House of Commons
Parliament

The SNP's Joanna Cherry condemns the "shocking dereliction of duty" on the part of the Parole Board and says "something's gone very wrong" when the victims have to bring a High Court challenge.

She calls on the government to review the scope of legal aid to include judicial review.

David Gauke responds that there is a post-implementation review of changes to legal aid which will conclude before the end of the year.

House of Commons
Parliament

Ken Clarke, a former Justice Secretary, says it would be "absolutely scandalous" if Mr Gauke had ignored legal advice against seeking a judicial review.

He also warns against "undermining" the Parole Board in the future "when they carry out their extremely difficult task".

He says criminal sentencing must "never be a question of campaigning and responding to popular pressure".

Mr Gauke says there were "failures" in what the Parole Board did "in terms of not being sufficiently inquisitive" but agrees on the importance of accepting that the board makes "difficult judgements" but it is "not the role of politicians to interfere and second guess".

House of Commons
Parliament

The justice secretary welcomes Labour's support for greater Parole Board transparency and says the dossier provided by the National Probation Services may have been incomplete, but was probed insufficiently.

He defends not bringing a judicial review, saying: "The reality was the victims were in a better position to bring a successful case."

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon says the "unprecedented" High Court decision has highlighted "deep flaws" in the original Parole Board decision.

He calls for "real change" to the functioning of the board, adding that it cannot be right that women had to go to judicial review to make the reasons behind the original decision known.

There is a need to take urgent action to guarantee greater transparency of Parole Board decisions. He adds the public is "entitled to be informed" about its rulings.

He also criticises "deep cuts" to legal aid, which he says have "undermined" the ability of some people to launch judicial reviews.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Justice Secretary David Gauke tells MPs this was an "important and unprecedented case" and will now be resubmitted to the Parole Board and a new panel constituted.

He recognises there was "widespread concern" at the decision to release Worboys and welcomes the judgement, expressing "heartfelt sympathy for all those who suffered" at his hands.

He says he took expert legal advice on whether he should have instigated a judicial review, and was told he was "highly unlikely to succeed" in proving the Parole Board had been "legally irrational".

He adds the challenge didn't succeed on those grounds but on the case put forward by victims that more should have been done to put forward all material on the offender.

He insists if he had started a judicial review the victims' case "may have been compromised".

The overruling of the Parole Board today raises "serious failings", he says, and announces he will issue new guidance that all relevant evidence should be submitted.

He also tells MPs he will abolish rule 25 which prevents the Parole Board sharing the reasons for its decisions.

The Justice Secretary announced in January that he would not be challenging the decision to release rapist John Worboys.

David Gauke said "it would not be appropriate" to seek a judicial review of the Parole Board's seek a judicial review of the Parole Board's ruling to free Worboys after less than 10 years.

He said that victims as well as the mayor of London were seeking a judicial review. The Parole Board has said it is "confident correct procedures were followed".

Worboys, 60, was jailed in 2009 for assaults on 12 women in London.

Mr Gauke said there would be a wider review of how the Parole Board deals with victims.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, LNP

Justice Secretary David Gauke is making a statement on the quashing of the decision by the Parole Board to release the rapist John Worboys following a legal challenge by two victims.

Worboys, 60, has served 10 years, including remand time, of an indeterminate prison sentence.

Worboys, who is now known as John Radford, was convicted of one rape, five sexual assaults, one attempted assault and 12 drugging charges - but police believe he committed crimes against more than 100 women between 2002 and 2008.

After a hearing about his case in November, the Parole Board decided to approve his release with "stringent" licence conditions, arguing its decision was based on appropriate evidence.

But the High Court judges said the Parole Board "should have undertaken further inquiry into the circumstances of his offending".

House of Commons
Parliament

Manchester MP Kate Green says that after the attack there was an attempt, by the far-right to "drive a wedge between different faith communities".

The Minister Mr Wallace replies that terrorists "want us to hate each other and to weaken the society we belong to."

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Chair of the Home Affairs Committee Yvette Cooper joins the tributes to people who acted selflessly in responding to the terror attack.

She calls for a review into the Vodafone contract, particularly because those telephony services are only used in extreme cases like the attack.

Mr Wallace says that there is an ongoing investigation into the Manchester Arena attack, including an extradition case.

He adds that it would be wrong to abandon the Prevent strategy just because it does not work 100% of the time.

House of Commons
Parliament

The SNP's Joanna Cherry calls the reports of media intrusion "utterly shocking" and asks the government to confront the "attitude of some in the press that everyone needs to be regulated apart from them" by instigating part two of the Leveson inquiry.

Ben Wallace stresses "nobody is above the law" but says he's "not going to follow her down the route of Leveson two".

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Shadow Home Office Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds says that it is "sobering" to read all the names at the beginning of the report. He states that the review "makes clear that there is a lot to be proud of in the response," both from Manchester and the emergency services.

He asks if the central lesson was the lack of shared communication. Greater Manchester fire and rescue service were left "outside of the loop" so could not help for two hours, he says.

He adds that the local network, Vodafone, which was supplying the telephony for the emergency services, collapsed.

Mr Wallace says that Mr Thomas-Symonds is "absolutely right" about Vodafone, adding that the impression from reading the media in the past few days was that people were left without help.

He says that within one minute British Transport Police were on the scene and other emergency services within 12 minutes.

He says such situations are kept under constant review, and invites Mr Thomas-Symonds to come and see the work going on.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoL

Lucy Powell highlights the findings by the Kerslake review that national protocols on emergency incidents are too rigid and the hotline for families "completely failed".

She calls attention to insufficient support for victims, and urges the government to establish a fund to help them.

The report makes for "hard reading", she says, and lessons need to be learned from it.

The minister agrees procedures were "too rigid" and need to be re-examined.

He says he's requested full feedback from Vodafone, which ran the hotline for families on behalf of the Home Office.

Firefighters who heard the Manchester Arena bomb go off were sent away from the scene despite a paramedic arriving within 11 minutes, a report says.

"Out of the loop" crews took took two hours to attend the scene of the deadly blast, which killed 22 people last May.

A report by Lord Kerslake , externalfound poor communication meant chief fire officers were "risk-averse" and kept emergency trained responders away.

The fire service's chief apologised "unreservedly" for the failures.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Labour MP Lucy Powell has tabled an urgent question on the government's response to the Manchester Attack Review.

Home Office Minister Ben Wallace says the Mayor of Greater Manchester commissioned the review into the emergency services response and the following days.

The response was overwhelmingly positive, he states, with planning and drills carried out by the emergency services playing a big part in the response showed by the emergency services staff.

He states the report also shows an improvement is needed in some areas and the Home Office and other agencies will carefully consider the issues.

The government continues to stand with the people of Manchester as they recover and rebuild, he adds.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Labour's Jack Dromey says that a hedgefund scam is being used to avoid paying tax on shares that will determine the future of GKN in the takeover by Melrose. He asks Mrs May to investigate.

Mrs May says that this is a commercial decision for GKN, and the Business Secretary Greg Clark is looking into it the issues.

He says that if there is evidence of illegal activities taking place, then that must be reported to the authorities.

House of Commons
Parliament

Conservative Zac Goldsmith asks if the PM shares his "admiration for the brave victims" of John Worboys who today secured a high court victory over a Parole Board decision to release the 'black cab rapist' and if she agrees that there must be a "rethink" in the justice system "many of us no longer have confidence" in.

Theresa May says she has the "greatest sympathy" for the victims and welcomes the judgement. She says the case raises "serious concerns" which the Justice Secretary David Gauke will address in a statement "shortly".

House of Commons
Parliament

The SNP's Joanna Cherry says a Syrian child refugee at a school in her constituency has been told by the Home Office he can't go on a prize trip to Mallorca next month.

He has been told "he doesn't have the proper documents", she says. She asks for help in "cutting through the red tape" of getting the correct documents.

Theresa May replies that the case will be looked into.

House of Commons
Parliament

Image source, HoC

Labour's Lisa Nandy says that it has been four weeks since the report was published on sexual abuse received by children sent abroad.

She says that the report was "unequivocal" in giving compensation to those affected and that the government has not issued a timetable for dealing with the matter and hasn't agreed which department should deal with it.

Mrs May says she commissioned the report into the historical abuse of children. She confirms that the Health and Social Care Department has responsibility of former child migrants. She states that in the 1990s, £1m was provided for child migrants to return to their families an £8m family restoration fund was established to help these children.

Mark D'Arcy
Parliamentary Correspondent

An effective Brexit question from the evergreen Kenneth Clark – with a sting in the tail about maintaining something close to the existing customs union with the EU.

Expect much more on this subject after the Easter Break, in Lords debates on the EU Withdrawal Bill and Commons debates on the Customs Bill.