Prison Capacity

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, there has been some slippage in the prison building programme, mainly as a result of difficulties with planning. As the Lord Chancellor indicated in the Statement, there is a renewed push to find new sites and reinvigorate that programme. I am afraid that I cannot give the noble Lord any specific dates but, as the Statement indicates, it is very much part of the general package. As far as rehabilitation and the decline in community service orders over the last 10 or 15 years are concerned, that may well be connected to the problems that we have had in the Probation Service. I would not presume to say either way but, as I ventured to suggest a moment ago, we are doing our best to restore the Probation Service to its detailed place within the system. A renewed Probation Service will be an integral part of the new programme; the service is currently reconsidering its orientation and the deployment of its resources to support the Statement that the Government have just made.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome what the Minister has said, so long as it is actually carried out; implementation seems to me to be the most important part. On dealing with often persistent but not particularly serious crimes by drink and drug addicts, have the Government thought of building, or creating, residential places for these offenders, along with a probation order, so that if they do not comply with it, they would go to prison?

[Lord Bellamy (Con)]

My Lords, I would need notice of that question. I will write to the noble and learned Baroness with respect to the place of residential places in the criminal justice system. Certainly, the focus on dealing with alcohol and, indeed, drugs is very much on the Government’s mind at the moment. One development in GPS tagging is that you can use it for alcohol detection as well—that is a further arrow in the quiver, as it were, to deal with this problem—but the noble and learned Baroness’s question is entirely apposite, as always.