Jo Stevens
Main Page: Jo Stevens (Labour - Cardiff East)Department Debates - View all Jo Stevens's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Rory Stewart
Yes, we can learn a great deal from Germany and Denmark, and indeed in some of our most successful prisons, as prisoners develop in their sentence—as they develop more skills—they are given opportunities to cook for themselves and look after themselves, and of course through the use of release on temporary licence, we can get prisoners into work while they are still in prison. This means, when they leave, they are more likely to have a job. One of the key things about reducing reoffending is making sure there is not a cliff edge at the prison door, but that for at least 10 weeks before people leave a lot of preparation goes into setting up the life they will have outside prison.
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
I genuinely have sympathy for the Minister: he is the man with the shovel and brush following a horse that has been ridden by his colleague the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling). We have seen an award-winning public probation service turned into an unmitigated privatised disaster. The Minister did not answer the earlier question about new contracts having break clauses, which was the same question we asked in 2014, so will he confirm that any new contracts issued will have break clauses?