Joint HMI Prison and Probation Report

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

May I join in the general welcome for the inspectors’ report in this extremely difficult area? I acknowledge that this is a growing area of criminal justice interest because of the public anxiety behind the nature of these offences, for all the reasons the Minister gave about the growing burden on the service. In order to understand the nature of the cause of the offending behaviour—for the probation officers overseeing it and for offender managers generally, but also for the offenders themselves so that they can manage their behaviour in future—it is critical that the investment in forensic psychology is appropriate to the demand placed on the system. Is he satisfied that sufficient resources from the national health service and from elsewhere are going into the criminal justice system in order for it to manage the scale of the problem that it is having to manage?

[Rory Stewart]

First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who was a prisons and probation Minister. The connection with the NHS is central. Additional funding has gone into the NHS, and we need to ensure that that focuses on the most vulnerable offenders in terms of mental health, addiction and the need for courses provided by the national health service. Getting that right will be essential in dealing with violent crime, sex offences and short-sentence offences. The NHS connection is vital. The most important thing, from my point of view, is ensuring that we have the treatment provision in the community for addiction.