Kieran Mullan MP: speeches

Speeches

• 4 Sept 2026 · Infants, Parents and Carers Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention because it brings me nicely to my next point. In these scenarios we have to avoid any judgment or lecturing parents who are unable to do that, because there are many reasons why parents differ. It is not just about time or money; there is good research about the links between life outcomes and values and ideas in someone’s upbringing. There are all sorts of factors. It is difficult and things have changed so much. Several decades ago, most people were raising their children within walking distance of their wider kinship network. Most people saw their own parents at least every other day, and a wider network of people were involved in raising a child. That is much more physically difficult to achieve these days. We have had all the focus on social media and the challenges it presents. I will go on to thank the 1001 Critical Days Foundation later, but it has commissioned research into screen time for babies, showing the impact of excessive screen time even on babies, while our focus has been on older children. If we get this wrong, the consequences are for everyone to see. I am a shadow Justice Minister. Crime costs us between £170 billion and £250 billion a year. We know that if a child experiences four or more adverse childhood events, they are more than 20 times more likely to end up in custody at some point as an adult. All these things are interconnected. The question is: how do we help? I had the privilege of visiting Sidley family hub in my constituency relatively recently, and I spoke to the professionals there who meet and work with parents every day. I asked them, “What is the most important thing that you do?” The most important thing they say, consistently, to people from all backgrounds, was that it was okay to ask for help and to say, “I need help.” The most important thing they say, consistently, to people from all backgrounds, was that it was okay to ask for help and to say, “I need help.” It is about challenging the stigma, so that everyone feels it is all right to ask for help. We do not think we can necessarily do the plumbing, the gas or the electrics in our houses without help, and parenting is 10 times more complicated and difficult than any of those jobs. It is normal for people to think they might need some help at various points along the way. Returning to the Bill, there are a few reasons why I support it. The first is its focus on babies, because anything else we do further down the chain will not be as good as anything we do at the start. The sooner we do anything we can to help a parent be more effective, to help them understand the role and to support them, the more we get back from that investment. Our funding pyramid in this area is completely the wrong way round. Money builds up as we go further along the journey, but if that money was spent on day one and from conception onwards, we would get much more from it. The second reason I support the Bill is clause 1(2)(b), which talks specifically about supporting the relationship between a parent or carer and an infant. This is about relationships as much as it is about anything else, and it is great that the Bill states that so clearly. The third reason I support the Bill is the provision to report regularly. We all know that reporting does not necessarily create the impacts and change that we want, but it is a powerful tool for parliamentarians across parties to make it difficult for Governments to move an issue out of the spotlight, so I welcome that provision. I will also touch on the Bill’s terminology, and the fact that it talks about carers. I recently met a kinship carer in my constituency who was looking after her own grandchildren. Such people provide an enormous service to our society in so many different ways. I am talking not just about kinship carers, but adoptive parents and others. From a purely financial perspective, the money that would be spent on those children if they were in care of one form or another is astronomical. These people take that burden on, and it is natural and human to want to do that. I do not think we should be thinking about them doing it for money or paying them—people should want to look after their wider family network—but at the very least we should be spending money on making sure that it is as easy as possible for them to do that, so that if anybody ever said to them, “How was it being a kinship carer?” we would know that every single kinship carer would be a cheerleader and a champion for it. We want them to be able to say, “It was difficult, but I felt fantastically supported.” I do not think I have ever met anyone who says that about their experience of being a kinship carer.

• 1 Sept 2026 · Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) on securing it and the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) on his previous efforts. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) for his long-standing work in this area. It was helpful that he set out in his contribution that the issue is not new and that similar attempts to use the law in such a manner go back quite some time. Free speech is not simply a “nice to have”—it is one of the foundations on which free society is built. It allows whistleblowers to come forward, victims of abuse and misconduct to tell their stories and be heard, and journalists and campaigners to hold the powerful to account. However, free speech is not real if it can be exercised only by those wealthy enough to defend it. When people are frightened into silence not because what they have said is false but because of the cost of being right is too high, something is fundamentally wrong. That is the danger posed by SLAPPs. At their worst, SLAPPs are not really about winning in court but about using the process itself as a punishment. They are designed to make the journey to court so expensive and exhausting that the journalist, campaigner, whistleblower or victim gives up before a judge ever considers the merits of the case. That chilling effect is not accidental—it is the point. Claims that go all the way to trial can cost an enormous amount in legal fees. Even a defendant who wins can be left with thousands of pounds of unrecovered legal bills. The threat being made is not always “We will win”; very often, it is “We can afford this for longer than you can.” Asymmetry is the weapon. We have seen that in some of the most high-profile cases involving British journalists and publishers. Catherine Belton and her publisher faced multiple legal actions after the publication of “Putin’s People”; Tom Burgis and HarperCollins faced litigation over “Kleptopia”; and Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat were pursued through the courts by Yevgeny Prigozhin. I pay tribute to those publishers and businesses who resisted that pressure and were willing to pay those legal bills that enabled those publications to survive, when we know others do not. These cases show how wealthy and powerful overseas actors, including Russian oligarchs, Kremlin-linked figures and large foreign corporations have been able to use or threaten to use English courts to put pressure on British journalists who are investigating corruption, kleptocracy and misconduct. That should concern every Member of this House. We have to have a situation in which journalists can continue to act without fear or favour. We want charities to be able to raise concerns about wrongdoing and survivors of abuse to speak publicly about what happened to them. I have spoken in the House before about how the UK is the most frequent international origin of legal threats against journalists, accounting for 31% of all such cases. There are lots of things that we can be proud of about our judicial system and its popularity around the world, but that should give us pause for thought. Around 30% of SLAPPs in 2023 were used to prevent reporting of sexual misconduct. We cannot think of that as an intangible threat to freedom of speech alone: it is being used to silence victims of some of the most personal violations imaginable. The shadow Justice Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), put it plainly in a previous debate on this subject: “SLAPPs have been deployed by those with deep pockets against company employees, non-governmental organisations, campaign activists, survivors of abuse and people from many walks of life.” —[ Official Report , 21 November 2024; Vol. 757, c. 423.] He was right. This is experienced not only in Fleet Street, but by charity workers who have documented wrongdoing at care homes, by campaigners who have published evidence of environmental harm and by the victims of sexual violence. Let me be clear about the Conservatives’ position: we support the principle of regulating further to stop abusive SLAPP litigation. It is not right that wealthy individuals, foreign oligarchs or large corporations can use disproportionate spending power and the threat of financial ruin to silence legitimate public interest. Any legislation must be well drafted and carefully considered. People must still be able to defend their reputations in court. If a person is genuinely being defamed or false allegations have been made against them, they must have access to justice. I am sure we have all had our own experiences. During a previous election campaign, a so-called journalist decided that my record as a volunteer policeman was entirely fantastical and made up, and that I was a criminal, and I had to get a solicitor involved to get that taken down. I am sure that we have all had similar experiences. Clearly, at the moment the balance is wrong. The question is whether the courts should be used by those with the deepest pockets to intimidate critics, bury investigations and frighten others into silence. They should not. It is important, as many hon. Members have already done, to recognise the progress to date. The previous Conservative Government introduced the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 that provided the first statutory definition of a SLAPP and created a power to strike out abusive claims at an early stage in cases relating to economic crime. We recognise, as the motion notes, that those provisions were narrow, but they were a start. The previous Government also ran a call for evidence in 2022, covering the wider landscape of SLAPP abuse, and supported the private Member’s Bill from the then Member of Parliament for Caerphilly that would have extended those protections significantly. That Bill fell before the election and a new version of it was not proposed by the new Government. The current Government’s record on the issue has been underwhelming. The former Prime Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), described the abuse of courts by the rich and powerful as intolerable. In October 2024, the Justice Secretary promised legislation as soon as parliamentary time allowed, but it did not appear in the King’s Speech. We then learned that plans had been drafted and were ready to go, but they were reportedly shelved due to fear of the backlash from some lawyers. Some 111 peers, including eight former Cabinet Ministers, signed a cross-party letter in April demanding action. In its 2022 model law, the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition set out a possible clear legislative framework and has been waiting for a response ever since. The co-chair of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition described action on SLAPPs as “a relatively easy win”, not only for a Government, but for the protection of public interest speech and the overall health of our democratic society. I acknowledge the work done in the other place by Baroness Stowell of Beeston. For some time, the Lords have been an important advocate of legislation in this area. The point I make to the Government is simple. They do not need to start from scratch; they have years of cross-party debate, expert testimony and the lived experience of victims. They have campaigners, journalists, lawyers and Members from across both Houses calling for action. The building blocks are there, and the Government have accepted the principle. The previous Prime Minister has called SLAPPs intolerable. The Justice Secretary has said that legislation will be brought forward, but the King’s Speech has been and gone, so what is the Government’s plan? If the answer today is only warm words, I think the 111 peers who signed the cross-party letter, the editors of The Times , The Sun and The Guardian , the National Union of Journalists, the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition and every Member who has spoken in this debate are perhaps entitled to a little something more. People must be free to defend their reputations in court, but wealthy individuals and corporations must not be able to abuse that freedom and use disproportionate legal firepower to silence legitimate free speech.

• 14 Jul 2026 · Public Office (Accountability) Bill · Hansard source

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  Let me begin, as I have throughout the passage of this Bill, by placing at the forefront my admiration for the campaigners—the families and friends of the 97 who lost their lives in the Hillsborough tragedy. On 15 April 1989 their lives were changed forever. Nothing could be done to bring back their loved ones after they were gone. Anyone who has lost someone close to them suddenly like that knows the experience of their world changing in an instant, when at one point the person they care deeply about is there, and suddenly, in the next moment, they are not. Afterwards, everything—everything else—is different. While those deaths could not be undone, what could have changed and what could have been different was the truth about what happened to their loved ones being told to them, and it was not—not just as an act of omission, but as part of a deliberate cover-up by the police and others to protect themselves from the consequences of their failings. What might have been solely a tragic experience of grief that would of course never leave them, with a gap in their lives where their loved ones were supposed to be, was in addition turned into decades of torment as they fought so hard for that truth that was kept from them. The Bill is born of that fight and of that torment, and it is a tribute to their determination. That is why, when I faced the Prime Minister across the Dispatch Box eight months ago, I made clear the good-faith desire of the Opposition to engage constructively with the Government on this Bill. I have sought to live up to that throughout its passage, not just for the Hillsborough families, but for the many others let down by the state and its institutions—the postmasters, the infected blood scandal victims, and those lost in the Grenfell Tower fire and other tragedies and scandals, as Members across the House have highlighted throughout the passage of this Bill. I feel still the keen interest of the families as we reach Third Reading, but it is our job—mine, the Opposition’s and all MPs’—to both hold in one hand, sincerely and clearly, the experiences of all those people who have suffered so greatly and, on the other, our duty and responsibility to legislate carefully and in a considered way. I am deeply disappointed that this Prime Minister and this Government have made that task much, much more difficult than it needed to be. [ Interruption. ] I would challenge any MP— [Interruption.] Any MP, no matter— [Interruption.] I would challenge—

• 13 Jul 2026 · Illegal Immigrants: Offshore Detention and Deportation · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I thank Members for their contributions and the more than 700,000 people who signed the petition, including more than 1,000 in my constituency of Bexhill and Battle. This is a very real issue in my part of East Sussex. The Government forced on us the Crowborough asylum camp, just over the border in the constituency of Madam Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Sussex Weald (Ms Ghani), but very close to my own. We met the Minister just last week, alongside local residents and councillors, and heard at first hand about groups of young men gathering in this small rural town to drink on the streets, smuggling alcohol back into the detention centre and working illegally, and all the distress that that is causing. I am not surprised that the Government targeted Wealden for a camp, considering that it is run by Lib Dems and Greens, with their refugee asylum safe haven policy. At the heart of this debate is a question of control: whether the state and the people on whose behalf it operates have control of our borders or not. For the nation state to have meaning, a country must be able to remove people from within its borders who have no right to be there—whether to send them to offshore processing or detention, or to deport them entirely—and at scale. I welcome the opportunity to set out the overwhelming rational and moral argument for ending small boat crossings and the illegal people-smuggling trade, which is at the forefront of the petition. Whatever opponents of strong border controls say, and however much they attempt to demonise and caricature those of us who want to see control returned, I know not only that is this what the vast majority of the British public want, but that it is the right thing to do. We have to be clear-eyed about the status quo. Right now, not only is our asylum policy effectively determined by people’s ability to pay to get here, but the trade itself is putting money directly into the pockets of criminal gangs that are also involved in other crimes, such as drug dealing and violence. Whether someone makes the crossing is not a measure of their need, their comparative level of desperation or fear, or their vulnerability. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Small boat crossings favour the able-bodied, those with sufficient money to pay for the journey and those closest to Europe. They are not based on anything that Parliament or the Government have decided, nor are they a reflection of humanitarian crises. We know for a fact that every single person making the crossing from France—because they are coming from France—is not fleeing directly from a war-torn country where they are at risk of persecution. Decent, caring and compassionate constituents of mine say to me all the time, “They are safe; they’re in France.” People may have a preference—a desire—to be here instead of in France, but that is not what the asylum system was set up for. That is not what the laws and protections were intended to enshrine and make sacrosanct. However much defenders of those laws and regulations choose to ignore that, the British public can see through it. The first retort to those criticisms of the status quo is to say, “Well, that’s our fault. That’s our responsibility for forcing them to cross the channel”—as the spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Woking (Mr Forster), said. But proponents of that argument entirely fail to play through the consequences of the safe and legal routes that they advocate for. I will do so now, in the hope that people might actually consider the matter. If we set up places whereby people can apply in third countries easily, what would happen? First, those places would themselves become a focal point for potentially large numbers of people seeking asylum, as there are quite literally millions of people living under conditions that would qualify them to seek asylum here in the UK. However much people pretend otherwise, we clearly would have to refuse some of those applications. Of course, the Green party advocates open borders and no restrictions, so maybe it would not refuse any, but let us assume we would not take everybody who applied by a safe and legal route. What would happen then? Would those people simply turn around and say, “Oh well, I tried to get in. I tried to use the safe and legal route; I’ll leave it there”? Of course they would not. Those people would then turn to exactly the same people-smuggling gangs and illegal crossings, and we would be right back to square one, only then they would be coming on top of the ones granted asylum through safe and legal routes. Even the most humanitarian-minded person would have to accept that there would be limits. If there are limits, we have to say no, and for “no” to mean anything, it has to be enforceable, or the whole thing collapses. Those opposed to deportation for those coming here illegally have no answer to that moral and logical question, so what must we do? We must make it absolutely clear that if someone comes here illegally, they do not get to stay—no ifs, ands or buts. Everything else, in terms of control and having a system that works, is underpinned by that. If we do not have meaningful control—because taking years to deport people will achieve nothing—then all the rest of the policies collapse. To stand any chance of actually delivering that, we have to come out of the European Court of Human Rights. Anyone who has studied the expansion of the powers of that Court cannot reasonably argue that it is fulfilling the same function intended for it. Some may argue that they are happy with that and welcome it, but it impossible to say that it is operating as envisioned by its creators. Let us take one example: article 3 of the European convention on human rights, which gives the right to be protected from “torture or…inhuman or degrading treatment”. That right was constructed in the wake of world war two, in which, as well as being murdered, Jews, political prisoners, homosexuals and other minorities were subject to the most horrendous treatment imaginable: medical experimentation, starvation, death-inducing slave labour. How is that article 3 right now interpreted? It is now used by potential deportees to successfully oppose their deportation if the standard of healthcare in the country they would be returned to is not sufficient to meet their medical needs—the same standard of healthcare that is all that is available to millions of their fellow citizens in the countries that we would seek to deport them to. When did a right to be protected from torture or inhumane or degrading treatment become a right to access a particular standard of healthcare? We know that the convention has now gone as far as to be applied to questions of whether a particular Government is doing enough to tackle climate change. That is why even some of our most senior and respected jurists, such as former UK Supreme Court Justice Lord Sumption, are clear about the need to leave. I recommend anyone sincerely interested in this topic to listen to his 2019 BBC Reith lectures on it. He explains clearly how human rights laws are increasingly used in place of the practice of politics, democracy and elections. They have increasingly become questions of balancing. They always were, of course, but the balancing has become finer and more nuanced, and at their heart, those questions are societal and political, not legal. We should ask how it has come to this situation. It has come about because, at its core, in its willingness to expand its remit and take expansionist interpretations of the law, the European Court of Human Rights is fundamentally misconceived. The law does not exist in isolation. In the nation state, there is an interplay between the courts and judges, the parliaments, the executives, and the people. They balance each other out. Courts are, of course, operationally independent, but if they act intolerably, and if they consistently and gravely make rulings out of keeping with the views of the public they serve, Parliament can step in, as the body accountable to the public. However much in very many ways we want our courts to be independent, it is vital that in the end, ultimately, they are not independent of the people. This delicate interplay secures legitimacy for each actor in the system, and there is no such interplay in the European Court. That is how it has found itself so clearly removed from the expectations and views of the millions of people of the member states it seeks to advocate for. We can see, over many years, member states seeking to oppose the Court’s expansionist rulings; it has ignored them to its own detriment. We also see other countries—Canada, Australia and New Zealand—that are able to manage fair and balanced rules of law with rights for individuals without the need to be part of any supranational body. Anyone who argues against these ideas must be careful what they wish for, because the patience and generosity of the majority of the public is at its thinnest, if not exhausted entirely. If we do not respond to that, others with views that we are more widely unhappy with will take control, and the Government who have failed to secure it will be as much to blame as anybody else. As our current Prime Minister completes two years of his premiership, I hope that Members can reflect honestly. The promises of the Government to take control of our borders and to smash the gangs have undoubtedly been a failure. They gave the impression that tweaks could be made to significantly alter the number of crossings, but that has proven simply not to be the case, and they now have very little time left. The only country with a proven track record is Australia, and it implemented a policy of not allowing people to stay. Tweaking will not help. One in, one out with France will not help. The sooner the Government realise that, the better for the taxpayer, the better for those who want to be compassionate but do not want to be exploited, and the better for the crime agencies fighting the people-smuggling gangs. Virtue signalling will not achieve anything. Doing whatever it takes to actually regain control of our borders is the only thing that will, and the Government must get on and deliver it.

• 7 Jul 2026 · Early Release of Prisoners · Hansard source

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  Will she give way on that point?

• 7 Jul 2026 · Early Release of Prisoners · Hansard source

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  We will be in a bizarre situation: the House will come together and express an unopposed view on what we should do about this issue, but before we have even done that, the Minister has indicated at the Dispatch Box that that view is immaterial and will not make a difference.

• 7 Jul 2026 · Early Release of Prisoners · Hansard source

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  I have a really easy question. The Minister is talking about grooming gang perpetrators and the like. How many of them will be released as a result of this policy? How many spaces are they taking up that you need to free up?

• 7 Jul 2026 · Early Release of Prisoners · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to close this crucial Opposition day debate, and I thank all Members who have taken part for their thoughtful contributions. Before I say anything else, I want to acknowledge the people I met earlier today, along with other MPs on a cross-party basis, and who were in the Public Gallery: Jade, Charlotte, Jessica, Sarah, Erin, Carly and Angela. I also want to mention someone who has not been mentioned today: Isabelle, whose daughter took her own life when she saw the perpetrator of her crimes released early under the ordinary early release schemes. I particularly want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for reading out all the victims’ words, and letting everybody hear exactly what they have said. That was really powerful. I also thank him for acknowledging the many people watching at home, who are not here. They include Fiona Goddard, who was one of the first people to speak out after receiving her letter. Those people are often referred to as victims, and they are victims, but they are not just victims. Being a victim does not define them. They are people with voices that they want us to hear. They came to this debate because, at the very least, they want answers from the Government, and they want MPs to support them by taking different decisions that will put them, their experiences and their welfare first. I want to say to them directly: we hear you, and I hope that by the end of this debate, the Government will have followed suit and heard you too. When the Minister responds, I hope we will finally get answers to some of our basic questions. This Government have had eight months to answer these questions. When are people being let out, and what offences have they committed? Those are basic things that we still do not know. Instead, the Government have had to write to thousands of victims, not with answers and information, but with just enough to make each of them worry deeply about what might happen, and about whether their perpetrator will be released early; they did not know whether, or when, that would happen. That has made things much, much worse. Victim Support, which supports thousands of victims every year, has a number of questions that it thinks it is important for the Minister to respond to, and I would like to ask them now. It wants to know how people who are not eligible for the victim contact scheme, or who have chosen not to sign up to it, will be able to access information. Those people will hear these stories and read these things in the press, and will see them discussed in the Commons. Who can they approach to find out the answers to their questions? Do the Government know what proportion of victims have been reached and informed about possible changes to their case? Are the victim contact schemes set up to be contacted? How many people are raising this issue with them? What questions are the schemes being asked? What themes are emerging? What extra support are the Government offering victims, to help them back into support services to which they lost entitlement because of the length of time that has elapsed since the offences? The Government have not been honest with the public about this policy from the very beginning, or with MPs—not just once, on a minor point of detail, but on the three promises that mattered most to every victim who received one of these letters. The first promise was on what the Government described, and still describe, as an “earned progression model”. That framing was designed to reassure. If release must be earned through demonstrated rehabilitation, surely the truly dangerous cannot simply walk out. That is what the public were told, but that is not what the Sentencing Act ensures. Members do not need to take my word for it; the Library briefing note on the Bill said in black and white that release under these provisions is automatic, unless the prisoner actively disqualifies themselves through serious misbehaviour in custody. That is not earned release in any way, shape or form. It is automatic release, which is a fundamentally different proposition. Ministers knew that, and they knew the difference when they chose that language. I said that in Committee on the Floor of the House and on consideration of Lords amendments in January. The Government had every opportunity to correct that, and they have chosen not to. The second promise was that the most serious offenders would not be included in the scheme. The Lord Chancellor said that, and the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Jake Richards), repeated it throughout the passage of the Act. I asked him directly, in Committee, whether Labour MPs voting against our amendment to exclude certain offenders would be able to say to the survivors of child sex abuse that they had supported a Government who wanted to classify thousands of child sex offences as being not among the most serious offences. There was no satisfactory answer from the Minister. The Minister has failed repeatedly, during the urgent question and during the debate today, to explain how it is possible for a Government to say that their release scheme excludes the most serious offenders, while including in it people guilty of offences such as rape, the rape of children and child grooming. That is for them to justify. To make matters worse, the Government have now changed the wording they use, months after passing the Act. They now say that only “the most dangerous offenders” are out of the scheme. That is hardly any more of a justification. Do we really think that these offenders are not also dangerous? It is another example of this Government’s manipulation on this issue. That wording relates to the true exclusions—of those on extended determinate sentences, which are for perpetrators whom the judge feels are particularly dangerous. I told the Government during the Act’s passage that that did not exclude serious offenders, and they did not listen. Now they are using the right wording, so they are technically closer to being correct, but they are still deeply wrong in every way that matters. The third promise, or the third way in which the Government rammed these changes through the House, was to pretend that the measures were a short-term fix to a short-term prison capacity crisis. They are not. There is no sunset clause in the Sentencing Act. This is not emergency legislation; it is a permanent change to the law. When the Act was passed, it did not set an end date. It does not state, “Once 14,000 new prison places are built, these provisions will lapse.” It is a permanent and profound change to our sentencing laws that will be in place regardless of how many prison places are available. Victims, MPs and the public deserve to know that. The Government made three promises—three fundamental misrepresentations of what they were doing and the implications of the Act. Those are three questions that the Government did not have an answer for when the Act passed, and still do not have answers for now. We are just weeks away from the start of the releases in September, and we still do not know how many criminals are being released and what offences they have committed. I have been asking the Government about this for months. My freedom of information requests in March and April 2026 were refused, and my oral questions in March and May were deflected. I tabled a named-day question after the commencement order was laid in June. The deadline was missed; it was only with the intervention of Mr Speaker that we got a response, but it was not an answer. It did not give us the figures.

• 7 Jul 2026 · Early Release of Prisoners · Hansard source

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  I have tried to have a fair hand with the victims who attended Parliament today. I invited every Member to meet them, and I facilitated meetings with Labour and Liberal Democrat Members. So what I say now is universal. One of the aspects of last week’s urgent question that infuriated those victims was the Minister talking about our record. They said to us at the meeting that they had voted Labour in the past—that, indeed, they had voted for various different parties in the past—and they recognised that a lot of issues were involved, but they did not want to see again and again, having come to Parliament to ask about what would happen to them, a Minister getting up and attacking us. So I say to this Minister, “Do not fall into the same trap.”

• 7 Jul 2026 · Early Release of Prisoners · Hansard source

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  Will the Minister give way?

• 7 Jul 2026 · Early Release of Prisoners · Hansard source

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  As I said, we inherited the existing system of automatic release. During our time in office, we sought to raise the time served before automatic release to two thirds for some of the more serious offences. I recognise that there are challenges in the prison population, and I am raising Labour’s record to make it clear that these have been challenges for multiple decades over multiple parties, including the Lib Dems when we were in coalition. That is why we have gone as far as we can with our motion to enable the Government to achieve the absolute minimum that we could ask. I do not want any serious offenders let out of prison before they have served their time. Again and again in the meeting with victims earlier, they told us how appalling it is to hear a sentence in the court, knowing that in the vast majority of cases, prisoners will never, ever serve it. I wish that people could serve even longer sentences than the ones we currently give out, but we all know we are not in a position to make those promises. Our amendment to the Sentencing Bill was broad and sought to ensure that any serious or violent criminals—for example, people who kill by dangerous driving, people who commit manslaughter or people who commit child neglect and cruelty—were excluded from these early release schemes. The Government insisted that that is not possible, and Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs defeated us on that amendment. We are not even asking for that today. Our motion purely calls on the Government to exempt those convicted of sexual offences against an adult or a child—that is all we are asking for today. The challenge for the Government is this. They say it is absolutely necessary to keep particular people in prison, but they do not even know how many of these people they will be letting out. For example, if they do not know that 500 rapists are going to be released, they cannot tell us, “Sorry, but we really need those 500 extra places—we don’t have the capacity” because they did not know that when they passed the legislation. The incoming Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham), is reportedly exploring how to tighten the scheme for child sex offenders, and we welcome that, but I want the House to understand the timeline, because it is closing. The commencement order was laid on 8 June without a ministerial statement, a “Dear Colleague” letter or a response to any of the questions raised by the shadow Justice team. We do not know the details, but we understand from reporting that the first 700 offenders will be released on 2 September, and then a similar number will be released each month for the following nine months. We understand that the total number could be between 5,000 and 7,000 offenders, but we do not know because the Government will not tell us. The House rises for the summer recess at the end of next week and any new Prime Minister will be in Downing Street shortly after that. When Parliament reassembles in September, the first criminals will be about to be released. In fact, the first Prime Minister’s questions that the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) will take will be on the day those offenders start getting out of prison. The Government, the Lord Chancellor and Ministers have had every opportunity to act differently. They could have excluded serious offenders, made a statement when the commencement order was laid and answered our questions and our freedom of information requests, but at every turn they chose not to do so. I say with all sincerity that we know that Members on all sides of the House agree that a single sex offender released earlier than their sentence demands is one too many. There are Labour Members in the Chamber who we know agree with that. Indeed, 40 of them abstained when we originally divided on the legislation—they did not go into the Lobby and say that they believed that it was right to let rapists and child sex offenders out early. They all had doubts and some of them have spoken in today’s debate because of those doubts. We have now descended into farce. We have been told that the Government will not oppose today’s motion and we expect it to go through, but the Minister made it clear that as far as he is concerned, that does not matter one jot and things will carry on as normal. Parliament is expressing its will today and there is an expectation that the Government should respond to Parliament’s will, but the Minister has already made clear his intention not to give a monkey’s. A vote in favour of today’s motion is to say that Parliament believes that rapists and child sex offenders should not be released early, and that victims deserve better after eight months of evasion and a commencement order laid without a word of notice to Parliament. A vote in favour of the motion would send a clear message that this House has come together to support victims. To finish, I return to the victims I met earlier. It was a privilege to meet them. They asked us, MPs from different parties, whether what they are doing—coming here today, giving up their privacy, reliving their trauma and fighting for a conviction in the first place—was worth it? I told them that it was worth it and that it made a difference because the Government will not oppose the motion, so they have won and they have got the motion over the line. We are going to ensure that that is the case, whatever the failings of my party or the Labour party on the issues of justice, going back over many decades. When I was frustrated earlier by the Minister’s failure and inability to answer basic questions yet again, the Minister told me to calm down. Well, I will not calm down. Whatever our failings and the Labour party’s failings during its previous time in office, victims of rape and child sexual abuse do not deserve to pay the price of political failure over many decades. We will carry on ensuring that this Government are held to account and MPs do not let down and betray the victims of some of the worst possible offences in our justice system because of misleading efforts by the Government to pull the wool over their eyes. The wool has not been pulled over the eyes of MPs from all sides of the House. It is time that the Government came clean about what they are doing and listened to the House, because this House says, “No, we do not want those people released”. The House will vote and tell the Government that, and it is incumbent on the Government and the incoming Prime Minister to listen.

• 7 Jul 2026 · Early Release of Prisoners · Hansard source

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  I can tell my hon. Friend that it is not just a risk; it is a reality. A number of the victims we met earlier said that they were speaking to people who wanted to come forward, and to speak and contribute to the inquiry, but they saw what was happening to those who had spoken up and who had an offender sent to prison, and who now see that the offender will be released even earlier. They ask, “Why would I risk these people being let out even earlier than they otherwise would have been?”

• 7 Jul 2026 · Early Release of Prisoners · Hansard source

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  Mr Speaker could not have been clearer about the reasonable expectations of Members of this House in relation to the early release of serious sexual offenders and others into their constituencies. What did the Minister, the hon. Member for Rother Valley, say during the UQ? He said that the numbers were in the impact assessment. He repeated that twice, and he was absolutely wrong. I have read the impact assessment. Every Member who has read it will confirm that it does not contain the breakdown of offenders and their crimes that we asked for. What it contains is a description of a qualitative process of internal discussion between departmental officials to arrive at a broad estimate of the effect on the overall prison population. There is no table showing how many rapists or child groomers are going to be released. We know that is not just an omission because the Prisons Minister himself, Lord Timpson, said on “Channel 4 News” last week: “It is impossible for us to say who will be released, where and when.” “Impossible”—his word, not ours. He was asked again and again, but could not answer. The Minister at the Dispatch Box told Parliament that the numbers were available to us all. The Prisons Minister told Channel 4 that it was not possible to provide the numbers. Only one of them is right. What is the truth? I think that they actually do not know. I think the Ministry of Justice did not model the eligible cohort by offence type before passing the legislation. It pulled a lever of this magnitude, affecting potentially thousands of the most serious offenders in our prisons and their victims, and it did not even know what sort of vile criminals it would be letting out of prison early. That is a disgrace.

• 7 Jul 2026 · Early Release of Prisoners · Hansard source

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  The only comfort I can give is that there are some exclusions to the early release scheme. If someone is on a life sentence as a minimum term, or on an extended determinate sentence, release does not happen earlier; but we know that more than 90% of the offenders sent to prison every year for child grooming are on a standard determinate sentence and will be eligible for early release. The Government have quite rightly highlighted the challenges around conviction rates, and I accept the criticisms that the Government have made about the reduction in conviction rates—it is an incredibly important issue—but people do not go to court for the sake of it. It is not done just for the hell of it. They go to court and want a conviction so that a sentence is passed that is an appropriate punishment. The Government take away people’s motivation to speak up when they undermine the outcome. Let me be specific about what an assurance that serious offenders would be excluded from the scheme would actually mean in practice to a victim. We talked earlier about Fiona Goddard, a survivor of rape, sexual assault and child grooming, whose abusers were sentenced to between 16 and 20 years in 2019. I again pay tribute to her courage. Fiona received a letter from His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, telling her that people who abused her may be released early. She talked to the press and went to the media, and a journalist raised her case with the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Justice said officially, in a quote that was read out on “Good Morning Britain” when Fiona appeared on it, that the most serious offenders would be excluded. It said that to a journalist, in writing, and it was broadcast to the nation, with this victim listening in. It was saying that Fiona’s abusers had not committed offences serious enough to allow her to be protected, and would not be excluded from the scheme. Survivors were in the Gallery today because letters landed through their doors telling them exactly the same thing. When the Minister says that serious offenders are excluded, they are saying, to every single victim who receives one of those letters, “Those are not serious offences. They are not heinous crimes. They are included in the scheme.” That is absolutely appalling, and thousands of people have received those letters. I say to every Labour Member that this is not a partisan observation. During the urgent question, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips) said there should be more exemptions and that Members should work together on this, and the hon. Members for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) and for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) have contributed to this debate. Let us be clear: there are hundreds of Labour MPs, and not a single one of them has come to the Chamber today to defend the Government’s policy and position. That is absolutely extraordinary and tells us what we need to know. It seems that the Government just want to keep their fingers in their ears and pretend this is not happening. I want to be clear about what has actually happened under this Government. At the same time as this Labour Government have released over 60,000 criminals early, prison capacity has fallen on their watch, so we have roughly 500 fewer prison places under a Government who seek continually to attack our record on prison building. I accept the criticism—we should have built more prison places—but in their time in office, the figure has gone down. As with so many issues, from police numbers to teacher numbers, things have got worse under this Government. We have more than 10,000 foreign national offenders in our prisons right now, representing around 12% of the prison population and costing hundreds of millions of pounds a year. The Government could have moved faster on deportation and freed up those places. As I said, I am clear about our failings in government, and I am happy to say it again: we did build more than 14,000 prison places, but we closed too many prisons that were not fit for purpose, and that has created challenges in the system. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and I have said, and as Members on both sides of the House have said for a long time, the failings in the prioritisation of our justice system go back many decades, over many political parties. I say this not to make a political point but to demonstrate that these are long-term issues. When Labour was last in office, it introduced the existing automatic halfway release for all offenders. Despite that, prison capacity was so tight that Labour released 80,000 prisoners early. When Labour was last in office, it made use of early release schemes because it failed to build enough prison places to keep people in prison.