Sentencing White Paper

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Buckland]

My hon. Friend speaks with her own knowledge and experience as a practitioner. She is right to ask me that question, because this is not just about how to make the necessary adjustments in the system once the person with that neurodiverse condition is in it. It is equally, if not more so, about prevention in the first place. We will achieve that only with the help of the Department for Education, the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Work and Pensions. There is already a cross-governmental disability strategy, which I want to build on with the call for evidence that we are going to undertake. I look forward to engaging with all the agencies, and indeed all the voluntary organisations out there, which bring so much expertise to the table in dealing with these issues. I am also going to put speech, language and communication disorder into the mix, because I know it has been a long-standing issue that we need to address as well.

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Our prison system is in crisis. After 10 years of funding cuts and privatisation, many of our prisons are simply not fit for purpose, while overcrowding is leading to dangerously high levels of violence and self-harm. In January, the Howard League for Penal Reform pointed to drastic improvements in the conditions at Liverpool jail as an example of what can be achieved when action is taken to reduce overcrowding, but it also highlighted the fact that overcrowding is a systemic issue across England and Wales. Does the Lord Chancellor recognise that any discussion about increasing custodial sentences has to be accompanied by a dramatic increase in funding for prisoners so that we can tackle overcrowding?

[Robert Buckland]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to talk about Her Majesty’s Prison Liverpool; I pay tribute to the governor and, indeed, all the prison staff there for the incredible work they have done to help to change a challenging position to one of real progress. That has been happening in prisons up and down our country. I make no bones about it: the prison environment is a difficult one and the hon. Gentleman is right to highlight overcrowding. But I repeat that the Government have already committed £2.5 billion to a new prison-building programme and secured more funding for prison maintenance. We have also secured £100 million for new prison security, including X-rays, to protect not only prisoners but the staff who run the line and do so much incredible work in the art of jailcraft, which is truly understood by only a few of us in the House but which we should remember when we pay tribute to the tireless work of our dedicated prison officers.