Paul Goggins
Main Page: Paul Goggins (Labour - Wythenshawe and Sale East)Department Debates - View all Paul Goggins's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(14 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Clarke
I am not sure that that is my responsibility at present; I will consult my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport. I can only say that the last time I can remember a Government attempting to do that, the idea was not met with a great deal of favour by the BBC—but I shall find out exactly where we are now.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
Like many others, I would like to see less use of short-term prison sentences, but will the Justice Secretary expand on his curious remark a little earlier that there is little evidence that prison does any good to anyone?
Mr Clarke
If I said that, it was one of those slips of the tongue that I very rarely make. Prison is the best and only punishment for serious criminal offenders; it is the one that we all want to use. It has a strong punitive element if the just and correct sentence is given, and the public are, of course, spared from the crimes of the individual for so long as he is in prison—but we should also strive to do much better than we have ever done before in reducing the likelihood of the person reoffending and committing new crimes as soon as he is released. I am, however, delighted to hear that the right hon. Gentleman agrees with me that short-term sentences are used too much. He should have a word with his party’s newly appointed Front-Bench spokesman, before that Front-Bench spokesman slips into the folly of the last 10 years.