Oral Answers to Questions

Kieran Mullan Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)]

I welcome the efforts to help prison leavers to reintegrate, but I am concerned that this Government will soon be keeping people out of prison who should be there as part of their proper punishment for offending. The Government commissioned a sentencing review running on that very premise, and that review recently released its interim report. Can the Minister point to anywhere in that entire 65-page report that has anything to say about the evidence of what victims want?

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

The sentencing review’s interim report describes the situation at the moment, and it is the first stage of that independent review’s addressing this long-standing issue. Frankly, this is something that the Conservatives spent the last 14 years avoiding tackling. That is—[Interruption.] I will leave it there.

[Dr Mullan]

The House will have heard very starkly that the Minister did not offer me any clarity. I can help him by telling him that there is not one word anywhere on the expectations of victims of crime and their families—[Interruption.] Not one word. Worse than that, it cherry-picks evidence from reports to support a narrative that an ill-informed public do not know what they want and do not understand. Does the Minister agree that for that review to have any credibility whatsoever, it must engage seriously with what victims and the public want when it comes to the use of prison for the punishment of serious offenders?

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

We heard fully the commitment from the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), and the Lord Chancellor that victims are front and centre of our approach to fixing the mess that the Conservatives left us. There is a victims representative on the panel, as the hon. Member well knows. Victims were fully involved and engaged in this. I have sadly met too many victims in this role, and I have encouraged all of them to contribute to the report and committed to them that they will be fully involved in the implementation of the report. Instead of carping from the sidelines trying to get cheap soundbites, it is about time the Conservatives rolled their sleeves up and tried to help us sort out their mess.