Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

10. If he will make a comparative assessment of the effectiveness of short custodial sentences and sentences served in the community.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Gareth Bacon)]

A 2019 Ministry of Justice analysis of a matched cohort of 30,000 offenders shows that those serving sentences of immediate custody of less than 12 months reoffend more often than similar offenders serving a sentence in the community—55% of those sentenced to less than 12 months’ immediate custody were convicted in the following 12 months, which compares with 32% among those serving their sentence in the community.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

For years, I was a visitor at the Scrubs and at HMP Wandsworth. Persuade me that community sentences can be really tough.

[Gareth Bacon]

I suggest that the outcome speaks for itself.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

Many, many more offenders will be serving their sentences in the community as a result of the measures in the upcoming Sentencing Bill. We all know that the Government have had to rush these measures out to deal with the prisons capacity crisis that they have created, but it is essential to recognise that these measures will rely heavily on a functioning probation service. With only one of the 33 probation delivery units inspected being rated as “good”, and all others being rated as “requiring improvement” or “inadequate,” what additional resources have been put in place to ensure that potentially dangerous criminals are being properly monitored?

[Gareth Bacon]

We have recently increased the budget for probation by £155 million and ramped up recruitment, with an additional 4,000 staff recruited over the last period of time.

[Shabana Mahmood]

That is a four-year-old announcement dressed up as something new and, given the extensive changes in the Sentencing Bill, I am afraid that it will just not cut it. Under the Conservatives, our vital probation service has been taken to the brink of collapse, and on current performance it simply cannot handle the additional pressure that these measures will bring and keep the public safe. So will the Minister commit to ensuring that the measures in the Bill will not come into effect until there is not one probation delivery unit still rated as “inadequate”?

[Gareth Bacon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. We will keep this under review as the Bill passes through the House, and we will make further announcements on it in due course.

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

11. What steps he is taking to improve the effectiveness of the probate registry.