“More than three years in to this Government, and their plans for a rehabilitation revolution have failed. Instead of tackling re-offending the Tory-led Government, propped up by the Liberal Democrats, is destroying our local probation services and centralising commissioning of services from Whitehall.
“This is a very worrying development and it’s right that there is a full inquiry into any irregularities in the payments associated with the tagging contracts with G4S and Serco. Given that the Ministry of Justice is in the middle of a multi-million pound re-tendering of the contract for electronic tagging, it is particularly important that we get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. That’s why Labour is calling for a freezing of the tendering process while there is a full investigation by the Public Accounts Committee into the value for money offered by the tagging contracts.”
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“We welcome efforts to make our courts more efficient and specialised. It’s important that we have swift justice, and I look forward to seeing results of how this works in practice. But this is the low hanging fruit of problems in our criminal justice system. We have called for a root-and-branch review of our whole criminal justice system, and this should be the Government’s priority as there are bigger savings to be found in the way our courts and prosecution services work. Real savings and efficiencies would avoid the need for the Government’s increased use of cautions for serious offences and mean that their proposed cuts to criminal legal aid, that risk doing so much damage the justice system, could be abandoned.”
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“Reducing reoffending is one of the best ways to reduce crime, cut the number of victims and shrink the cost of our criminal justice system. But as usual with David Cameron he has promised change but has failed to deliver – on rehabilitation they have wasted the last three years doing nothing.
“Behind the headlines the Government has no idea how its policies will be implemented. It has no answers to questions such as how much will the doubling of the workload for probation cost; where the money is coming from; or how the overcrowded prison estate will cope with its local resettlement plans.
“Prison must be about both punishment and reform and part of this is having a regime that encourages personal responsibility and purposeful activity. But on this Government’s watch, there’s been little sign of their much-hyped rehabilitation revolution. Instead, with cuts in prison officers and increased overcrowding under this Government, prisoners are spending too much time in cells and not enough on purposeful activity such as work, education and training.”
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Sadiq Khan MP, Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary, said: “As usual David Cameron tries to blame everyone and everything for his failure, but the truth is that our economy is flatlining and unemployment is going up due to his failed economic plan, which is nothing whatsoever to do with unlawful decisions being challenged by individual citizens.
“Besides, no Government is above the law and it’s essential that where a government or other public body has acted unlawfully a judge can hold them to account. That’s why Ministers need to guarantee that these proposals won’t insulate Government decisions from legal challenge or remove this crucial check and balance on their power.
From Hansard, Check against delivery
Sadiq Khan: At the last general election, all three main parties were committed to reform our defamation laws. The Bill before us is a step forward in modernising our outdated defamation legislation. I shall shortly explain that it is not perfect—I believe that the House must decide on a number of crucial issues today—but it will lead to a much-needed updating of the law.
I begin by thanking colleagues in the other place, including Lord Browne of Ladyton and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town, for championing improvements to the Bill, many of which are before us today, and Lord McNally for his handling of the Bill in the other place. A number of the points addressed in the amendments were raised by Labour in the House of Commons and in Committee in the Lords. We welcome the fact that the Government have taken them on board. I hope the House will endorse the improvements made to the provisions on public interest defence, the operators of websites and the electronic publication of peer-reviewed academic and science journals. All those will contribute to improving our defamation legislation.
Sadiq Khan MP, said:
“We need to modernise our defamation laws if we’re to strike the right balance between upholding free speech and protecting against damaged reputations. I urge MPs on all sides to accept the improvements made to the Bill led by Labour peers in the House of Lords. We need to grasp this once in a generation opportunity to update our defamation laws to suit the challenges of the time, and complete the cross-party work begun under Labour in 2009.
Sadiq Khan:
Let me begin by making it absolutely clear to the House where the Opposition stand on the issue of closed material procedures in civil proceedings. We accept that there may be rare examples where it is preferable for a CMP to be used because there is no other way a particular case can be heard. Our position has been influenced to a large extent by the views of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Mr David Anderson QC. He has written two memorandums on the proposals in the Bill and has given evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. He has said that
“there is a small but indeterminate category of national security-related claims, both for judicial review of executive decisions and for civil damages, in respect of which it is preferable that the option of a CMP—for all its inadequacies—should exist.”
Sadiq Khan:Let me begin by making it absolutely clear to the House where the Opposition stand on the issue of closed material procedures in civil proceedings. We accept that there may be rare examples where it is preferable for a CMP to be used because there is no other way a particular case can be heard. Our position has been influenced to a large extent by the views of the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Mr David Anderson QC. He has written two memorandums on the proposals in the Bill and has given evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. He has said that
“there is a small but indeterminate category of national security-related claims, both for judicial review of executive decisions and for civil damages, in respect of which it is preferable that the option of a CMP—for all its inadequacies—should exist.”
