Speeches by Babarinde.

“I cut short my questioning earlier to make sure everyone else had a chance. I cannot stop thinking about those 60 or so abusers, people who have perpetrated breaches of sexual harm prevention orders, stalking protection orders, restraining orders or perpetrators of revenge porn and who, due to the oversight you mention…”

“The victims will only be contacted under the victim contact scheme if their abuser received a sentence of 12 months or longer. We know that there are abusers who received sentences of less than that, so those victims and survivors will not be contacted under the scheme. Do you think that is something that needs to be r…”

“I have nothing to declare beyond what is in the register.”

“But surely, abuse is abuse regardless of the sentence.”

“Hello, Lord Chancellor. Thanks for joining us. My set of questions is on the SDS40 scheme. We heard from Lord Timpson, as well as from the likes of Amy Rees, about when the scheme would be reviewed. It would be good to understand from you, because we know that next autumn is when a review is likely to take place, what …”

“I am sure we all agree with you in praising the probation staff and all MOJ staff who were involved in helping.”

“Absolutely. On the question of the criteria that you are using to review it at the end of the 18 months, it strikes me as a missed opportunity not to have set those criteria, at least internally, now or when the scheme began, so that as the scheme was rolling you could be making an assessment against the same criteria …”

“One of the criteria that I think should be used to assess the efficacy is the extent to which victims and survivors of domestic abuse are protected. That must be one of them. I would be keen to understand from you whether, despite the assurances given to exclude as many domestic abusers as possible from being released …”

“You spoke about not having access to the legislative levers. Of course, as the Government you can create those levers. In fact, one of the director generals of policy for prisons, offenders and analysis came in and spoke to us on 19 November and said that “primary legislation…could conceivably be changed” to help chang…”

“There is still over a year left of the scheme. You know that domestic abusers are being released early, so I think the breakneck speed excuse no longer stands. Are you going to look at this in time for the end of the scheme? We don’t know when the end date of the scheme is, but the Government have time. There is legisl…”

“Thank you. I appreciate that the door is open, and I look forward to continuing that conversation. I would briefly like to ask about the SI. It excluded a further six offences from the early release scheme. These include things like breaches of stalking orders, sexual harm prevention orders and even murder in very spec…”

“But you left out murder.”

“This is my last question. How many ex-offenders who were convicted of those six additional offences were released in the first two tranches? Do you plan to recall them now that it is the case that they would be excluded from the scheme?”

“Are you able to provide the Committee with a breakdown, among those 60, of which of those six offences they aligned to?”

“The “Get Britain Working” White Paper rightly says that “people deserve the opportunity to thrive and that sports, arts and culture are crucial to achieving this goal”, especially for those with disabilities. The Sovereign centre in Eastbourne, where I learned to swim, provides vital sports and leisure opportunities th…”

“In Eastbourne, we are blessed with 94 beaches, but our water quality has dropped from “excellent” in 2015, to a low of “satisfactory” under the last Government. At the same time, Southern Water has made significant amounts of money—with more than £2.9 billion in dividends, and the chief executive receiving £183,000 in …”

“I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement, and I thank the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), for the point of order that I think helped to bring the Minister to the House with this statement today. Years of neglect under the previous Conservativ…”

“There are no specific domestic abuse offences in law, so abusers hiding behind convictions such as actual bodily harm are being let out early under the SDS40 early release scheme. That is not right, so I have introduced the Domestic Abuse (Aggravated Offences) Bill to create a specific set of domestic abuse aggravated …”

“I thank the Secretary of State for that answer—I hope to have the chance to meet her to discuss it in more detail. The Liberal Democrats are deeply concerned about survivors who have been told that, as it stands, their abuser is set to be released early. One such survivor is Elizabeth Hudson, who I met on the set of “G…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the Minister for his remarks. I also thank him and the Government for taking seriously and addressing the issue of overcrowding in our prisons. They inherited a completely unsustainable position, whereby our prisons were driven to the brink by the l…”