Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

If I am not mistaken, the right hon. Gentleman was a Minister in the previous Government who introduced the legislation that makes these changes possible. The Opposition say one thing one day and another thing the next. The truth is that reoffending rates in this country have barely changed in a decade, despite extra money being spent, and I want to bring those rates down.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

9. What plans he has for the modernisation of the prison estate.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

Our strategy for the prison estate is to replace accommodation that is old, inefficient or has limited long-term strategic value with cheaper modern capacity. We also have a rolling programme of maintenance that prioritises our investment across the prison estate.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

Stafford prison was built in 1794 and is one of the most cost-effective in the estate. Last week the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), and I visited Stafford and heard from prisoners of the work done by Joanne Tomlinson on anxiety management and how it had transformed their lives. Does my hon. Friend agree that modernisation is more about what goes on inside prisons than about the bricks and mortar?

[Jeremy Wright]

I certainly agree that what people do is just as important as where they do it, and I congratulate those involved in the work that he described at Stafford prison. However, very often what people do is despite the environment in which they are working, rather than because of it, and my hon. Friend will accept readily, I am sure, that where we can provide newer accommodation, it will make it easier for people to do the good work on rehabilitation that he and I both support.