Shabana Mahmood MP: speeches

Speeches

• 22 May 2025 · Independent Sentencing Review · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to the right hon. Member, his father and magistrates all over our country. They do an incredibly valuable job of keeping our justice system going. In fact, magistrates deal with 90% of all criminal cases. The right hon. Member is referring to prolific offending: the people who keep coming back, cycling in and out of the system. The review recommends that we switch to a model of intensive supervision courts, where a judge is in charge of making sure that a treatment programme is adhered to. We will take that forward, and I will set out more proposals when we bring forward the legislation. The early pilots—which, in fairness, were started under the previous Government—have shown very positive progress in helping those offenders to turn their lives around and break the cycle of addiction or mental health problems that often leads to prolific offending. We will build on that work.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Sentencing Council Guidelines · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Gentleman is concerned about the guidelines and what was brought to his attention when, perhaps people in his party should not have waved them through before the general election and welcomed them, as the shadow Transport Secretary did. I notice that none of them is engaging on the substance of that point. I am the one who is dealing with the democratic deficit. They had 14 years in power and did nothing about it, and now they just carp from the sidelines.

• 11 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I notice that in all his references to letters, the shadow Lord Chancellor did not refer to the letter from the previous sentencing Minister, now the shadow Transport Secretary, who welcomed those guidelines. He knows full well that that was a reference to the guidelines around race, ethnicity and cultural background.

• 11 Mar 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The shadow Lord Chancellor’s amnesia continues, because he clearly has not done his homework; he has forgotten that his Government were consulted extensively on this guidance. It also appears that he cannot read, because the letter states very clearly all the consultation that took place under his Government. It shows that they were consulted numerous times on the new guidance and welcomed it—I notice that he did not refer to that. He knows full well that the change he refers to is a minor change, because the reference to race, ethnicity and cultural backgrounds has been retained in the time his Government seeing it and the changes that occurred, so he cannot hide behind that. The last few days have therefore been an expert lesson from the right hon. Gentleman: he has taught us all how to throw the shadow Transport Secretary under a bus.

• 25 Jul 2024 · Criminal Law · Hansard source

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  The public made the decision for the previous Administration by voting them out of office in such a stunning manner. We do have to win votes—it is a democracy, at the end of the day—but we must also govern the country in a way that does not risk the total collapse of the criminal justice system. It is a sign of the Tory party’s collective nervous breakdown in government that the risk of running the criminal justice system into the ground, with the total collapse of law and order in this country, was allowed to happen in the first place. This new Administration will never take such a risk, and we are taking these measures today to start putting things right and clean up the mess that we have inherited from the Tory party. The last occupants of 10 Downing Street left our prisons in crisis. They left our criminal justice system at the point of collapse. They were the guilty men; I know the historical weight of those words, but they are apt. The last Government placed the country in unconscionable peril. This Government’s legacy will be different: a prison system brought under control, a Probation Service that keeps the public safe, enough prison places to meet our needs, and prisons, probation and other services working together to break the cycle of reoffending. Today’s measure is not the long-term solution—I am not pretending that it is; there is a hard road ahead of us—but it is the necessary first step.