Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Martin Vickers and Lord Grayling

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

10. What steps he is taking to reduce reoffending.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

Despite investment, reoffending rates remain stubbornly high. We are fundamentally reforming rehabilitation services by opening up the market to new providers and incentivising them to focus relentlessly on reducing reoffending. For the first time in recent history virtually every offender released from custody will receive statutory supervision and rehabilitation and mentoring in the community. We remain on track to deliver these key reforms early in the new year.

[Martin Vickers]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply. Notwithstanding the fact that I hope he would agree with my constituents that there are cases where offenders should remain in prison for considerably longer, what assessments has he made of the effect of extending supervision to the group of offenders who leave prison having served less than 12 months?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

I think we would all pay tribute to the work done by Kids Company. I have been to see its work as well. Like many similar charities around the country, it makes an enormous difference to the support provided for people in the most difficult circumstances. The work that it is doing combines with the work done in our troubled families programme and with the work done in our schools to try to help those who start school behind to catch up before they go on to secondary school. Those are all important parts of the jigsaw puzzle of dealing with the real need to use early intervention to keep people out of the criminal justice system where we can possibly do so.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

T3. A development that has the potential to create 4,000 jobs in my constituency is being further delayed by judicial review, despite its being approved at local, ministerial and parliamentary level. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the use of judicial review in such circumstances should be curtailed?

[Chris Grayling]

That is precisely what we are trying to stop. My hon. Friend makes the valid point that those opposed to essential developments in our country are able to use judicial review, on technicalities, to try to prevent them from going ahead or to delay them. It does nobody any favours that that can happen. It uses up huge amounts of taxpayers’ money, it wastes the time of essential projects and project teams, and it must change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Martin Vickers and Lord Grayling

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I will think that I have a problem in our prisons when I am forced through bad planning, as the last Government were, to release tens of thousands of prisoners weeks early to commit crimes that they should not have committed. I will know that I have a problem when I have to hire thousands of police cells when we do not have enough space in our prisons. The truth is that we have space in our prisons. They are less overcrowded. We are increasing education. They are less violent than they were under the last Government. We face challenges given budget pressures but we are doing a much better job than they did.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

T6. It is an intolerable burden on British taxpayers that they should be funding the cost of so many foreign prisoners. Can the Secretary of State inform us what action is being taken to reduce the number and return more of them to their home country?

Prison Overcrowding

Debate between Martin Vickers and Lord Grayling

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

We are working as hard as we can to increase the number of hours that are worked in prisons, and the number is rising steadily. We have a very energetic team that is looking for new business opportunities. Of course, in a prison that is dirty, the most readily available work force to clean it are the prisoners themselves. In many prisons that I have been around, they are doing a first-rate job of that.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his robust response this afternoon and over the weekend in the media. I urge him to redouble his efforts to ensure that foreign prisoners are returned to their home countries as quickly as possible to serve their sentences, which relieves pressure on space and budgets.

[Chris Grayling]

I assure my hon. Friend that that remains a major priority. I pay tribute to the prisons Minister, who has successfully completed one prisoner transfer agreement and is discussing others. We need to do everything we can to return people to their country of origin as soon as possible, because it reduces the pressures on the prison population.

Transforming Rehabilitation

Debate between Martin Vickers and Lord Grayling

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I pay tribute to him for the work he has done. There is enormous expertise in this field in the House and I hope that all Members will feel able to take part in the consultation. The Labour party introduced power after power, scheme after scheme and pilot after pilot, often for PR purposes, but seldom did anything.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

The Lord Chancellor rightly reminded us in his statement that the criminal justice system must both punish offenders and seek to rehabilitate them, but will he acknowledge that many of our constituents doubt that we have got the balance right? Will he reassure us, and is he confident, that his proposals will achieve outcomes that will increase public confidence?

[Chris Grayling]

I hope and believe so. The reality is that, whether we are the hardest hard-liner or the softest liberal on crime, we all have an interest in preventing reoffending. I understand where my hon. Friend and his constituents are coming from. That is why we have taken steps such as increasing the protection that householders receive if they meet an intruder in their home, introducing a mandatory life sentence for a second-time serious sexual or violent offender, and introducing a mandatory punishment to every community sentence. We will take further measures that will restore and rebuild the public confidence in the criminal justice system that was so lacking when we inherited it.