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Tag: Alistair Carmichael

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2024 Speech on Prison Capacity

    Alistair Carmichael – 2024 Speech on Prison Capacity

    The speech made by Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrat Justice spokesperson, in the House of Commons on 18 July 2024.

    I also welcome the Lord Chancellor to her new position, and thank her for advance sight of her statement.

    It has been apparent for months that measures of this sort would be necessary. These are described as temporary measures, but 18 months is a very long time for temporary measures. There would be a real danger of damaging public confidence in our criminal system if the measures were to be extended beyond that point.

    The answer surely has to be more than just building more prison capacity. The problem is not that our prison estate is too small; it is that we send too many people to prison, and that the time they spend there does nothing to tackle the problems of drug and alcohol dependency, poor literacy and numeracy skills, and poor mental health, which led to their incarceration. Can we hope to hear in the very near future the Government’s comprehensive plan to tackle the issue of the time that people spend in prison?

    Finally, may I bring to the Lord Chancellor’s attention the report published this morning by His Majesty’s inspectorate of probation on the failings of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough probation delivery unit? That report outlined that our duty of care to those whom we lock up should not end the day they leave custody. When will we have a response to that report?

    Shabana Mahmood

    I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his place. On the 18-month period, we have inherited a criminal justice system in complete crisis and at risk of total breakdown and collapse. It will take some time, by necessity, for us to be able to put that right. I do not want to mislead the public that somehow these changes will have a quick effect. The system is in dire straits and it will take time to repair it. It is right that we are up front and honest about that time, and I will update the House regularly.

    As I say, this Government’s approach will be very different from that of the last Government. We will have a regular release of data, and I anticipate that I will regularly appear before Members to talk about that data, but I welcome that opportunity because it is important that the public are kept updated, and that their representatives in this place are able to scrutinise what is happening and hold us to account. We will need time for the measures to take effect to enable us to move the system to a position of greater health.

    In terms of who goes to prison, why and for how long, when we have overcrowded prisons, there is no capacity to do much other than hold people in their cells. The activity that we know is important to help people in the prison system to turn their lives around, come out as better citizens and make better choices, having made amends to society, cannot happen in deeply overcrowded prisons. That is why dealing with the capacity crisis is so necessary not just to prevent the collapse of the criminal justice system but to cut reoffending in the long term. Creating some space will allow us to introduce proposals to bring down reoffending rates in the country.

    On probation, I pay tribute to all probation staff for their tremendous work. My first visit in my new role was to meet probation staff in Bedfordshire. I recognise that they have been working in a system and a service under extreme strain and facing real difficulty. That is why we will onboard 1,000 new trainee probation officers before March 2025 to add extra capacity, and why returning the probation system to health will be a key priority for this Government.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2023 Speech on Relations with China

    Alistair Carmichael – 2023 Speech on Relations with China

    The speech made by Alistair Carmichael, the Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who secured the debate. I am reminded of the days when I used to have to read case reports. I would read the lengthy and definitive judgments and then I would come to one that just said, “I concur”, and I would fall on it like manna from heaven. To the two hon. Gentlemen who have already spoken in the debate, I say, “I concur”.

    I will make two points. My first is about the position of people coming here from Hong Kong under the British national overseas sponsorship scheme. Last night, I had the enormous pleasure of spending time at a symposium at the London School of Economics, run by the Hong Kong Public Affairs and Social Services Society. It highlighted the importance of understanding that for all those Hongkongers who have settled here, their arrival is not the end of the story; it is just the beginning. The trauma of leaving their home in the way they had to will have caused many other issues, and our obligation to support them did not stop when they cleared passport control at Heathrow airport.

    My more significant point is about not so much the position that has been outlined at some length, but the approach of Ministers and Government officials in response to it. Today in the main Chamber, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster managed to make a whole statement about TikTok without using the words “China” or “Chinese” once.

    Last Wednesday, in this very Chamber, I initiated a debate on genomics and national security. In his reply, the Minister responding said something quite remarkable:

    “I had been prepared to pay tribute to the work of BGI”

    —that is the Chinese genomics giant—

    “when my officials pointed out that at that point Genomics England was suffering several hack attacks from BGI each week.”—[Official Report, 8 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 120WH.]

    I know that he was talking off script at that point. I could tell because I was watching him; I could also tell from the way the blood drained from the officials’ faces. The next day in Hansard, there was a letter of ministerial correction. It said:

    “There is no evidence of attempted hacking of Genomics England in 2014 from BGI.”—[Official Report, 9 March 2023; Vol. 729, c. 2MC.]

    Stalin at the height of the Soviet Union could not have improved on that. I have no doubt that the correction was initiated by officials as a consequence of the representations that they then had. Clearly, they were not of a mind to stand up to those representations and the pressure that was being put on them. Genomics needs to be part of our critical national infrastructure; the Government need to move on that. From what we see, the time has now surely come for BGI Group itself to be the subject of a security review by the United Kingdom Government.

    If we are to be serious about the way in which we rebalance our relationship with China, we need to get the balance between trade and human rights right. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and I were both members of Cabinet in the golden age, so we have seen how it used to work. We understand that that has to change. That would be a good point at which the Government could start. If the Minster could express a view on that, I think we would all consider our time today to have been very well spent.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alistair Carmichael – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2015-10-29.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she was informed that warrants were being obtained to search the homes of the three protestors arrested during the visit of the Chinese President.

    Mike Penning

    The operational policing of protests and demonstrations, including the use of police powers and search warrants, are principally a matter for Chief Officers of each force in England and Wales. The Metropolitan Police Service informed the Home Office on their operational plans to provide reassurance on the policing and security of the visit. The Metropolitan Police Service also liaised with Chinese counterparts as part of their operational planning.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alistair Carmichael – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2015-12-08.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to implement Schedule 23 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013.

    Mr John Hayes

    Schedule 23 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 sets out the process for making an Order under Section 2 of that Act. Section 2 provides that the Secretary of State may make provisions about National Crime Agency Counter-Terrorism functions. There are no immediate plans to use Schedule 23 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013.

    Although counter-terrorism policing already has effective national structures, we will in due course carry out a review to look at how we might enhance our capabilities further.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2016-03-10.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent discussions the Government has had with mobile operator EE on the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme’s Extended Areas Services project.

    Mike Penning

    The Home Office led Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP) is in ongoing discussions with EE as the supplier of Network Services for the new Emergency Services Network (ESN).

    The Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme’s Extended Area Service is planning a number of new mast sites across the UK. The location of new mast sites will be announced in due course, once all the relevant permissions have been granted.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2016-07-18.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she intends to allow children with refugee status to sponsor their parents for the purposes of refugee family renunion.

    Mr Robert Goodwill

    The current family reunion policy meets our international obligations and strikes the right balance. There are no plans to extend the criteria. Allowing children to sponsor parents would create perverse incentives for them to be encouraged, or even forced, to leave their family and risk hazardous journeys to the UK to sponsor relatives. This plays into the hands of criminal gangs who exploit vulnerable people and goes against our safe guarding responsibilities.

    Where a family reunion application fails under the Immigration Rules we consider whether there are exceptional circumstances or compassionate reasons to justify granting a visa outside the Rules.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2016-10-07.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 12 September 2016 to Question 44262 on Diego Garcia, since what date the existing procedures referred to have been in place.

    Sir Alan Duncan

    The US presence on the island of Diego Garcia is governed by a series of agreements, called Exchanges of Notes, of which the overarching agreement sets out the whole Territory should be made available for UK and US defence purposes for an initial 50 year period of 1966 to 2016. If neither side object during a two year window of December 2014 to December 2016, the agreement will continue as it stands until the end of December 2036.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Justice

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2016-10-17.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will review the effect on access to justice and protection of human rights of civil legal aid reforms introduced by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.

    Sir Oliver Heald

    We are committed to reviewing Parts 1 and 2 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 within three to five years of its implementation.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    Alistair Carmichael – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Home Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2015-11-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what discussions she has had with the Scottish Qualifications Authority on accreditation of its English for Speakers of other Languages qualifications.

    James Brokenshire

    Home Office officials held discussions with the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) in 2013 when the former English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) option for settlement and nationality was replaced with a general requirement for intermediate level English.

    On 27th June 2014, the Home Office wrote to the SQA detailing of the tender exercise for Secure English Language Testing (SELT) which included details of an open industry day on 18th July 2014 which any interested party was welcome to attend. SQA did not attend. On 23rd July 2014, the Home Office emailed SQA to invite a representative to a further stakeholder forum on 6th August 2014 but, despite several further attempts to make contact, SQA did not respond and did not attend the forum.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Communities and Local Government

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2016-01-11.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what his Department’s revised planned expenditure is for 2015-16 following the recent transfer of responsibility for fire and rescue services to the Home Department.

    Brandon Lewis

    I refer the rt. hon. Member to the Written Ministerial Statement of 5 January, HCWS448. The Department’s Budget will be updated as part of the Supplementary Estimates process.