Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Carden Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that those are independent bodies, but it is not a statutory definition. It seeks to allow us to intervene to bear down on the rising Islamic/Muslim hate that we are seeing across the country, just as we have had to do to deal with antisemitism and racism more generally.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool Walton) (Lab)]

T3. My constituents living in private rented accommodation are looking to the Government to take action on the cost of living, rent and utility bills. The Government have legislated to stop above-market increases in rent, and I understand that the Department is consulting on charging tenants a fee to go to a tribunal. Could the Minister give me a little bit more information on this? What do the Government expect this policy to do to tackle high rents?

[The Minister for Courts and Legal Services (Sarah Sackman)]

The Renters Rights Act 2025 represents the biggest expansion of renters’ rights in a generation, but of course, rights are not worth the paper they are written on unless they are enforceable. That is why the role of appeals, including to our property tribunal, is so important. My hon. Friend will know that court fees are a feature right across our system, but we will ensure that fees do not represent a barrier to access to justice.

Oral Answers to Questions

Dan Carden Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Dan Carden (Liverpool Walton) (Lab)]

1. What steps her Department is taking to increase prison capacity.

[Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)]

16. What steps her Department is taking to increase prison capacity.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Shabana Mahmood)]

Today is the day that those on the Opposition Benches always knew was coming. The legacy of the previous Government was a prison system on the brink of collapse, which left us with no choice. Today, around 1,700 offenders have had to be released a few weeks or months early by changing their automatic release point from 50% to 40% of their sentence. Had we not done so, we faced courts unable to hold trials, police unable to make arrests and a total breakdown of law and order. This is not the long-term solution—there is more that we must do—but it was the necessary first step that we had to take following the disgraceful dereliction of duty of the previous Government.

[Dan Carden]

I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. One way to reduce pressure on numbers is to treat more offenders with drug and alcohol addictions outside the prison estate. That reduces prisoner numbers and reduces reoffending, which means fewer victims and fewer people returning to prison. Such a system is operating successfully in many parts of the country, but it requires the highest quality treatment. It also requires probation to work well, otherwise magistrates are limited in their choices. May I encourage the Secretary of State to get hold of Dame Carol Black’s internal review of treatment and recovery of drug-dependent people in the secure estate if she has not already done so? I have not seen it, obviously, but I am certain that it will contain many excellent recommendations.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is right: good quality work on rehabilitation to reduce reoffending and deal with drug and alcohol issues is critical to dealing with not just the rehabilitation of offenders, but the prison system. He will know that nearly 80% of offending is reoffending, which is far too high. The situation at the moment is that it is impossible to do good-quality, rehabilitative work in prisons that are more than 99% full, with prisoners locked up for 23 hours a day, so the first step is to address capacity. Once we have done so, we will be able to build on recommendations made by experts in this area to make sure that we do everything we can to reduce reoffending.