Results 1-20 of 7,503 for in the 'Commons debates' OR in the 'Westminster Hall debates' OR in the 'Lords debates' OR in the 'Northern Ireland Assembly debates' speaker:Chris Grayling
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: I plead guilty to having done a couple of media interviews this morning, but I am at least in the House right now. My opposite number, the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), also gave some media interviews this morning but has not made it to the House, which is rather a surprise to me. We learned an important lesson in opposition, which is that sometimes when one aspires to be a...
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: I can give assurance on both those points. The national probation service will continue to have local delivery units operating at a local authority level with local agencies, which is essential, and multi-agency supervision will and should continue for the most serious offenders. On charitable groups, I am clear that quality and the likelihood of delivering success in reducing reoffending...
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is always good to hear him make a thoughtful and measured contribution, which is not always true of the rest of his party. We have to be absolutely certain that the organisations we recruit to do the work have the expertise we need, particularly in the field of drug rehabilitation. I reassure him that I have no intention whatever to...
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: I agree with my hon. and learned Friend. One of the elements of the new contracts will be to combine resettlement services in prisons with post-prison support, so it is a genuinely joined-up service. His point about reading is of great importance. One of the encouraging things I saw in Peterborough is the way in which older, more experienced offenders who have gone through a longer process of...
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: Breach will be a matter for the public probation service. May I take advantage of the fact the right hon. Gentleman is a Welsh Member to pay tribute to the leaders of the probation trust in Wales, who have been enormously helpful in shaping the proposals? Their work on plotting a new path for probation has been very influential. I also say to the people of Wales that we envisage there being a...
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: I am happy to look at what we can provide for my hon. Friend. He is right that we need to have the best possible understanding of what happens to people post-prison. We are putting in place a justice databank so that voluntary organisations that work in the area can understand the impact of their work. I will do my best to provide as much information to the House as possible about the issues...
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: No, that is not correct. I hope that we can pray in aid the spirit of the co-operative movement, which has played a great role in this country over the past 200 years. We are actively encouraging and supporting members of our probation teams who want to form mutual organisations to bid for the contracts, and I hope that they will do so.
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: Let me reassure my hon. Friend that the length of time that people are spending in prison has been increasing, not decreasing. I agree that we need to take advantage of the opportunity to turn people’s lives around in prison. Those who say that short sentences do not work and should not happen always miss the point that 80% of the people who arrive in our prisons have been through a...
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: With a major reform such as this, it is always important to do everything that we can to take staff with us. The Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), who is responsible for prisons and probation, will meet the unions today. We have regular contact with staff organisations across the Department and that will continue. I...
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: We are working hard to increase links with employers. The amount of work done in prisons has increased dramatically, and much of that takes place with potential post-prison employers—I pay tribute to the rail industry, for example, and the work it is doing. As we roll out these reforms, I want Jobcentre Plus and Work programme providers to be more closely involved with prisons, and to...
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: The answer to that is: as of yet, not exactly, because there will be a bidding process. I emphasise again, however, that that will not be simply about cost, and that quality will be at least as important as cost and the proportion of the contract put at risk. It will not be 100% payment by results because we must pay for orders of the court. I intend the providers to have some of their money...
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: I rather agree with my hon. Friend. He and I both sit on the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative party, but one thing I welcome within the confines of the European Union is the prisoner transfer agreement. That is being ratified across the EU, and I hope it will soon allow us to send quite a lot of the people he is talking about back to their home countries where they belong.
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: We want to try to ensure that everyone gets a job and is housed. Everyone in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency has a vested interest in ensuring we bring down reoffending, because otherwise there will be more victims of crime. One thing I expect to see—this is already happening in parts of the provider community —is housing capabilities being part of the bids, and we already...
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: That latter point is important and we will try to ensure that the bid process is as simple as possible for smaller organisations, and that it is as simple as possible for partnerships to be formed. I am not attracted by simply having a universal prime and subcontractor model. In Peterborough and Doncaster, for example, partnerships are already being formed between the private and voluntary...
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: Self-evidently, the existing structure of public probation trusts cannot take risk on behalf of the taxpayer, but staff are welcome—they are being helped actively—to establish co-operative movements and social enterprises that bid for the business. That is to be welcomed. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is a Labour and Co-operative Member, but he sits with many who are....
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: I can reassure my hon. Friend that the issue unites the coalition—there has been a lot of talk of the coalition parties having differences on policy, but let us champion a policy on which we are united on the need for change. As hon. Members will see when they read the document, one thing that is different in the package I have announced is that we are building rehabilitation support...
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: The hon. Gentleman needs to stop believing everything he reads in the papers.
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: My ministerial and I colleagues have regular meetings with leading figures in the legal profession and with leading probation staff, and will continue to do so. I most recently had meetings with both the Bar Council and the Law Society within the past couple of weeks.
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: My hon. Friend makes an important point. We intend to ensure that any passing of risk down a supply chain is done in a transparent way. We will do everything we can to protect the interests of smaller organisations, but they must take advantage of that protection and not simply sign up to deals that they cannot afford.
- Business of the House: Rehabilitation of Offenders (9 May 2013)
Chris Grayling: I understand full well where the hon. Gentleman comes from politically. The problem with his argument is that the legislation that enables me to make these proposals was passed by the Labour Government.