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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 2015-11-06.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of individuals currently living in (a) camps in Calais and (b) hotspots in Greece and Italy who may be eligible to have their asylum case determined in the UK under articles within the Dublin III Regulation.

    James Brokenshire

    Member States are responsible for dealing with asylum seekers who are on their territory, including the assessment of whether or not another Member State is responsible for examining an asylum application under the Dublin Regulation.

    We consider requests from other States, including France, Italy or Greece, to take responsibility for asylum applicants in their territory, on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the terms of Regulation.

    The Joint Ministerial Declaration on UK-French cooperation confirms the wishes of both Governments to improve the operation of the Dublin Regulation: a contact group has been established to ensure that that the provisions of the Dublin Regulation are used efficiently and effectively between both countries.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2016-01-15.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what projections her Department has made of the subsidies existing fossil fuel generators will receive through the Capacity Mechanism.

    Andrea Leadsom

    We do not subsidise fossil fuel generators, any fuel type can participate in the Capacity Market as the scheme is technology neutral. Auctions in the Capacity Market are competitive to ensure best value.

    Capacity market payments to be made to existing fossil fuel generators are £559m from 2014 auction and £714.3mfrom 2015 auction (both in 2015 values).

    The Capacity Market is designed to ensure we take account of low carbon technology supported through other Government schemes before calculating requirements; this ensures we get the most out of existing generation, bringing on new capacity when required. Capacity market payments are to provide missing money in the energy market and are not a subsidy. Capacity providers will also face heavy penalties if they fail to deliver energy when needed.

    The purpose of the Capacity Market is therefore to make sure we keep the lights on, while providing best value to consumers.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2016-05-19.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make it his policy that when revised UK Chief Medical Officers’ Guidelines on keeping health risks from drinking alcohol to a low level, published in January 2016, are communicated to the public they are placed in the context that moderate alcohol consumption can be part of a healthy lifestyle for people that choose to drink.

    Jane Ellison

    The UK Chief Medical Officers’ alcohol guidelines give the public the latest and most up to date scientific information so that they can make informed decisions about their own drinking.

    It is however important that the new guidelines are clear and understandable and take into account the responses to the consultation.

    We will publish the final guidelines and the government response to the consultation as soon as possible.

  • 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 2016-09-02.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, for what reasons the oral contribution of the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on UK involvement in rendition of 29 June 2016, Official Report, columns 442-3, relating to a document not yet received by the Intelligence and Security Committee, fell to be corrected by Ministerial Correction on 11 July 2016, Official Report, columns 1-2 MC.

    Mr Tobias Ellwood

    Once an error had been identified, I took the decision that a ministerial correction entry to correct the record was appropriate in the light of the nature of the error.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Scotland Office

    Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Scotland Office

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

    To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland, how many non-UK citizens are employed by his Department.

    David Mundell

    The Scotland Office does not employ staff directly; all staff that join do so on an assignment, loan or secondment from other Government bodies, who remain the employers.

  • 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 2015-11-06.

    To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for what reason the publicly available version of Chapter 28 of the Enforcement and Instructions Guidance refers to EC No 343/2003 and not EC No 604/2013.

    James Brokenshire

    The publicly available guidance on Third Country cases and the Enforcement and Instructions Guidance that refer to the Dublin Regulation are both under review and will be published shortly. Training on the Dublin Regulation in EU No. 604/2013 has been provided to Home Office officials dealing with Third Country cases.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Women and Equalities

    Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Women and Equalities

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2016-02-02.

    To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, if the Government will make it its policy to bring forward legislative proposals to allow heterosexual couples to enter into civil partnerships; and if she will make a statement.

    Caroline Dinenage

    In 2014, after the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 was passed, the government carried out a review of the operation and future of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, including a thorough public consultation on potential changes to civil partnership. Views were invited on three options: abolishing, or phasing out civil partnerships; or extending them to opposite sex couples.

    The review found that there was no clear consensus on the future of civil partnerships. A majority of respondents to the consultation were against extending civil partnerships to opposite sex couples and several important organisations thought it was too soon to consider making changes to civil partnerships until the impact of extending marriage to same sex couples is known. Given the lack of any consensus the government has no current plans to make changes to the Civil Partnership Act 2004.

    On 29 January 2016, the High Court dismissed a legal challenge to the lack of availability of civil partnerships to opposite sex couples. The Court ruled unequivocally that the current regime of marriage and civil partnership does not disadvantage anyone nor does it infringe anyone’s right to family or private life. We also welcome the Court’s view that it is entirely reasonable for the Government to wait to see the impact of extending marriage to same sex couples before deciding on the way forward.

  • Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    Alistair Carmichael – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Northern Ireland Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alistair Carmichael on 2016-05-26.

    To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, what discussions she has had with the Northern Ireland Executive on proposals to repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and the potential effect of such a repeal on the Good Friday Agreement; and if she will make a statement.

    Mrs Theresa Villiers

    The Government was elected with a manifesto pledge to replace the Human Rights Act with a UK Bill of Rights.

    Discussions with all of the devolved administrations have been held and that engagement will continue.

    Our reform proposals will be consistent with our obligations under the Belfast Agreement.