Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

1. What progress he has made on his plans to bring down the level of reoffending.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

6. What progress he has made on reducing the level of reoffending.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

We remain on track in delivering our reforms to transform rehabilitation and bring down reoffending rates. Since 1 June, the new national probation service and community rehabilitation companies have been working together to manage offenders. The competition for new owners of the 21 community rehabilitation companies will conclude later this year.

[Henry Smith]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. What progress has his Department made in establishing a network of resettlement prisons?

[Chris Grayling]

We are on track to establish the network of resettlement prisons later this year to coincide with the commencement of the mentoring and supervision of under-12-month offenders. This part of our reforms is enormously important. It will mean that offenders will spend the last few months of their sentence in or just outside the geographic area into which they will be released in order to ensure that we have a proper through-the-gate service to plan, prepare and implement arrangements for their release.