Speeches by Russell.

“I do not think that was a terribly satisfactory answer. Quite specifically, you said we have magistrates, but magistrates do not sit within, for instance, the police. The police do not do an investigation, make a decision and sentence someone, and then you put the police in place to determine whether that was a lawful …”

“Solicitor General, I have two questions about the unduly lenient sentence scheme. First, I understand that the scheme does not currently apply in the youth courts. There has been some concern that because youth courts make a decision about whether to escalate something up to the Crown court for sentencing, judges in th…”

“Good afternoon, Attorney General. In respect of this topic, you talked with pride about having set up a rule of law unit within your office. The Foreign Office unit that was tracking potential breaches of international law by Israel in Gaza, and more recently in Lebanon, has apparently been closed because of cuts withi…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. The shadow Minister asked whether this is really what Members came here to do, and I can say that I genuinely and literally came to this place to do this, so I am delighted that we are doing it. I was one of the people who joined Pregnant Then Screwed in its #Gi…”

“Officials have been warned that closure of the conflict and security monitoring project, which was funded by the Foreign Office, will mean that we lose access to a database of 26,000 verified incidents in the middle east. This is quite significant. You just said you are not conscious of any loss of information, but the…”

“Minister, the backlog in employment tribunals is now approaching five years. The backlog has gone up by 26,000 in the last year alone. It is a really steep increase. Have you had any thoughts about how it might be tackled?”

“Minister, I have so many questions that I could ask, but I will contain myself for the sake of the rest of the Committee. You referred to the expansion of legal aid under the Hillsborough law, which I am sure everyone would absolutely agree will be a fantastic thing when it happens. My concern is that, when I discussed…”

“Minister, could I press you on the second half of the question: what assessment has the Department made of the impact on trial time of unrepresented litigants in person, and how much does that cost within the system?”

“Minister Sackman, you referred to the fact that 48% of people are unrepresented in the magistrates court. In the Crown court, where people are accused of exceptionally serious offences, the total household income to entitle someone to eligibility is £37,000. That could potentially be two people’s earnings, not just one…”

“Hello. My name is Sarah Russell. I am the Member of Parliament for Congleton. I am a solicitor, with a current practising certificate. I did employment law for 13 or 14 years before I came here. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on access to justice, and a member of various other APPGs and trade union…”

“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey) for securing this important debate. My constituent Chiedza Nyanjowa was only 15 when she went to Formby beach on the bank holiday weekend with her 11-year-old cousin and her auntie—the beginning of this story is such a wholesome day out. Chiedza c…”

“It has been mentioned in this debate that there is great regional inequality, and that children in the most deprived areas are most likely to drown. Interventions solely focused on deprived areas concern me because there are considerable numbers of deprived children in England who do not live in deprived areas. We comp…”

“Since 2003, my constituent has suffered multiple incidents every year of raw sewage flooding into his garden. United Utilities is disputing with him how the guaranteed standards scheme works, and he is not receiving adequate compensation. His golden wedding anniversary was completely ruined when he had family over and …”

“The tech companies are big, they are rich, they are clever, and they are playing a very long game. I do not doubt that in the next three months we shall see some degree of compliance or movement towards what the Government are asking for from those tech companies, but I fear that there will then be constant backsliding…”

“I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) for securing this important debate. I have spoken previously about train services in my community; I will not spend a huge amount of my limited time on them, but I want to flag that we have been in government for two years, and train strikes in m…”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“What is your answer to the question?”

“To take a slightly different angle, if you had a family member who had been stalked by someone violent and there was an exclusion order with a tag associated with it, would you be comfortable about what was going to happen to that offender? I am not asking this as a question about Serco’s performance within this system…”

“To take a slightly different angle, if you had a family member who had been stalked by someone violent and there was an exclusion order with a tag associated with it, would you be comfortable about what was going to happen to that offender? I am not asking this as a question about Serco’s performance within this system…”

“What is your answer to the question?”