In this month's column I wanted to talk about a Westminster Hall debate that I secured in Parliament calling for reforms to criminal sentencing to ensure all child murderers spend their whole lives in prison.

Every member of Parliament gets to put into a ballot to secure a debate in their name. These debates can be on anything that an MP would like to discuss, and the relevant government minister must attend this debate, listen to what is being said, and then make a formal response.

In the past, I have held debates on Leighton Hospital and on Crewe's bid to be the home of Great British Railways.

As a former volunteer police constable, fair sentencing is an issue that I care strongly about. You may remember that at the start of this year, I worked with Lissie Harper to get the government to pass Harper's Law, which stated that anyone responsible for the killing of a police officer or other emergency worker would receive a mandatory life sentence.

The debate I held called on the government to go further with a recent change to the law aiming to send child murderers to prison for life, highlighting a loophole in the new measure.

As part of my campaign, I have been working with Elsie Urry, whose three children (Paul Ralph, four; Dawn, two, and nine-month-old Samantha) were murdered at their Worcester home in 1973. Their killer, David McGreavy, was released from prison in 2019.

People that are given a life sentence usually only spend 16.5 years in prison, although this is often misreported as "jail for life''. Earlier this year, a new "whole life order", where people spend the rest of their lives in prison with no possibility of release, was brought in for child murder. However, the measure only applies when the murder has been committed with "significant premeditation". 

I highlighted that this would not apply in many cases, including the recent high-profile murder of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo Hughes, where the judge said there was no premeditation.

Arthur suffered 130 injuries in the lead up to his death at the age of six. He was poisoned with salt, emaciated, forced to sleep on a hard floor and stand all day in a hallway.

The amount of violence used on him produced forces on his body equivalent to a high-speed road traffic collision. Emma Tustin was convicted of murdering Arthur in December last year and was given a life sentence with a minimum of 29 years.

Every person I have spoken to, and everyone who has contacted me about that case, wanted to see her locked up for the rest of her life. But in his sentencing remarks, the judge was clear that there was no premeditation in this case. So, we know that if that terrible crime were to be repeated tomorrow, the new measure we have passed would not take effect.

This government can be proud of its overall record in many ways. For instance, it changed Labour's appalling halfway early release to two thirds for serious offenders, introduced GPS tagging for some repeat offenders, and it brought in tougher sentencing options for perpetrators of child cruelty and dangerous driving. These are all measures that, I think, most people would approve of.

Acting properly on child murder would have been a step forward that I thought both long overdue and extremely welcome. My support for it was as keen as the disappointment I felt for how we ultimately went about it.

We can and must do better. I think that it is the right thing to do, not only for past victims and their families to honour and recognise their suffering, but also to know that we can ensure, at the very least, that future victims of child murder and their families achieve justice.