This week in Parliament has been focused on delivering on our promises in the Queen’s Speech.
The Ministry of Justice and Home Office teams led on a debate about safer streets and our new far-reaching reforms to policing, courts, asylum and immigration. I was there in my role as PPS to the Lord Chancellor and heard some strong contributions.
On Tuesday the Justice Team took questions from MPs of all parties about how the Ministry is dealing with issues such as court backlogs, probate and better access to justice for vulnerable people.
Also early this week I had a good meeting with the team at Alstom about the future of public transport in our area, including a discussion about Tram-Train options for bringing the Metro to Heywood.
Later on I met with the Police Federation, the representative body for frontline officers to hear their thoughts on what is and isn’t working in the Greater Manchester Police.
The bulk of this week has been spent on the Bill Committee for the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. This landmark legislation will, amongst other things:
- Put the police covenant into law, to better support our police officers and their families.
- Double maximum sentences for common assault and battery against emergency workers, to protect those who work to keep us safe.
- Introduce measures to stop the minority of protests who seek to use mob rule to stop the public from going about their lawful activities.
- Introduce Whole Life Orders for the premeditated murder of a child – so that courts can make sure people convicted of the vilest of crimes spend the rest of their lives behind bars.
- Create new Serious Violence Reduction Orders so that people with a history of carrying illegal knives can be stopped and searched to check if they are carrying a knife again.
- Bring in life sentences killer drivers who cause fatal accidents while racing or while drunk.
- Give better protection for victims and witnesses in cases of violent and sexual offences, with strict bail conditions.
- Extend “position of trust laws” to protect teenagers from abuse by sports coaches and religious leaders.
- Create more transparency in sentencing so that serious criminals spend more of their sentences in prison instead of out on licence, and those who pose a threat to the public are kept behind bars.
- Add tougher community sentences, with longer curfews, to ensure offenders give back to the society they have harmed.
- Change the law so that desecration of war memorials and vandalism of graves and tributes is treated as seriously as criminal damage with a higher monetary value.
- Protect our green spaces and play areas from unauthorised encampments, with criminal penalties including seizure of vehicles for those who refuse to obey a request to leave or who come back after being evicted.
So, all in all – quite a bit!
This weekend I caught up on constituency casework and had a lovely time joining the team at Heywood Magic Market for their grand reopening.
The other highlight of my week was getting my first jab – which was a completely stress-free experience. Please when you get the call, get the jab!
