Oral Answers to Questions

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

I am delighted to hear that from the hon. Gentleman. We have to follow the evidence, which shows that short sentences of immediate custody lead to a higher reoffending rate than those where the sentence is suspended, albeit on tight conditions, which might include curfew, an unpaid work order and potentially a rehabilitation requirement. Why? Because if the offender fails to comply, the probation service can find them in breach and bring them back before the court, where they will then likely hear the clang of the prison gate. We will follow the evidence. We make no apology for using our custodial estate to lock up the most dangerous offenders for longer and take them out of circulation. But protecting the public also means ensuring that those who would otherwise reoffend get off the conveyor belt of crime.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

11. What assessment he has made of the adequacy of the conditions in the prison estate for the rehabilitation of offenders.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

By the end of the spending review period, we will have invested nearly £4 billion to deliver an additional 20,000 modern prison places and ensure that the right conditions are in place to rehabilitate prisoners, cut crime and protect the public. The key to effective rehabilitation is the provision of education and skills training, to increase a prisoner’s employability and ensure that they can access employment upon release, alongside providing support for substance misuse, treatment and so on. We are also investing to improve rehabilitative spaces in prison, having delivered our employment hubs, where prisoners can access job vacancies. We will renovate prison workshops through our HMP academies programme.

[Rachael Maskell]

No glass, just bars at the window; mice and rats; faeces in the gravy; and sewage overflows regularly in his cell. This is not the start of a Victorian novel, but the disgrace experienced by my young constituent, who was locked in his shared cell for 23 and a half hours a day, having never received the vital specialist mental health support that he needed. When can we expect such draconian conditions at HMP Hull to end? What appropriate steps will the Minister take to ensure that people in prison experience rehabilitation, not the conditions that my constituent faced?