Transforming Rehabilitation

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I know that the Labour party is going through an identity crisis at the moment, and the hon. Gentleman may be in the wrong party, but if I am not mistaken the Peterborough pilot was started by Labour and the legislation that allows me to do this was passed by Labour, so does he support what his party did, or not?

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I welcome the extension of rehabilitation to more offenders. As my right hon. Friend rightly said, a place to live on release is vital. Will capital funding be available to assist in the development of such, sometimes specialist, housing?

[Chris Grayling]

This is an important issue that was raised with me this morning by the probation trust chairs. Of course, we provide a number of specialist accommodation blocks already. As part of the work we do over the next two or three months, we need to look at exactly how we ensure that the right vehicles are available to address accommodation needs. I want to see what I saw this morning at St Giles Trust, which has a small team of professionals who are very good at finding young people who are out of prison somewhere to live and stabilising their lives.