Debating this week’s motion on @SuellaBraverman, Shadow HS @YvetteCooperMP points out “there is also a serious question about whether the Home Secretary has just made things worse by ignoring legal advice and allowing dangerous overcrowding” at the #Manston immigration camp 1/6
SNP Home spox @Stuart_McDonald tells MPs he “noticed a significant deterioration” in conditions at #Manston – “not because of the hard work of the staff there but because of the overcrowding” – adding that staff “have been placed in an impossible position” by @SuellaBraverman 3/6
“The result [of #Manston overcrowding] has been what @POAUnion assistant general secretary Andy Baxter described as a ‘humanitarian crisis on British soil’, with people sleeping on cardboard in tents amid outbreaks of covid, diphtheria, scabies & hepatitis” warns @RThomsonMP 4/6
Shadow Solicitor General @hammersmithandy says it appears that @SuellaBraverman “decided to allow #Manston to fill up to two or three times its capacity, to allow people to be detained there not for hours or days but for weeks – and in doing so knew she was breaking the law” 5/6
Peers debate the King’s Speech (topics: Home affairs, crime and justice, and devolution), Wednesday 8 November 2023 – highlights 🧵👇
Minister Lord Bellamy outlines new measures including plans to “expand the use of the successful home detention curfew scheme to allow more lower-risk prisoners on standard determinate sentences to be safely managed on electronic tags in the community, rather than in #prison”
Labour’s shadow minister Lord Ponsonby asks: “Where is the optimism, confidence & vision for our #probation service, which is surely at the heart of any strategy to contain our ever-growing #prison population?” and slams the “lurch from one predicted crisis to another” in prisons
Westminster Hall debate on Imprisonment for Public Protection (#IPP) Sentences, @CommonsJustice report and Government response – Thursday 27 April 2023: highlights 🧵 1/44
Opening the debate @CommonsJustice chair @neill_bob explains #IPP sentences were abolished in 2012 mainly because “far more people fell within the scope of the scheme than had been the political intention”, but Govt “did not deal with those who were already serving sentences”2/44
“621 of those prisoners are at least 10 years over their tariff and 222 of those received a tariff of less than two years” @neill_bob reveals – “five times longer than the index sentence that … the judge who heard the facts thought was the appropriate tariff for the offence”3/44
Lord Chief Justice explains that in-court resulting by legal advisers and clerks as part of #CommonPlatform “has proved to be much more difficult in many cases […] has slowed things down and has also put the people who are doing it under a great deal of strain” @PCSMOJNOMS 2/4
#CommonPlatform is “so controversial @pcs_union have decided to take industrial action”, @KarlTurnerMP points out – LCJ says it’s “striking” this isn’t about pay but “people saying: we are trying to make this thing work and we can’t, and it’s really putting us under pressure” 3/4