Big announcement this week, as the Government unveiled new legislation to Parliament, which fulfils our clear manifesto commitment to making our country safer, in the form of The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. At the core of this legislation, we will back our incredible police, prevent and cut crime, and bring offenders to justice swiftly, through an efficient court system which maximises the use of technology.
To summarise, measures in this Bill, which will be debated on a 2 day Second Reading in the House of Commons next week, include:
- Equipping police officers with the powers and tools they need to keep themselves and all of us safe
- Putting the Police Covenant into law
- Doubling the maximum sentence for assaulting workers in emergency services to 2 years
- Tackling unauthorised traveller encampments
- Requiring schools, police, councils and health authorities to work together through Violence Reduction Units to prevent serious crime
- Empowering the police by a new court order to target known knife carriers, making it easier for officers to stop and search those convicted of knife crime.
- Enabling the trialling of secure schools
- Increasing the maximum penalty for criminal damage of a memorial from 3 months to 10 years.
- Introducing tougher community sentences.
- Improving the efficiency of the court and tribunals system by modernising existing court processes to provide better services for all court users.
- Introducing tougher sentencing for the worst offenders and ending automatic halfway release from prison for serious crimes.
- Improving future employment opportunities for ex-offenders.
This Government want to deliver a fairer justice system, which stands for the vast majority of people who abide by, and respect, the law and the police. This Police, Crime, Courts and Sentencing Bill will deliver this and has my full support. I hope it will bring confidence to constituents across Mid Sussex about our determination to introducing legislation which protects the British people, and I welcome the forthcoming debate on this crucial legislation.
I am confident this comprehensive set of new measures strengthens our hand in each of these areas and represents our determination to do everything in our power to protect the public, building on our commitment to deliver 20,000 more police officers. We are fulfilling our important pledge to restore confidence in the criminal justice system, giving our full legislative backing and support to our fantastic police and vital courts services, in order to cut crime and make our communities safer.
More detail about the different measures this Bill will put in place can be found here Justice overhaul to better protect the public and back our police - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)