Oral Answers to Questions

Alexander Stafford Excerpts

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

14. What steps his Department is taking to help support former offenders into employment.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Dominic Raab)]

We will invest £200 million a year by 2024-25 in initiatives to reduce reoffending, including supporting prison leavers into employment.

[Dominic Raab]

One of the first things I did as Secretary of State was host an employers’ summit attended by 600 organisations last month, where we committed to working together to improve employment rates for prison leavers. I have seen how that works at Ford prison and at HMP High Down, whether we are talking about HGV training or call centres. We know that if we give offenders the skills, and if they have the attitude to take a second chance, getting into work significantly reduces the risk of reoffending and that protects the public.

[Alexander Stafford]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that giving offenders the chance of employment is key in driving down reoffending rates? What additional support is his Department providing to prisons to ensure that offenders are seizing the employment opportunities available to them?

[Dominic Raab]

In addition to the spending review settlement and the employers’ summit, we are making sure that we design prisons the right way. I visited Glen Parva, one of the new state-of-the-art prisons that we are building with our £4 billion investment programme. It had in-cell technology to ensure that inmates can learn skills, particularly numeracy and literacy, and state-of-the-art workshops, so that not only can they get skills, but we can get employers in to get inmates into meaningful, purposeful work.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Tom Pursglove)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. The Government are firmly committed to the measures set out in the Nationality and Borders Bill that will deter people from making hugely dangerous crossings of the English channel. We need to take action. Public concern on this is profound. We simply cannot have people putting their lives at risk at the hands of dangerous people smugglers. We must put the smugglers out of business.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

T4. Last week a new report was published by a group of Conservatives on Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, which found multiple current examples of what they allege to be active grooming and child sexual exploitation in multiple locations across Rotherham. The working group felt that the response from Rotherham Council was“practically non-existent, and at times the working group has felt that various elements within the Council are deliberately avoiding talking about CSE.”What steps can the Secretary of State’s Department not only to bring the perpetrators to justice but to ensure that the sentencing fits this abominable crime?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; these are sensitive matters. We remain clear that allegations of child sexual abuse and exploitation must be thoroughly and properly investigated by police. Since Alexis Jay’s report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, significant improvements have been made in how local authorities and the police safeguard children both in Rotherham and across the country. However, we know that there is further to go, and we continue to drive improvement in response to actions set out in the “Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy”. We are also bringing forward measures in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that will ensure that an additional cohort of serious and sexual offenders will now serve two thirds of their sentence in custody, instead of half.