Prison Capacity

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

To take the second point first, I am so pleased to hear my right hon. Friend say that. There are certain things that really are important in our jurisdiction: first, we do not do plea bargaining; secondly, we do not have political appointment of judges; and, thirdly, we have a jury system. These are incredibly important things. We do not talk about them enough in this Chamber, but they are immensely important to our basic freedom. I was delighted to hear that and, yes, he can be sure that we are not going down the road of plea bargaining.

On the point my right hon. Friend makes about ensuring people cannot come back, that is precisely the point. It is not just and it is not sensible to have people costing the taxpayer a huge amount of money in British prisons if, when they are out, they are never coming back anyway. That is central to our plan to ensure that, as we expand the ERS window, we put in place every necessary measure—in compliance or in consultation with our international counterparts—to ensure that once people are out, they are never coming back.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The second largest prison in Europe is HMP Berwyn in north Wales. As of today, I understand that it houses 1,989 prisoners. Any solution to the well-documented problems of violence at HMP Berwyn since it opened six years ago is continuously undermined by the failure to retain staff because working conditions are so extreme. Will the Secretary of State recognise that warehousing offenders in gargantuan prisons creates chronic problems and is not fit for purpose?

[Alex Chalk]

I am very glad the right hon. Member has mentioned Berwyn. I went to Berwyn, and she is right that we always want to recruit more prison staff, but let us pause for a second just to note how fantastic some of the work is in that prison. I was there in the jobcentre—in effect, there is a jobcentre within the prison—and people were having Zoom interviews with their potential employers on the outside. That is one of the reasons why reoffending has dropped while we have been in government from 32% to 24%, and it is one of the reasons why crime is down overall. She mentions the 1,900 or so people, but let me say—lest we forget—that the Labour party promised, before it left office, that there would be three Titan prisons with 2,500 people in them. Did they happen? Did they heck.