Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Tapp Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s concerns and would be happy to look further into the issues that he raises. As he knows, we are working incredibly hard to ensure we have the probation team and workforce that we need to keep the public safe. We have successfully onboarded 1,389 trainee probation officers. We are up on our targets and the data is going in the right direction, but we appreciate that we need to do more and are working hard to ensure we keep the public safe when offenders are released into the community.

[Mike Tapp (Dover and Deal) (Lab)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to increase the capacity of the prison estate.

[The Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending (Catherine McKinnell)]

As my hon. Friend knows, we inherited a crumbling prison estate that was close to breaking point, with only 100 places remaining. The previous Government were just days away from reaching capacity, which is why we are working at pace to deliver an additional 14,000 prison places by 2031; we have already delivered 3,300. That stands in marked contrast to the 500 net places that the Conservative Government managed to add during 14 years in office.

[Mike Tapp]

I thank the Minister for the fantastic progress made. What steps is the Department taking to ensure that foreign national offenders are held in prison until they are deported, not released back into our society where they can reoffend or abscond?

[Catherine McKinnell]

There are currently thousands of foreign criminals in our prisons, at vast expense to the taxpayer, and that cannot be right when we need every space in our prisons. Within our first two years, the Government have increased foreign national offender returns by 41% compared with the last two years of the previous Government. I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that capacity in the immigration removals estate is within the remit of the Home Office, and we continue to work closely with the Department to ensure we increase the number of foreign national offenders being removed and keep the public safe.