Lord Elton
Main Page: Lord Elton (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)Department Debates - View all Lord Elton's debates with the Scotland Office
(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Keen of Elie
The Secretary of State has already announced a £1.3 billion programme for improving and increasing the prison estate.
Lord Elton (Con)
As a former Minister for Prisons, I recognise the difficulty that the Government are in when something like this is proposed just as a new and expensive programme is launched. However, will my noble and learned friend bear in mind that an inquiry would offer two specific advantages? One would be that he and the Secretary of State might learn a good deal that they did not know, which would be valuable to them in managing their jobs. The second is that the result is likely to give them extra ammunition for dealing with the difficulty of getting money out of the Treasury.
Lord Keen of Elie
As I indicated earlier, there are imminent proposals for a prison safety and reform White Paper in which these matters will be addressed. In addition, it will be recalled that we had the recommendations of the Harris review; 62 have been accepted and a further 12 are under consideration.