Prisoner Release Checks

Jonathan Davies Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

The hon. Gentleman has tremendous experience in this Chamber, and I think he would think it was extremely lackadaisical if the Justice Secretary did not seek an operational update from the police over the course of the weekend, when this was at the top of the news cycle and of huge anxiety. Of course, operational matters are for the police, but I am hugely grateful, as I said to Mark Rowley this morning, and I was very pleased that local officers in the London borough of Haringey were able to detain Kebatu, which is why I went up to Wood Green to thank them personally for what they had done.

[Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)]

The erroneous release of this individual was an appalling error. I am grateful that he has been caught and that the Justice Secretary will take steps to get to the bottom of what went wrong in this case. I will be grateful if he comes back to the House in due course to report on his findings.

When they started last year, this Government inherited an appalling situation in respect of the prison estate, with prisons fit to bursting and short of staff. Perhaps that is why the general election came when it did, rather than in the autumn, because there would have had to have been a prisoner release scheme under the previous Government later that year.

I am sick of people coming to my constituency surgeries who have been victims of crime but feel that justice is not being done. I urge my right hon. Friend to redouble his efforts to build up the number of prison places, but also to take steps to ensure that, certainly at lower levels of crime, people do not get into crime in the first place, because that is how we will save money in the long run.