Prison Capacity

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

The right hon. Lady raises an important point about probation, which is an incredibly important profession. It can be an attractive career for many people, with a real, strong sense of public service and wanting to help our whole society. We are recruiting at the moment. We need more people to join the probation service and are keen for them to do so. I hope that she will join me in encouraging that.

I think that the right hon. Lady mentioned the extended use of police cells. I want to reassure her and the House that this is not about long periods of time. It is about one or two nights for an individual. In most cases, it is one night and, the next day, that individual would be prioritised for reallocation to a prison.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, you will be aware that, in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, we are keen to see scumbags locked up for a longer period of time. But, unfortunately, at this moment in time, 12% of the prison population are foreign national offenders. What is the Ministry of Justice doing to get those people out to serve their sentences elsewhere?

[Damian Hinds]

Foreign national offenders are a significant minority of the prison population and it is important that we have a good process to remove them. As my hon. Friend will know, in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, we changed the law to enable removal at the nine-month point rather than at 12 months. Of course, we have also signed the agreement with Albania, and we are keen to sign similar agreements with other countries in the EU and the wider world.