Part of Criminal Justice Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 2:00 pm ar 18 Ionawr 2024.
Jess Phillips
Llafur, Birmingham, Yardley
2:00,
18 Ionawr 2024
I did not find the piece of paper from Refuge, but I knew it would be about 200 people. Just to make it clear for the record, in one ward in my Constituency there will be 200 violent perpetrators of domestic abuse. To the Minister’s point that she did not wish to take my Intervention on the piece of legislation that was passed, I will never, ever criticise this Government on that. They have passed lots of legislation, so the skins of goats have had lots of words written on them. It means absolutely nothing—pieces of words on goat skin mean absolutely nothing if they are not then properly resourced, managed and implemented in our communities. The women in refuge accommodation speak of little else than what a nirvana it has been recently under this Government.
We can all write nice words down on paper. But when we write them down and it turns out that, since those nice words were written and that law came into force—it was right before I was elected—only 2,000 people have been convicted of domestic abuse, when 2 million people suffer that crime every year, that is no record. We should stop. I wish that Governments—and my own side—would stop looking for announceables and start looking for system change: stop looking for things they can say that make them look good at the Dispatch Box, and start looking for the thing that saves people’s lives.
It is simply not good enough that 2,000 people have been convicted since we have had that piece of legislation. And now we have this new piece of legislation—some more words. I do not know whether they are still written on goat skin—before lots of animal rights people get in touch with me—but we write them on vellum. Before we write these words on vellum, let us just be clear that they would not satisfy or protect the domestic violence victims in one ward of my constituency.
A parliamentary bill is divided into sections called clauses.
Printed in the margin next to each clause is a brief explanatory `side-note' giving details of what the effect of the clause will be.
During the committee stage of a bill, MPs examine these clauses in detail and may introduce new clauses of their own or table amendments to the existing clauses.
When a bill becomes an Act of Parliament, clauses become known as sections.
violence occurring within the family
If you've ever seen inside the Commons, you'll notice a large table in the middle - upon this table is a box, known as the dispatch box. When members of the Cabinet or Shadow Cabinet address the house, they speak from the dispatch box. There is a dispatch box for the government and for the opposition. Ministers and Shadow Ministers speak to the house from these boxes.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
An intervention is when the MP making a speech is interrupted by another MP and asked to 'give way' to allow the other MP to intervene on the speech to ask a question or comment on what has just been said.
In a general election, each Constituency chooses an MP to represent them. MPs have a responsibility to represnt the views of the Constituency in the House of Commons. There are 650 Constituencies, and thus 650 MPs. A citizen of a Constituency is known as a Constituent
