Prison Overcrowding Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Ministry of Justice

Prison Overcrowding

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts
Monday 16th June 2014

(10 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts

Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.

Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.

This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record

Lord Grayling Portrait Chris Grayling
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

That is at the heart of our reforms to the probation service, which will mean, crucially, that later this year we will begin to provide support, supervision and mentoring to short-sentence prisoners when they leave prison. At the moment, they get nothing at all and are left to their own devices, and nearly two thirds of them reoffend quickly. That is the biggest blot on our criminal justice system. Unlike the last Government, we are doing something about it.

Andrew Gwynne Portrait Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
- Hansard - -

In a spirit of openness, perhaps the Justice Secretary will tell the House how much the emergency prison places that he has bought from private prisons are costing the public purse, so that we can ascertain whether they are more cost-effective than the prison places that he has closed.

Lord Grayling Portrait Chris Grayling
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I assure the hon. Gentleman that the marginal cost of an additional place within a prison is much lower than the overall cost of running a prison.