Transparency and Consistency of Sentencing

Esther McVey Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Philip Davies]

If my hon. Friend does not mind, I will make some progress, because many other Members wish to speak and I want to draw my remarks to a close.

My final point is on the automatic release of offenders halfway through their sentence, which is one of the shameful things the previous Government sneaked through in the last Parliament. Prisoners are now not just eligible for release halfway through their sentence; they are automatically released. I think that that is a terrible situation. When I visited Denmark, whose criminal justice system is always seen as very liberal, I found that they do not have that system. They have the system we used to have, whereby prisoners became eligible for release halfway through their sentence. In fact, 30% of their prisoners were refused parole altogether and served the full sentence handed down by the courts, and they think that that is one of the major reasons why they had such low reoffending rates. I urge the Secretary of State not to have a system where we automatically release prisoners willy-nilly halfway through their sentence and irrespective of their behaviour in prison or their risk of reoffending. We should make proper judgments about people’s fitness for release before we agree to release them. I think that we can learn from Denmark in that regard.

[Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con)]

Having worked with and represented many victims of crime and their families, I know that what they find most upsetting and offensive is when a sentence that they feel is just or suitable for the perpetrator of a crime is halved, which they say is an extra insult. In the case of a family I represent, the halving of a sentence is a double blow on top of the murder of their child.