Prison Overcrowding

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Monday 16th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The figure is, of course, now coming down. It is lower than it was when we took office, and it is roughly proportionate to the number of people in the population who were not born in the UK. We have to bear in mind that one of the reasons why we have a high proportion of foreign national offenders in our jails is that when the Labour party was in government it had a reckless policy on the number of people allowed to migrate to this country.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

I have three excellent custodial institutions in my constituency: Rye Hill and Onley prisons, and the secure training centre at Rainsbrook, all of which have fantastic staff and do a brilliant job. I welcome the answer to the urgent question, which was spurious at best, but will there be a recategorisation of prisons? Her Majesty’s prison Onley is heading down the track of being fully made up of sex offenders, and it perhaps deserves recategorisation.

[Chris Grayling]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I am in favour of greater specialisation within the prison estate; it allows us to concentrate expertise in particular places. Of course, the biggest change in the estate will be the shaping of a system of resettlement prisons—that will begin later this year—to accompany our rehabilitation reforms, so that some prisons specialise in particular needs, as is the case in his constituency, and others are very much geared to preparing people who are in the last few months of their sentence for release, to try to reduce the likelihood of reoffending.