Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Ministry of Justice

Oral Answers to Questions

Philip Hollobone Excerpts
Tuesday 3rd July 2012

(12 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Philip Hollobone Portrait Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
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T8. In thanking my right hon. Friend the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice for visiting a community payback scheme in Kettering on 18 June, may I ask whether he agrees that the work we saw being undertaken was both worth while and sufficiently arduous to prevent future reoffending?

Lord Herbert of South Downs Portrait The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Nick Herbert)
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Yes. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for inviting me to Kettering to see that scheme. The offenders were wearing fluorescent jackets to identify them as people doing work on behalf of the community. They were working hard constructing a path alongside a river, which will be of huge value to the community and would not have been constructed but for that work. That shows that we can make community payback an effective and meaningful punishment on behalf of the community.