffending. Given, as he said, the profound connection between poor mental health in prisoners and these issues—including substance misuse, which is often linked with poor mental health—I find it very surprising that clause 1 does not mention improving the mental health of prisoners.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Garnier (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend mentioned, correctly, the need for political will. However, if members of the public are asked, individually or on a more organised basis, what they think about the current state of our prisons and what needs to be done within our justice system, they are much more liberal than politicians give them credit for. We need to be braver and get on with this rather than allow ourselves to be pushed around by various disobliging organs of the media who want us to be more and more draconian in the way that we deal with prisons.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right, and he moves me neatly on to the next thing I was going to say. That political will does sometimes require us to stand up against the writers of the lurid headlines and those who pose as the voices of public opinion but in fact seek to be manipulators of it, and to say the truth—that it is in everybody’s interest that we reduce reoffending because the more we do so, the fewer victims of crime there are, and that is in everybody’s interest. That is a good right-of-centre, as well as left-of-centre, case for undertaking prison reform, and we should make it across the House.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Lady, who follows these issues closely, makes a very fair and reasonable point. That is a significant factor I practised as a criminal lawyer for the better part of 30 years. I both prosecuted and defended, so I have had no compunction about sending away people who have committed serious crimes. Equally, when I defended people and when I looked at some of those whom I prosecuted during that career, I saw some who were dangerous, unpleasant and, frankly, in some cases downright evil. They deserved to go to prison, and some of them deserved to go to prison for a very long time There were others who were weak and stupid, and some who were greedy. Sometimes—particularly for those who were greedy—that, too, deserved punishment, and prison was an apposite and appropriate punishment. There were also those who were weak or vulnerable, or who found themselves in situations where they were easily coerced. There were people who had made a series of errors in their lives, and others who suffered from physical or mental illnesses or from real social pressures around them We have to be much more discriminating and sophisticated in how we deal with defendants in our justice system. Prison does not always work. It works for some people, but not for everybody all the time, and we need to be brave enough to say that in political debate. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier), the former Solicitor General, rightly says, the public are much more alert to and realistic about that, and much more willing to buy that argument. We simply need to have the courage to make it.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not know where my hon. Friends go out of an evening or during the day, but I am not sure that lawyers’ dinner parties accurately reflect public opinion at large. Does my hon. Friend accept—it is a fact—that since Michael Howard started the trend of sending more people to prison, the crime rate has fallen? What does my hon. Friend make of that direct correlation?
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Robert James MacGillivray Neill (Conservative, Centre-right): To be blunt, I rather suspect that I met a broader cross-section of society in practice as a criminal lawyer than one would meet in the average bookmaker’s. We must be prepared to stand up and challenge stereotypes, wherever they come from on the political spectrum. We diminish the value of prison if we adopt a knee-jerk approach and say that locking people up and throwing away the key is the best solution in all circumstances. It is the best solution for the dangerous. I had no compunction about saying that those in the Brinks-Mat trial, in which I was involved, deserved to go to prison for a very long time. One was later convicted of a very serious murder, and I thought that they should stay in prison for a very long time indeed. Equally, those who commit crimes to feed drug habits are not served by lengthy prison sentences. More to the point, the public are not served in the long run either The real difficulty that we face is that we incarcerate more people per 100,000 of population than virtually any of our western European comparators. That is more than Spain—and more than France, which has demographic, sociological and economic problems and indicators very similar to ours; it is a good comparator, in many respects. We incarcerate more than 140 people per 100,000 of population, while France incarcerates about 98. Our rate of incarceration is practically double that of Germany, a country that is also very similar to us in many other respects. That cannot be because of some greater inherent criminality on the part of the British people. It is simply that we do not have a sufficiently sophisticated suite of alternatives to custody to provide robust and publicly credible options, so sentencers often feel obliged to fall back on custody more than they do elsewhere The other point to bear in mind is that Germany and the Netherlands, in particular, do a better job of rehabilitating those who are in custody. We know that because their reoffending rates are much lower. I think the Government recognise, as do all other commentators, that short sentences very seldom have a positive effect. The Government are to be commended for saying that not only do we need to look at prison reform, in terms of what happens in prisons, but we need to look at what happens when people come through the gate; at the support that they get within the community; and at what diversionary activities can be established early on when people—particularly young people—come into contact with the criminal justice system, to make sure that they proceed no further down that path. It is an holistic approach, and the Government are right in that regard.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Philip Andrew Davies (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is being typically gracious and kind in giving way. Notwithstanding the point that he made, the fact of the matter is that for every 1,000 crimes committed in this country, only about 19 people are sent to prison. That is one of the lowest ratios of any country. Perhaps he can tell us in which countries the ratio of people who are sent to prison per 1,000 crimes committed is lower? That is the best measure of how many criminals we send to prison—not proportion of the population. We send very few criminals to prison per 1,000 crimes committed.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Garnier (Conservative, Centre-right): Could not those two examples be replicated, but to an even worse degree, in the case of young offenders? Obviously there are fewer young offender institutions than prisons. Youngsters are bussed around in the back of sweatboxes for hours—for hours and hours after court hours—and often do not reach their destination until nearly midnight. That is not a good way to rehabilitate anyone.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Oliver Heald (Conservative, Centre-right): The aspect of whiplash that is in the Bill is the tariff, along with the judge’s ability to enhance it by 20%. However, there is an entirely separate secondary legislation route whereby the small claims limit can be raised. It could be reduced, of course, but that is not happening in this instance.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Garnier (Conservative, Centre-right): I begin by declaring an interest not only in the subject that we are discussing, and not only in the fact that I am a trustee of the Prison Reform Trust and a patron of Unlock—those two charities are concerned with criminal justice and prisons in particular—but in the fact that I am on the advisory board of Samaritans, and much of what has been discussed this evening touches upon on its work. Literally tens of millions of calls are made to the offices of Samaritans every year. The fact that it is difficult for prisoners to get access to telephones and that the suicide rate in prisons is high—I understand that 119 prisoners took their own lives last year—suggests that we cannot push this subject aside lightly as one of the consequences of someone going to prison. We all need to concentrate on what we say and do about reducing self-harm and suicide in prison. I hope that the Minister for Courts and Justice will be able to respond positively on that point at the end of the debate It is uncontroversial to say that prisons are violent, overcrowded and understaffed, but the question of what we do about that is difficult to answer, because the politics relating to the criminal justice system is about sentencing, not prisons. We take a reasonably consensual view—with one or two exceptions—about what we think ought to be done in prisons, for prisoners and to protect the public, but sentencing is acutely politically controversial. The right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) asked Ministers why, if we can do it for education, we cannot create a regime to regulate prisons, but the answer is that while most of the British public—not all, but a great proportion—either have children of their own or know children, and therefore take a personal, direct interest in schools, few of us know people who go to prison or know what goes on in prison. It is a secret world. I have often said that the more prisons that are opened up to the public’s gaze—not in a ridiculous way, but sensibly—the better the debate about prisons and that aspect of the criminal justice system would be.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Stewart Jackson (Conservative, Centre-right): Notwithstanding what my right hon. and learned Friend has just said, does he agree that it is perfectly possible to resile from an over-liberal approach to sentencing while supporting an innovative approach to tackling recidivism, such as through the social investment bonds that we have seen at prisons in Doncaster and Peterborough?
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Edward Garnier (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not have an argument with that at all. The argument for making our prisons work for the public as a whole, for the victims of crime and for prisoners is not just moral and political, but economic. We push hundreds of millions of pounds into the criminal justice and prison systems, and what do we do with that investment? We produce failure. If the prison system was a business or a factory, and if I, as the managing director of that business or factory, pushed millions and millions of pounds into the process, but the things that I produced broke or failed 65% of the time, I would get the sack or my investors would go elsewhere. That is the economic argument. It happens to be bolstered by a moral argument and a political argument that we need to do better on prisons, but I do not resile from the fact that the money that we spend on prisons is not well spent, because it does not produce a lower rate of reoffending, or teach people to read and write so that they can get jobs Some 95% or 98% of the 85,000 people currently in prison will come out. I have sat as a judge for 20-odd years. I have put plenty of people into prison for perfectly good reasons, but if they come out of prison still addicted to drugs, still mentally ill, still unable to read or write and still incapable of getting a job, and if they then reoffend because they have no other ambition but to do what they have always done, which is to commit crime, what I am sensibly doing with the public’s money? Not much. It seems to me that there should be a perfectly straightforward economic consensus. Forget whether I am a lily-livered liberal—[Interruption.] Of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and I belong to the same political party and, although he is rather more expert than me, we both take an interest in racing.
Prisons and Courts Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-20
Topic: Law and Crime
Christopher Laurie Malthouse (Conservative, Centre-right): My right hon. and learned Friend is making an important point, but to achieve a compromise between him and my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), does he accept that if we were more successful at rehabilitating low-level offenders—I think that my right hon. and learned Friend is correct about that—it would leave more space for us to lock up more serious offenders for longer, thereby satisfying the public’s need for more severe sentences for very violent and serious crime?