Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity

Debate between Julian Lewis and Shabana Mahmood

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend will know that in our safer streets mission, improving confidence in the criminal justice system is one of the key outcomes we are focused on. He is right to make the point that the whole criminal justice system requires stabilisation. It all needs to be put on a better trajectory than the one we inherited from the previous Government. We are talking in detail about prisons, but it is difficult to divorce what is happening in our prison system from what is going on in probation and the courts. I reassure him that I conceive of this as a whole-system approach. I am aware of the challenges in other bits of the system; they are things that this Government will ultimately sort out.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

The Lord Chancellor speaks with great clarity and determination on this issue, and I am sure that she will remember last week promising me a ministerial meeting involving my constituent, Andrew Duncan, and a specialist team. They are working on a new concept of community detention that I believe is tailor-made for the vision that the Lord Chancellor has outlined to us today. Can she confirm that the meeting will go ahead, notwithstanding the extra opportunity to give evidence to the Gauke review in due course?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I knew immediately that the right hon. Gentleman was going to ask about the meeting he referenced last week, when I made my other statement. I assure him that I will follow that up. I am interested in the work of the group that he mentions, and I am sure that the sentencing review panel will also be interested in it.

Criminal Justice System: Capacity

Debate between Julian Lewis and Shabana Mahmood

Thursday 17th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am very sorry to hear about the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituent. I have many such instances of unacceptable delays for hearing cases in my own constituency caseload. I hope that the measures that I have announced today will begin to ease some of that pressure, because making this change will free up around 2,000 sitting days in the Crown court. This Government have funded an additional 500 beyond the concordat process agreement that was reached by the previous Government in June. I am determined to make more progress in dealing with the Crown court backlog so that constituents such as my hon. Friend’s do not have to wait so many years for their cases to be heard and, ultimately, for justice to be done.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

May I reach out across the party divide to say that I warmly welcome what the Justice Secretary said about punishment and rehabilitation? By coincidence, I have just written to her—she will not have seen the letter yet—about the work of my constituent, the publisher Andrew Duncan, in co-ordination with a panel of experts that includes a psychology professor, a former governor of Pentonville, a Probation Service specialist in reducing reoffending and a central London magistrate, on a new concept of community detention. My request is that either she or the Minister she thinks most appropriate will agree to have a meeting with my constituent, a few members of his team and me. As a right-of-centre politician, I am sometimes sceptical of alternatives to prison. This one sounds really interesting, and I think it would not be a waste of her time.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the right hon. Member for the spirit in which he made his remarks. I hope that where consensus is possible on a cross-party basis across this House, we are able to work together, because this is a national problem that will require us all to come together to solve it. I will track down his letter and ensure that he gets a full response and a meeting.