Electronic Monitoring of Offenders

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that ensuring that there is purposeful activity in prisons, and that prisoners can gain life skills and work skills while they are in prison, will help to reduce reoffending and help to tackle the prison capacity challenge that we have. She will recognise that the capacity challenge we inherited makes all of this harder—it makes everything we are doing in the prison system harder. That is why we are both building more prison spaces and ensuring that we invest in and support rehabilitation while people are in prison, to reduce the need to recall people when they reoffend. We are tackling this on all fronts, and I appreciate my hon. Friend’s support for our efforts.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

The Minister says that the Government are building new prison places, yet she will be aware that there are fewer prison places today than on the day Labour took office. She will also be aware that this vast flood of prisoners being released early has overwhelmed the ability of the Probation Service to find them accommodation and that some prisoners are now being issued with tents, setting them up to fail. Can the Minister tell us how many prisoners have been issued with tents on their release? Has the rate been higher or lower than she expected?

[Catherine McKinnell]

It is not Government policy to provide tents to people being released from prison who are at risk of being homeless. We are clear that tents should never be an acceptable housing solution. The hon. Member will know that overall housing responsibility rests with local authorities in England and Wales. I assure him that we are working very closely with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to tackle the scourge of homelessness across the board, including among the prison leaver cohort that he is concerned about. He can support this work by encouraging his local authority to engage in pre-release panels, so that this work can be done collaboratively right across the UK to ensure that nobody leaves prison homeless.