Contributions
1,991 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDEngagementsWhat the right hon. Lady suggests is nonsense. She is talking about the House of Lords Appointments Commission, and it has a vetting process. I have never overruled intelligence…16 Mar 2022HANSARDEngagementsAs the right hon. Lady knows full well, all individuals are nominated for a peerage in recognition of their contribution to society. I should say that that includes those of…16 Mar 2022HANSARDEngagementsThe suggestion that the right hon. Lady is making is sheer nonsense. But if she wants to talk about national security, I remind her that not so long ago she and her shadow Cabinet…16 Mar 2022HANSARDEngagementsCan I just gently say to the right hon. Lady that when she was campaigning, as the rest of them were, to make the right hon. Member for Islington North Prime Minister, this Prime…16 Mar 2022HANSARDEngagementsThank you, Mr Speaker. When— [ Interruption. ]16 Mar 2022HANSARDEngagementsThank you, Mr Speaker. I wanted just to point out, and I hope it is not ancient history, that the Prime Minister was, as Foreign Secretary, galvanising the response to the nerve…16 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidI thank the hon. Gentleman for what he said about the criminal legal aid proposals and the means test review. The announcement today is principally about criminal legal aid, and…15 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidMy hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee is absolutely right and I welcome the constructive responses from the Bar Council and the Law Society. He is right that we must do…15 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidThe review does not specifically deal with that, but if the hon. Lady and other groups would like to make submissions to the review, I will ensure they are properly taken into…15 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidI agree with many of my right hon. and learned Friend’s points. He makes the right point that we must ensure that we still have the expertise we need at the high end of the…15 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidThe proposals on the Public Defender Service and the means test review, and the increase in the fees, will all look across the board at areas where there is a scarcity of supply…15 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidI think the hon. Lady was also around at the time when the Labour Government were planning their cuts. [ Interruption. ] She does not like it, but I remind her that it was Tony…15 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidI pay tribute to the huge amount of work that my right hon. and learned Friend did, which I was fortunate to inherit, before we came forward with our proposals. I agree with much…15 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidI thank my hon. Friend for raising this very important point. In 2020, the gender balance at the point of entry among specialist criminal barristers was roughly 50:50, but at the…15 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidToday I am publishing the Government’s response to the independent review of criminal legal aid. Copies are available in the House. Our proposals will put criminal legal aid on a…15 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidI thank my hon. Friend for what he has said. We do not plan to index the thresholds, but he makes a reasonable point. We will obviously need to keep them under regular review, but…15 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidI share the hon. Gentleman’s interest in this subject and it is a timely, if circuitous, question, because I was in The Hague yesterday, where I met the ICC chief prosecutor and…15 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidWe will take no lectures from the hon. Gentleman given that he was there at the time that Labour was planning those swingeing cuts and, indeed, he backed them. Only now, when we…15 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidThe hon. Gentleman seems to be the shop steward for what I think is totally unwarranted industrial action, which was balloted for before we had announced our proposals. I hope the…15 Mar 2022HANSARDLegal AidThe proposals that we set out today apply to England and Wales—we respect the devolved competences—and we believe they will effectively address systemic issues across the justice…15 Mar 2022