Criminal Law

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend is right that, ultimately, one of the long-term solutions to the capacity crisis must be to reduce reoffending; I am just coming on to that point in my speech. I will happily arrange for her to meet the Prisons Minister and I will take a close interest in what is happening in Milton Keynes.

Let us be under no illusion. The measure I have set out today is not a silver bullet. It does not end the prisons crisis. It is not the long-term solution. Instead, it buys us the time we need to take further measures that can address the prisons crisis not just now, but in the future. Later this year, we will publish a 10-year capacity strategy, which will outline the steps that the Government will take to acquire land for new prison sites and will ensure that building prisons—infrastructure that we deem to be of national importance—is a decision placed in a Minister’s hands.

We must also drive down reoffending. Currently, all too often our prisons create better criminals, not better citizens. Nearly 80% of offenders are reoffenders. A stronger Probation Service will be crucial to driving down reoffending, and we will start by recruiting at least 1,000 new trainee probation officers by the end of March 2025, bringing forward an existing commitment to address the immediate challenges we face today. We will also work with prisons to ensure that offenders can get the skills they need to contribute to society on release, as well as bringing together prison governors, local employers and the voluntary sector to help them into work, because we know that having a job makes offenders less likely to reoffend.

The last occupants of 10 Downing Street left our prisons in crisis.

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that Cities of London and Westminster has some of the highest levels of rough sleeping in the country, with 2,050 rough sleepers every night in Westminster and 482 in the City of London. St Mungo’s has highlighted that 68% of people released from prison into rough sleeping will reoffend within the year. It is simply essential that a planning process and needs assessment take place before people are released. Local authorities with the responsibility of preventing homelessness simply do not have the resources or working processes to ensure that that planning takes place. Will those processes and resources be in place before the legislation is implemented in September?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The point about homelessness, and what it means for recall into prison, is incredibly important. The implementation period allows probation time to prepare plans for every offender who will be released. That is different from the previous Government’s ECSL scheme, which gave no time at all. Some of these issues will be mitigated by that implementation period. Offenders leaving prison can access transitional accommodation for up to 84 nights if they are at risk of being homeless. Those provisions will continue as this scheme is rolled out.