Prisoner Early Release Debate

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Department: Ministry of Justice

Prisoner Early Release

Esther McVey Excerpts
Monday 29th June 2026

(1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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Jake Richards Portrait Jake Richards
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Deportation of foreign national offenders is at record highs under this Government and we will continue to work to ensure that we deport those foreign national offenders who should not be here. I think the justice spokesperson for Reform is the hon. Member for Runcorn and Helsby (Sarah Pochin). She recently said that 1.2 million people should be put in prison every year. There is no serious plan from Reform that keeps our country safe.

Esther McVey Portrait Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
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Last week, the Government announced the first areas to be investigated as part of the rape gang inquiry, yet under their new Sentencing Act, rapists and child groomers will be released early from prison. The Minister must see that putting these criminals on the streets not only makes an absolute mockery of Labour’s rape gang inquiry but goes to prove that Labour was never serious about having one or locking up those perpetrators.

Jake Richards Portrait Jake Richards
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As I have said, there was an inquiry into these issues, which was begun by the last Conservative Government. The chair of that inquiry, Professor Alexis Jay, said that their response was

“inconsequential, insubstantial, committed to nothing.”

Victims waited years for action and got nothing. There were briefings that it was “hysterical and half baked”, and highly emotional, and the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that money spent on child sex abuse inquiries was being “spaffed up the wall”. I will not take any lessons from the right hon. Lady or the Conservative party on this issue.