King’s Speech

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the new Ministers to the Front Bench—the noble Lord, Lord Hanson of Flint, for his pragmatism and common sense and the noble Lord, Lord Timpson, for his business acumen and philanthropic endeavours. I wish them well and congratulate the Minister on his fine maiden speech; similarly, my noble friend Lord Goodman of Wycombe made an excellent and erudite maiden speech.

I want to talk about two issues today: very briefly, the small boats saga and illegal immigration; and, more substantially, the prison estate. I read with great care on Monday the Home Secretary’s Statement on immigration and the possible fast-tracking of 70,000 asylum seekers, a policy which is ill thought-out, uncosted and a short-term fix—and it was not in the Labour manifesto. What consideration has been given to public safety, national security, community cohesion, the public good and the financial burdens placed on central and local government by that policy? Administrative reorganisations and press releases about smashing the gangs are unlikely to act as a realistic deterrent to the people smugglers’ business model. Securing bilateral and multilateral agreements and new legislation is both time-consuming and expensive. Nevertheless, we await with interest the border security, asylum and immigration Bill later this year.

We know the prisons estate is a mess, with too few new prisons built, overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, too many drugs, extremism, poor leadership and mismanagement, and not enough education, training and rehabilitation. I wish Ministers well if they seriously dealing with the issue of foreign national offenders. There are 11,000 of them in the estate, costing more than £40,000 each per annum. I urge Ministers to look at the excellent Question for Short Debate we had on 25 April, when we focused on the poor record-keeping and lack of proper data collection when developing policies for removing foreign national offenders.

Labour’s mantra is “change”, so I was very disappointed not to see in the King’s Speech bespoke legislation envisaged on recidivism, citizenship, support for families, literacy and numeracy and meaningful work—all meat and drink to the new Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Timpson. Of course, I am realistic enough to suggest, too, that we need proper funding for new prisons and new staff. Ministers will have to take that up with the Treasury.

By contrast, the Lord Chancellor said on Monday that there would be the early release of 5,500 prisoners later this year—again, an emergency measure. Again, this is without a proper budget or timescale, and important details such as licence conditions, curfew arrangements, electronic tags and so on are also absent from the policy. Again, that was not in the Labour manifesto.

Emptying prisons is not the answer, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, says. It will drive up crime and disorder and damage society, alienating the law-abiding majority. It is quite permissible to think that the most egregious criminals should go to prison for longer, but that those who are in prison have a meaningful path to a better life. I do not see any discordant thinking in that.

The liberal mantra is that there are too many people in prison; it is a liberal shibboleth and demonstrably untrue. Prisons protect the public and keep crime down. Only one in 10 prisoners are first offenders, and half the prison population are there for violent or sexual offences. Some 53% of criminals have 11 or more previous convictions or cautions, and only one-third of career criminals with 15 or more convictions or cautions received other than a caution or non-custodial sentence.

In conclusion, Ministers need to focus on sentencing and management of hyper- and ultra-prolific offenders, a realistic capital building programme, education, training and rehabilitation, and, of course, on the removal of foreign national offenders. I note that, nine years ago, the UK Government did a deal with the Jamaican Government to build a new prison in Kingston in order to repatriate Jamaican nationals to that country. It has still not been expedited after nine years. I blame the previous Government for that, but I do not think that a Labour Government would have been any different.

If Ministers take up this challenge, they will have strong bipartisan support. In any event, the public are watching; blaming the Tories will only go so far, and this Government will of course be judged on their results and not their rhetoric.