The comments made by Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Opposition, on 12 April 2022.
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have broken the law and repeatedly lied to the British public.
They must both resign.
The Conservatives are totally unfit to govern. Britain deserves better.
The statement made by Crispin Blunt on 11 April 2022 and withdrawn on 12 April 2022.
I am utterly appalled and distraught at the dreadful miscarriage of justice that has befallen my friend and colleague Imran Ahmad Khan, MP for Wakefield since December 2019. His conviction today is nothing short of an international scandal, with dreadful wider implications for millions of LGBT+ Muslims around the world.
I sat through some of the trial. The conduct of this case relied on lazy tropes about LGBT+ people that we might have thought we had put behind us decades ago.
As a former minister, I was prepared to testify about the truly extraordinary sequence of events that has resulted in Imran being put through this nightmare start to his justice career.
I hope for the return of Imran Ahmad Khan to the public service which has exemplified his life to date. Any other outcome will be a stain on our reputation for justice, and an appalling own goal by Britain as we try to take a lead in reversing the Victorian era prejudice that still disfigures too much of the global statute book.
The comments made by Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Opposition, on 11 April 2022.
Today I am thinking of Sir David Amess, of the dedicated public servant that he was.
A champion of Southend and of his constituents. My heart goes out to David’s wife and children, and all those who knew him.
Threats to our democracy will never prevail.
The comments made by Imran Ahmad Khan, the Conservative MP for Wakefield, on 15 July 2021. The MP for found guilty of the allegations in April 2022.
It is true that an accusation has been made against me.
May I make it clear from the outset that the allegation, which is from over 13 years ago, is denied in the strongest terms.
This matter is deeply distressing to me and I, of course, take it extremely seriously.
To be accused of doing something I did not do is shocking, destabilising and traumatic. I am innocent.
Those, like me, who are falsely accused of such actions are in the difficult position of having to endure damaging and painful speculation until the case is concluded.
I ask for privacy as I work to clear my name.
The comments made by Bernard Hogan-Howe, the crossbench Peer, in the House of Lords on 4 April 2022.
My Lords, I generally support the extension of facial recognition technology, although I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that it needs serious consideration. Technology is moving forward so fast that I think it is hard for all of us keep track of it. The three principles that the Minister might agree should underpin that are transparency of use, accountability about its use and that people should have a remedy. If things are done wrong, they should be able to check to see what they can do about it.
But the benefits are pretty outstanding. I know that, post the riots of 2011, we had to deploy 800 officers to look at 250,000 hours of rioters on CCTV footage. This allowed us to arrest 5,500 people over 18 months, but it took us 800 people. There has to be a smarter way of doing that. That would have been a retrospective use. Therefore, does the Minister agree that careful improvements in the future are wise, and that we should not stop, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, suggested, the use of it altogether?
The statement made by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 31 March 2022.
Today I am updating Parliament on Home Office delivery since my statement of 16 December 2021. The Department is committed to delivering better outcomes for the public and will continue to work to deliver a safer, fairer and more prosperous United Kingdom.
The Home Office’s humanitarian response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and our delivery of robust economic crime measures
I am working with the Ukrainian Government and international partners to hold Putin to account and support the brave people of Ukraine.
The Government launched two humanitarian schemes to provide a safe route for Ukrainians who want to come to the UK, quickly standing up the Ukraine Family Scheme and the Homes for Ukraine Scheme. We streamlined the process to allow Ukrainians with valid passports to apply purely online and continue to work with partners to ensure that Ukrainians arriving here can access the right support.
The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act provides greater powers to sanction oligarchs and businesses associated with the Russian Government. The Government have brought forth an additional 428 sanction designations since Royal Assent on 15 March. The legislation also introduces a new register of overseas entities, requiring those behind foreign companies which own UK property to reveal their identities, and strengthens the unexplained wealth orders regime.
The oligarch taskforce is helping build cases against its list of oligarchs. Internationally, we are clamping down on sanctions evasion across jurisdictions through the Russian elites, proxies and oligarchs international taskforce. The National Crime Agency’s Combating Kleptocracy Unit is providing operational capability to target corrupt elites as well as the professional enablers of these corrupt elites and support criminal cross-HMG sanctions delivery and enforcement.
Reducing crime
We are focused on delivering our beating crime plan, making Britain safer with less crime, fewer victims and safer streets.
As of 31 December 2021, we have recruited over 11,000 police officers, against our target of 20,000 by March 2023.
Our work on serious violence has provided services to those communities most affected. We launched round four of the safer streets fund which directs funding to projects tackling acquisitive crime, anti-social behaviour and violence against women and girls. We are making progress on our work to tackle violence against women and girls; we have published our violence against women and girls strategy, published the first ever stand-alone domestic abuse plan and launched the “Enough” communications campaign which highlights the action people can take to safely challenge violence against women and girls.
The Angiolini inquiry, set up to better understand how a serving police officer was able to abduct, rape and murder Sarah Everard and ensure that lessons for policing are identified and learned, started work in January 2022. The independent inquiry to investigate the death of Dawn Sturgess was formally established on 17 March 2022.
Reducing the risk from terrorism to the UK and UK interests overseas, securing a safe and prosperous UK
In February, the threat to the UK from terrorism was reduced to substantial from severe. Whilst positive, the security landscape remains complex, volatile and unpredictable as the attack outside Liverpool women’s hospital and the killing of Sir David Amess sadly reminds us. The Home Office continues in its efforts, working with operational partners, to build improvements into the UK’s counter-terrorism response.
Enabling the legitimate movement of people and goods to support economic prosperity
Since launching the points-based immigration system, we have continued to attract worldwide talent and skills whilst encouraging business to invest in British people. Latest statistics show the number of visas issued across work and study routes is now exceeding pre-pandemic levels, 677,000 in 2021.
We will in the coming period implement the plan for growth measures, including the launch of the new global business mobility routes, high potential individual route and scale-up route, which support inward trade and investment and provide UK businesses access to a more flexible pool of highly-skilled workers.
Alongside new routes, we expanded capability for a fully digital application process in December 2021, improving our ability to re-use and re-check biometrics, allowing more people to benefit from a fully digital journey.
We have supported the care sector to boost their workforce by expanding eligibility for the health and social care visa to include health care assistants.
I announced a joint National Crime Agency and leading social media companies action plan to foster greater collaboration against crime groups that use online platforms to advertise illegal migration services; relevant illegal online content is already being removed.
Tackling illegal migration, removing those with no right to be here, and protecting the vulnerable
The Home Office is working to deliver a fair but firm system to ensure that we can better support those in genuine need of asylum, deter illegal migration, break the business model of criminal smuggling networks and remove from the UK those with no right to be here.
Last year, I launched and consulted on my new plan for immigration and introduced the Nationality and Borders Bill, which is advancing through Parliament on its path to Royal Assent.
The Bill will reset the legislative framework to meet objectives including the reduction of small boat crossings and deterring illegal entry into the UK. It incorporates tougher criminal offences for those attempting to enter the UK illegally by introducing a suite of asylum reforms and expedited processes to allow rapid removal of those with no right to be here.
We have worked with France to dismantle 21 small boat organised criminal groups and secured over 500 arrests. Our joint activity with France prevented more than 23,000 crossings in 2021. Over 4,500 crossings have already been prevented in 2022, nearly three times the number to this point in 2021.
I signed landmark agreements with Serbia and Albania to return those nationals who have no legal right to be in the UK.
Our new and bespoke Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) opened on 6 January. This is one of the most ambitious resettlement schemes in British history. The first people to be resettled under the scheme included some of the c. 15,000 people who arrived in the UK under Operation Pitting, the largest humanitarian aid operation since the second world war, which prioritised those at particular risk, including women’s rights activists, prosecutors, and journalists.
Windrush
Our commitment to righting the wrongs done to the Windrush generation has not faltered. The “Windrush Lessons Learned Review—Progress Update” was published today. There is still more to do, but I am proud of our achievements and will ensure we can make the Home Office an even better place, serving the public with compassion, respect, collaboration and courage at the heart of everything it does.
The statement made by Dominic Raab, the Secretary of State for Justice, in the House of Commons on 30 March 2022.
Today, the Government are publishing the “Root and Branch Review of the Parole System: The Future of the Parole System in England and Wales”.
As Secretary of State for Justice, I am committed to protecting the public and improving victims’ experience of the criminal justice system. The parole system has a critical part to play in ensuring both aims are met; it prevents criminals that continue to pose a threat from leaving prison and helps victims to feel they have the information they need and a voice in the process. So, it is paramount to maintaining public confidence that our parole process functions effectively. In recent years, a number of decisions to release offenders who have committed heinous crimes have led to a loss of public confidence in the parole system. People have questioned how safe it really is to release certain offenders and why those recalled to prison were allowed to leave in the first place. I share these concerns, which is why I am determined to refocus the system to put public protection at the forefront of all parole decisions.
I want to see the parole process take a more precautionary approach when it comes to decisions affecting public protection. In particular, in cases which involve those who have committed the most serious crimes, it is right that Ministers should provide a measure of oversight and be able to intervene more directly in decisions on release. The key proposed reforms set out in this review will ensure public protection is the overriding consideration for release decisions.
The current release test used by the parole board has moved away from Parliament’s original intention. A court judgment in the case of Bradley in 1991 stated that the role of the Board is to
“carry out a balancing exercise between the legitimate conflicting interests of both prisoner and public”.
The statutory test has therefore changed over time to become a “balancing exercise” between public protection and the rights of the prisoner. We will revise the test to reinforce it, so its overriding focus is on public protection.
At present, 5% of all parole board members come from a law enforcement background. We will increase substantially that number, because those with operational law enforcement experience have greater first-hand experience in dealing with serious offenders and the risk they present. This will ensure a greater focus on public protection.
The review also announces our intention to introduce ministerial oversight over parole decisions to release serious offenders in the top-tier of higher risk cases. That top-tier will be defined as offenders serving sentences for murder, rape, terrorism and causing or allowing the death of a child. Where the parole board has directed release, the Secretary of State will be able to review the release decision of any “top-tier” cohort offender. We will further consider the details of the procedural mechanism and set out two options in this review for how this power could operate in practice.
Alongside this is the Government commitment to increase victim participation in the parole process. For the first time, we will allow victims to attend a parole hearing in full should they wish to do so. In addition, we will require the board to take account of submissions made by victims and allow for victims to ask questions in those submissions.
The review also outlines the new process on the transfer of life and other indeterminate sentenced prisoners to open prison conditions. Similar considerations of risk and public concern arise here, and in December 2021,1 changed the process to introduce a ministerial check on such decisions, delivering greater oversight to the process in the interests of public protection and public confidence.
Protecting the public is this Government’s top priority and the proposals in this review will reinforce public safety and increase confidence in our justice system. As we continue to develop policy and begin legislating, we will consider fully the impact of the proposals and have due regard to the requirements of section 149 of the Equality Act 2010.
The statement made by Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 30 March 2022.
Today, I am pleased to announce we are publishing the new cross-Government tackling domestic abuse plan.
The plan sets out the Government’s vision to drive down domestic abuse and domestic homicide cases. And ensure that those who experience domestic abuse get the support they need.
It was developed using responses to the tackling violence against women and girls call for evidence, which included the brave and harrowing testimonies of domestic abuse victims and survivors. These were invaluable in the development of the plan. It is also closely aligned with the tackling violence against women and girls strategy and shares the same four pillars:
Prioritising Prevention, which includes measures to identify and address the root causes of domestic abuse, including teaching children about healthy relationships.
Supporting Victims, which sets out a wide-ranging package of support for victims and survivors, including a minimum of £15.7 million per annum ringfenced for community-based services supporting victims and survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence, with the offer of multi-year funding for providers to aid delivery of high-quality support. In addition, there will be a minimum of £81 million to fund 700 independent domestic violence advocate and independent sexual violence advocate roles, with more funding for an additional 300 roles to be confirmed later this year. The pillar also includes a commitment to review whether the existing statutory leave provisions do enough to support domestic abuse victims and survivors.
Pursuing Perpetrators, which, along with the wider plan, delivers the statutory requirement to produce a strategy for the prosecution and management of domestic abuse perpetrators. The approach it outlines is uncompromising and unrelenting. It involves electronic monitoring, £75 million for perpetrator interventions and research, as well as a commitment to explore tougher ways of managing perpetrators including the creation of a register of domestic abusers.
A Stronger System, which explains how we will identify more cases, improve co-ordination and collaboration between agencies, and improve our data on and knowledge of domestic abuse. This will be done through up to £7.5 million investment in interventions in healthcare settings, trialling the innovative Ask for ANI codeword scheme in Jobcentre Plus offices and reforms to Domestic Homicide Reviews (DHRs), including steps to increase the number of suicide cases referred for DHRs.
Today, we are also publishing updated versions of the violence against women and girls national statement of expectations and violence against women and girls commissioning toolkit. These documents will support local areas in commissioning effective support services.
We are also publishing a supporting male victims document today in recognition of the specific challenges which may be faced by men and boys who experience crimes considered violence against women and girls, including domestic abuse.
The tackling domestic abuse plan has been laid before Parliament as a Command Paper (CP 639). The national statement of expectations, the commissioning toolkit and the supporting male victims document will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses. All documents will be made available on gov.uk.
The speech made by Steve Reed, the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, in the House of Commons on 30 March 2022.
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement earlier today. It is hugely timely, given the disturbing news about the potential release of Baby P’s killer. I fully support the Secretary of State in seeking a review of that. In broad terms, I welcome his statement too. It is crucial that public protection is paramount and that victims are right at the heart of the criminal justice system. Currently, too many victims feel that their views are not taken sufficiently into account, either in parole decisions or in sentencing, and that leads directly to public safety concerns, which must be taken more seriously. Labour will put public safety at the core of our contract with the British people. Sadly, the same cannot be said of this Government.
It is less than two months since the convicted sex abuser Paul Robson walked out of a low-category open prison in Lincolnshire. After he escaped, the public were warned that Robson was a serious danger to women and children. He clearly should never have been in a low-security prison in the first place. The Parole Board made that recommendation, but it was the Secretary of State who approved it. He or his predecessors already had the necessary powers, they just did not use them. So what will stop him making serious mistakes like that again when he exercises his new check and oversight powers in, potentially, hundreds more cases? Labour wants victims to have the right to make a new personal statement saying how they would feel if the prisoner is released. We would like any assessment of the risk to the public to include the risk of re-traumatising the victim, and to prevent released prisoners from living near their victim if that is against the victim’s wishes. Will the Secretary of State consider those additional proposals?
The appalling decision to release the multiple rapist John Worboys was only stopped after the Centre for Women’s Justice sued the Government, using rights established by the last Labour Government. Sir Peter Gross’s review made sensible proposals to improve these rights, including the UK’s margin of appreciation over interpretations we would all object to. But the Secretary of State will be throwing the baby out with the bathwater if he uses that concern as an excuse to take away British rights that protect British people from dangerous criminals, as they did in that case. Too many victims of crime do not get a say over what happens to criminals because those criminals are never prosecuted in the first place. That is because this Conservative Government cut 21,000 police officers and still have not replaced them, despite imposing the highest rates of personal taxation for 70 years—that is 21,000 people with law enforcement experience that his party sacked, whom he might now approach to sit on parole boards, as he suggests.
The Secretary of State spoke about rape cases in this statement, but only 1.5% of reported rape cases ever make it to court. Those that do now take more than 1,000 days, on average, before the trial starts—these are the longest delays in British legal history. What message does he think that sends about public safety and public protection? Under this Government, prosecution rates for crimes including burglary, robbery, car crime and fraud are so low that they have, in effect, been decriminalised. There are so few police left that victims are told to fill in a form online and hardly any of them ever hear anything again. It is no wonder that the Government stand accused of going soft on these crimes. Does he recognise that letting criminals get away with crime damages public safety and erodes confidence in the justice system, which is something he is telling us this afternoon that he wants to strengthen? The Victims’ Commissioner has called on the Government to establish a new victims’ right to review. That would give victims the power to challenge decisions by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service not to prosecute or to drop prosecutions. The Secretary of State did not mention that in his statement, so will he tell us whether he intends to introduce proposals along those lines in future?
Public protection requires victims to be active participants throughout the criminal justice process, including in parole decisions. Their insights strengthen public safety and public confidence in the system. Today’s statement is a step forward and it recognises some of the Government’s mistakes, but it could have been bigger.
The statement made by Dominic Raab, the Secretary of State for Justice, in the House of Commons on 30 March 2022.
Today I am publishing the root and branch review of the parole system, and copies have been deposited in the Library.
I start by paying tribute to the chief executive officer and the chair of the Parole Board for England and Wales, Martin Jones and Caroline Corby, and to all the staff who work so tirelessly to discharge their important responsibilities. They are dedicated and committed public servants.
Before I address the detail of the statement, and with your forbearance, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will update the House on this morning’s news. In the light of the Parole Board’s direction to release Tracey Connelly, and having carefully read the decision, I have decided to apply to the Parole Board seeking its reconsideration.
More generally, the role of the Parole Board in deciding on the appropriateness of releasing a criminal offender from prison, including many convicted of very serious violent and sexual offences, is clearly of paramount importance to protecting the public and to maintaining and sustaining public confidence in our justice system. It is the first duty of Government to protect the public.
In recent years, a number of decisions to release offenders who committed heinous crimes have led to disquiet, concern and, regrettably, an erosion of public confidence. Take the case of John Worboys, who is serving a discretionary life sentence for rape and other sexual offences. The Parole Board’s decision in January 2018 to release him on licence caused deep concern among his victims and the wider public. It was subject to a successful legal challenge, after which the Crown Prosecution Service successfully prosecuted him for attacking four further women.
I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised the case of Colin Pitchfork, who was convicted of the rape and murder of Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth. The Parole Board decided to release Pitchfork in 2021, and it rejected the challenge by the then Justice Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland). The understandable public anxiety was further compounded when Pitchfork was recalled to prison just two months after release for approaching women in breach of his licence conditions.
I make a broader point that in these kinds of cases, and in many others that do not attract the same level of media attention or public interest, victims feel their trauma and raw fear are neither recognised nor understood. Likewise, the public inevitably begin to question the reliability of decision making when serious offenders are recalled to prison for breaches of their licence or for committing further offences on release.
To give the House a sense of scale, in 2020-21 the Parole Board’s annual report stated that 27 offenders went on to be charged with a serious further offence following release directed by the Parole Board panel. There were 40 cases of serious further offences being charged in each of the preceding two years. Placed in context, it is fair to say this is only a fraction of all cases, but more than once a fortnight an offender goes on to commit a serious offence while subject to supervision.
At present, victims who wish to challenge a decision by the Parole Board to release a prisoner have the option of asking the Justice Secretary to apply for the decision to be reconsidered, which is an important innovation that I exercised today for a person convicted in the harrowing case of Baby P. There have been 39 interventions since the challenge mechanism was set up two years ago, with four leading to a change in the release decision.
Following the review published today, I believe the case for reform is clear and made out. In arriving at this conclusion, it is worth pausing to acknowledge the shift in the Parole Board’s approach over time. The statutory test was established in 1991 and states
“The Parole Board must not give a direction”—
for release—
“unless the Board is satisfied that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public that the person should be confined.”
It is clear from this that the overriding test focuses on public protection. However, in the absence of further guidance from Parliament, the way in which the release test has been interpreted and applied over time has shifted, moving away from Parliament’s original intention. In fact, as early as the Bradley judgment in 1991, the High Court concluded:
“The Parole Board have to carry out a balancing exercise between the legitimate conflicting interests of both prisoner and public.”
To summarise, the statutory test has morphed over time from a strict public protection test to a balancing exercise between, on the one hand, the responsibility of the state to protect the public and, on the other hand, the rights of the prisoner. Whatever the rights and wrongs, that was palpably not the original intention of Parliament.
I make it clear that I am not criticising the courts, which have sought to apply a generic statutory test without more prescriptive guidance from Parliament, nor am I criticising members of the Parole Board, as I hope I have made clear. It is worth saying that, contrary to public perception, it is often fiendishly difficult to come to a reliable assessment of an offender’s risk many years after their original crimes. Although psychiatric assessments and social science can offer guidance, risk assessments in such cases are inherently uncertain and imprecise. We need to be more honest and open about that in our public debate.
In any case, I believe the focus in this critical decision making has become adrift from its original moorings. This Government will again anchor Parole Board decision making on the cardinal principle of public protection. When it comes to assessing the risk to victims and public safety, we will introduce a precautionary principle to reinforce public confidence in the system. In cases involving those who have committed the most serious crimes, we will introduce a ministerial check on release decisions, exercised by the Justice Secretary.
The package of reforms published today will strengthen the focus on public protection at every stage. First, we will revise the statutory test for release and replace the current approach that balances the rights of dangerous offenders against public safety with an overriding focus on public protection, by providing in primary legislation further detailed criteria for the application of the statutory test.
Secondly, we will make sure that the Parole Board is better equipped to make credible and realistic assessments of risk. It is striking that, as of last year, only 5% of all Parole Board panel members come from a law enforcement background. Again, I make no criticism of the current panel members, but that is a significant deficit. I believe the deficit is wrong, and our reforms will ensure that the people we charge with making finely balanced assessments of future risk have greater first-hand operational experience of protecting the public from serious offenders. We will change this imbalance by mandating the Parole Board to recruit more members with operational law enforcement experience, and the Ministry of Justice will run a recruitment campaign to bolster its numbers. Critically, in Parole Board cases involving the top-tier cohort of serious violent and sexual offenders, we will require by law that at least one of the three panel members has a law enforcement background.
The third key reform is that, for the top-tier cohort of high-risk offenders who have committed the most serious offences, we will introduce ministerial oversight of Parole Board decisions to release such offenders back into the community, based on our assessment of the dangerousness of the offender, the risk of serious further offending and public confidence. These top-tier offenders will comprise those serving sentences for murder, rape, terrorism and causing or allowing the death of a child. In those cases, we will make two specific changes. The Parole Board will be able to refer a case to the Justice Secretary if it cannot confidently conclude whether, on the evidence, the statutory test for release has been met. In addition, we will introduce ministerial oversight over any decision to release any offender in the top-tier cohort of serious offenders. Under our reforms, in that top tier of cases the Justice Secretary will have the power to refuse release, subject to judicial challenge, on very clearly prescribed grounds, in the upper tribunal. I believe that is warranted as an extra check and safeguard to protect the public. I have not yet ruled out entirely an alternative model that could establish a three-person panel chaired by the Justice Secretary with the same power to refuse release, subject to judicial review in the normal way. We will consider further detail of the mechanism in order to strike the most effective balance.
We are making these reforms because the concept of risk is notoriously difficult to assess in these kinds of cases. We are doing it because the public expect their safety to be the overriding consideration and because, ultimately, it involves a judgment call about public protection, and the public expect Ministers to take responsibility for their safety. Let me be equally clear that there is no such thing as a risk-free society; we cannot guarantee that no one released from prison will go on to commit a serious crime. Let us be very clear about that as we have a more honest debate about the assessment of risk. Nevertheless, I believe that these measures are necessary to reinforce public safety and public confidence, and we will legislate for them as soon as possible. I should also say that we will do so alongside our proposed Bill of Rights, to ensure that the will of Parliament and that focus on public protection is not undermined by the Human Rights Act. Indeed, our reforms to parole yet again highlight the compelling case for a Bill of Rights.
Our fourth reform will increase victim participation in parole hearings, thereby delivering on this Government’s manifesto commitment. I recognise that parole decisions will be immensely and acutely traumatic moments for many victims, as they are forced to remember, go through and revisit the ordeal and suffering that they have already been though. Some will not wish to be involved, whereas others will want their voices to be heard, and I believe they should have that right. So we will give victims the right to attend a parole hearing in full, for the first time, should they wish to do so. In addition, we will require the board to take into account submissions made by victims and allow victims to ask questions through those submissions. The voice of victims will be at the centre of the process, not just some lingering afterthought.
Finally, although separate from parole decision making, similar considerations of risk and public concern have arisen in the context of decisions to transfer prisoners to prisons in open conditions. That is why in December 2021 I changed the process to introduce a ministerial check on such decisions, guided by similar principles to those that I have already set out. That is what led to my decision this month to reject the Parole Board’s recommendation to move Steven Ling, who raped and killed a woman, to an open prison. I declined the move in the interest of public protection and public confidence.
In sum, our reforms will ensure that those offenders who present the highest risk to public safety are reviewed more rigorously, with additional ministerial oversight. Protecting the public is the Government’s top priority. The proposals in this review will reinforce public safety. I commend this statement to the House.