Prison Capacity

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his place. On the 18-month period, we have inherited a criminal justice system in complete crisis and at risk of total breakdown and collapse. It will take some time, by necessity, for us to be able to put that right. I do not want to mislead the public that somehow these changes will have a quick effect. The system is in dire straits and it will take time to repair it. It is right that we are up front and honest about that time, and I will update the House regularly.

As I say, this Government’s approach will be very different from that of the last Government. We will have a regular release of data, and I anticipate that I will regularly appear before Members to talk about that data, but I welcome that opportunity because it is important that the public are kept updated, and that their representatives in this place are able to scrutinise what is happening and hold us to account. We will need time for the measures to take effect to enable us to move the system to a position of greater health.

In terms of who goes to prison, why and for how long, when we have overcrowded prisons, there is no capacity to do much other than hold people in their cells. The activity that we know is important to help people in the prison system to turn their lives around, come out as better citizens and make better choices, having made amends to society, cannot happen in deeply overcrowded prisons. That is why dealing with the capacity crisis is so necessary not just to prevent the collapse of the criminal justice system but to cut reoffending in the long term. Creating some space will allow us to introduce proposals to bring down reoffending rates in the country.

On probation, I pay tribute to all probation staff for their tremendous work. My first visit in my new role was to meet probation staff in Bedfordshire. I recognise that they have been working in a system and a service under extreme strain and facing real difficulty. That is why we will onboard 1,000 new trainee probation officers before March 2025 to add extra capacity, and why returning the probation system to health will be a key priority for this Government.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I declare a non-pecuniary interest: I am an honorary life member of the Prison Officers’ Association.

In seeking to be fair, as she always is, my right hon. Friend is being too kind on the last Government. They brought about a staffing crisis in our prisons that has brought rehabilitation to an end and levels of violence that we have never seen before. Will she bring forward as soon as possible a workforce strategy for our prisons and probation? As a matter of urgency, will she look in particular at Feltham young offenders institution, which has become a violent emergency for staff and for prisoners themselves?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My right hon. Friend is right. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to all the staff in our prisons, who do an excellent job under very difficult circumstances. He is right to acknowledge that the levels of violence in our prisons have been increasing, placing those staff at ever greater risk. This is similar to the question that I just answered on probation. When prisons are so badly overcrowded, it is incredibly difficult to run any kind of regime that can do good work on rehabilitation, or provide a safe atmosphere for the staff who work in them.

I will, of course, have conversations in the usual way when it comes to discussions about the spending review and other measures that the Chancellor will bring forward. I hope that I need not tell my right hon. Friend that I will bat hard for our Department and the people I represent. That will all happen in the usual way. We are committed to publishing our 10-year capacity strategy as quickly as possible so that we can begin the process of returning our system to some sort of health. I thank him for raising Feltham; I will look at that and write to him.