Speeches by Tapp.

“Sticking with staffing—you touched on some of it there when you mentioned overcrowding, experience, recruitment and training—would you say that prison staff see promoting rehabilitation as an integral part of their role after they have been recruited and trained?”

“That fits nicely with the next part of the question: to what extent are prison staff able to balance the role of managing a safe and secure estate with promoting rehabilitation? We have recently seen awful media reports of attacks on prison staff. Is there a point where the threat posed by an individual means there are…”

“Hello, thanks for coming in. I am the Member of Parliament for Dover and Deal, and I previously worked for the National Crime Agency.”

“Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?”

“I thank the shadow Home Secretary for his condescending tone after his deluded rant. I must say to him that he is misleading the House: 400 crossed in 2018, and more than 150,000 have crossed since. The majority of those were on the Conservative Government’s watch, so how they can claim that that happened on Labour’s w…”

“The Opposition like to talk about and obsess over caps. Does the Home Secretary agree that it might have been sensible for the previous Government to place a cap on the number of Home Secretaries they had to churn through to deliver their failed open-border project?”

“That is good to hear.”

“Okay. My next question is more about independence. We have had past concerns, particularly in 2016 to 2018, that included fears that commissioners who resisted MOJ-driven structural changes were not reappointed. The Law Commission report stressed that perceived independence matters as much as actual independence. In yo…”

“That is good to hear. Have you met with Ministers or officials from MOJ since Helen Pitcher resigned as chair?”

“I have a few more questions if you don’t mind, Chair. The commission strongly recommends introducing external inspection as there is no external scrutiny mechanism at the moment. What are the CCRC’s feelings on that?”

“Thank you. The final question is this. The commission also proposes replacing direction power because being compelled to act on judicial orders risks treating the CCRC as a subordinate body. What is your position on the proposal to change the Court of Appeal’s power to direct investigations into a request?”

“Thank you.”

“Just to get this right: who makes the decision on the test that is applied? Is that Parliament?”

“Thank you, Chair. I just want to pick up a little more on referrals, which I was going to talk about later, but, as we are touching on that now, the Law Commission consultation on criminal appeals in February said that the current referral test is hindering the correction of miscarriages of justice and that a non-predi…”

“declared on the register—and I worked for the National Crime Agency in the past.”

“Hello.”

“We are going to look at independence now—a new area. First, more generally, how would you characterise the current working relationship with the Ministry of Justice now? Has it changed since you have joined?”

“Is that a perception thing maybe around independence?”

“Thank you.”

“Q5. While the last Government resorted to damaging keyboard diplomacy, this Government are leading, bringing 14 nations together this week to tackle illegal immigration. Like the Prime Minister, I have seen at first hand how counter-terror powers can disrupt threats before lives are lost. That same approach is essentia…”