Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Spencer Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We just need to tone it down a little bit on all sides. I am concerned about some of the language that gets used and some of the accusations that are being made. I am sure we will be able to move on in a much more reasonable way.

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

10. What steps he is taking to help ensure effective collaboration between his Department and the Home Office on reducing reoffending.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

The Ministry of Justice and the Home Office are working in close collaboration to beat crime and reduce fear of reoffending. I am the personification of that collaboration. The refreshed integrated offender management strategy is an example of that collaboration, improving working between probation and local police, meaning we can more easily identify persistent offenders in any particular area and take action to stop them from committing neighbourhood crime.

[Dr Spencer]

I thank my hon. Friend for being the personification of collaboration between the police and the Department. Will he join me in thanking and congratulating my local police forces in Runnymede and Weybridge on the incredible preventive work they have done around offending? Does he agree with me that prevention is better than cure, and could he lay out some of the work they are doing in terms of pre-offending, not just reoffending?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is quite right to point out that prevention is better than cure. One emphasis I have tried to bring to my mission as a joint Minister between the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice is that we should shift away from enforcement towards prevention as much as we possibly can. For example, he will know that we funded a series of violence reduction units across the country, working with young people well ahead of them moving towards offending or being involved in crime to make sure that they do not. We are also looking at innovative ways to deal with offenders leaving the secure estate to prevent them from offending, such as GPS tags. We are now currently tagging 100% of acquisitive criminals who leave prison in six police forces, soon to be expanded to a further 13, which is proving to be an enormous deterrent to their continuing offending, and is getting them back on to the straight and narrow.