Contribution
I am grateful to colleagues on all sides of the House for their contributions to the debate, and I welcome the Minister to his post—I think today is his first time at the Dispatch Box. As I have said before, wanting to see more consistent delivery of justice for victims of serious crime was one of the primary reasons I sought election to this place, and I do not think that any Government in my lifetime has universally delivered that. For decades, across parties, our justice system has fallen short far too often. I am sure that many Members from all parties can relate to the experience of hearing about some of the most horrific crimes that take place and being appalled by the sentences given. That is not new, but the question we have to ask ourselves today is whether the Bill we are considering will make the situation worse or better. Will more victims get what we would consider justice as a result of this Bill, or fewer?
Since this Labour Government came to power, we have quite rightly been holding them for account for the measures they have already taken to let people out of prison earlier. Members on both sides of the House will be familiar with the consistent debate we have had about pressure on prison places, where responsibility for that lies, and what can be done about it. Labour Members point to our prison-building record, while I point out to them that the pressure on the prison system left by the last Labour Government was worse, and that there are other options for foreign nationals and the remand population. A lot of heat is generated, but there is not much more to it. Labour Members point out that they have had to take emergency steps, and it is true that the measures they have taken have not been permanent changes to our sentencing framework. However, I say to them that the Bill we are considering today does something very different.
As the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) and others have demonstrated, I am not sure that Labour Members fully recognise what the Government are asking them to support today. There are measures to be welcomed in this Bill—the new restriction zones and the measures to better track domestic abuse cases, which the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), also supported—but there are a number of reasons why I do not support the Bill. We have heard Members including the shadow Justice Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), raise criticisms relating to short sentences, community sentences, Parole Board reform, probation and the Sentencing Council, but I am not surprised that Labour Members do not agree with those criticisms.
However, I do not believe Labour Members can sincerely think what I am about to talk about is something they would knowingly want to support. I am going to read out a list of offences: rape; assault by penetration; rape of a child under 13; assault of a child under 13 by penetration; inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity; paying for the sexual services of a child aged under 13; kidnapping or false imprisonment with the intention of committing a sexual offence; and creating or possessing indecent photographs of children. I hope Labour Members felt as uncomfortable being forced to consider those offences and what they entail as I did while reading them out. I am going to read them again: rape; assault by penetration; rape of a child under 13; assault of a child under 13 by penetration; inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity; paying for the sexual services of a child aged under 13; kidnapping or false imprisonment with the intention of committing a sexual offence; and creating or possessing indecent photographs of children. In fact, there are even more of those sorts of offences that we need to have in mind this evening.
Why do we need to consider these offences? Because despite what some Labour Members have said to the contrary—without ill will, I accept—and for all the things it does that Members might support, the Bill we are considering this evening will mean one thing for the vile criminals who commit those sorts of offences. It will mean that they are let out of prison earlier, not as a temporary measure in response to the kind of short-term prison crowding challenge that we have debated and recognised, but as a permanent and profound change to our sentencing laws.
Members who support this Bill will be putting their name to legislation that will forever change our sentencing laws to let rapists and paedophiles out of prison earlier. The hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Sally Jameson) talked about legacy. I cannot honestly believe that Government Members want to support a Bill that will allow rapists and paedophiles to get out of prison earlier. That is not political posturing or hyperbole or scaremongering, as the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) described it. It is not an unfair interpretation or misrepresentation of the Bill before the House today. Rapists and paedophiles—those are the people that Members will be voting to let out of prison early if they support this Bill this evening. Is that really what they came to this place to do?