🗣️ Speeches and Debates
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My Lords, I welcome Amendment 148A. The Bill will shape the ecosystems of support that underpin and surround our entire justice system. A recurring theme through Second Reading and Committee so far has been the question of resourcing. While the focus of these discussions has been largely around the Probation Service itself, we cannot ignore the 1,700 community and voluntary organisations that...
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My Lords, I also support Amendment 93B in the name of my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe. It is well established that the literacy and numeracy rates for those who end up committing crime are much lower than those in the general population. A Ministry of Justice report into prison education found that 57% of adult prisoners taking initial assessments had literacy levels below those expected...
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My Lords, I support Amendment 35, as outlined by my noble friend Lord Sandhurst. As I said at Second Reading, good intentions go only so far. The Bill transfers a large part of the responsibility for rehabilitation into the community, a change that, as has been pointed out by many, the evidence supports. Not only does it have benefits for those who would previously have served a short...
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I thank the noble Lord. To build on that, more needs to be done for the community and voluntary organisations that, sitting alongside this Bill, will help build the capacity to deliver, so that the rates he outlined will be increased. Policy examples include multi-year, unrestricted grant funding and regional commissioning. I return to the amendment. By being more explicit in the Bill about...
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My Lords, I echo the tributes made to the noble Baroness, Lady Newlove. Our thoughts are with her family today. This Bill is important. The UK has one of the highest rates of imprisonment in Europe and one of the highest rates of reoffending. People in our prisons are not typical of people in Britain. They are more likely to have grown up in a family facing financial hardship, more likely to...
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My Lords, there is nothing easy about confronting mortality or dealing with suffering. The number of us who have chosen to speak at this Second Reading is a reflection of the importance of these issues and how universally relevant they are. Every one of us in this place has been touched and shaped by losing people we have loved and seeing what they have gone through as they reach the end of...
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My Lords, one area where the UK has a unique specialism is demining. We are home to the world’s two largest demining organisations: the Halo Trust and the Mines Advisory Group. It is important that we continue to build on this world-leading expertise, as the unprecedented rise in global conflict means that the need for mine action has never been greater. Will the Minister consider what more...
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My Lords, 80 years ago, my grandparents, Bert and Winnie Firmin, were at the theatre when the show was interrupted with the announcement that the war was over. Bert, stationed for the duration of the war on Malta as an RAF electrician working on Spitfires, had managed to get a few days’ leave to come home and marry Winnie. They wed on 7 May 1945. Peace was the best wedding present they...
More of Baroness Porter of Fulwood's speeches and debates
✍️ Written Questions and Answers
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To ask His Majesty's Government how many foreign national offenders they have attempted to deport since 4 July 2024; and how many of those deportations have been blocked under the European Convention of Human Rights.
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To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage foreign national offenders to use the voluntary transfer mechanism under the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons.
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To ask His Majesty's Government how many foreign national offenders have been transferred under the voluntary transfer mechanism provided by the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons in the past year.
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To ask His Majesty's Government what proportion of foreign national offenders, and how many foreign national offenders, have been transferred to Poland to serve their sentences since the Memorandum of Understanding between the UK and Poland on Cooperation in Criminal Justice Matters was signed in November 2024.
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To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to reduce the number of foreign national offenders held on remand.
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To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact that the upcoming changes to employers National Insurance contributions will have on cancer charities; and how that impact will be factored into the development of the national cancer plan.
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To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of how the capacity of charitable organisations working with people in prisons, or helping former prisoners readjust upon release, could be scaled.
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To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to identify, and learn from, examples of best practice among charitable organisations that work with people in prisons, or help former prisoners readjust upon release.
More of Baroness Porter of Fulwood's written questions
