Streatham Incident

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I had sight of the Secretary of State’s statement only 20 minutes before he started speaking. That left me in the unacceptable position of having to prepare my statement about such a serious matter on the basis of press briefings.

I begin by saying that my thoughts are with the people attacked yesterday, their families and the people of Streatham, who witnessed this absolutely horrific attack. I also pay tribute to our police and emergency services for the professionalism and courage that they demonstrated in their swift response to the attack.

The first responsibility of a Government is to keep their citizens safe. Tragically, cuts over the past decade across our justice system—to the police, prisons, probation and the Crown Prosecution Service—have left our communities less safe. That is why our justice system is in crisis.

It will take time, of course, for the full facts about yesterday’s terrible attack to come out. We owe it to those affected to carefully assess what happened and take the action necessary to reduce the risk of similar attacks happening again. Experts have raised serious concerns about the impact of austerity on the Government’s programmes for dealing with terrorism offenders. A former CPS chief prosecutor for north-west England described those programmes today as “largely underfunded” and “poorly executed”. Does the Secretary of State agree with that assessment? What is being done to address the situation?

I turn to prisons. This is the second such attack carried out by a recently released prisoner in recent months. How many of the recommendations from the 2016 review into extremism in prisons have been implemented? Huge cuts to prison budgets have not only left our prisons with more than 2,000 fewer officers than in 2010; they have also led to an exodus of experienced staff, involving the loss of tens of thousands of years of experience. That experience is vital in maintaining safety and order in prisons and, crucially, in identifying and dealing with radicalisation.

Figures that I obtained last year show that the picture in high-security prisons is even worse, with over 400 fewer prison officers in such prisons compared with the figure for 2010. Does the Secretary of State believe that those cuts to staffing levels have made it more difficult to monitor people convicted of terror offences in prisons? The same figures revealed that Belmarsh, where the Streatham attacker was held until his release last week, has a staggering 100 fewer prison officers than it did back in 2010. By what date will the Government return all high-security prison staffing numbers to 2010 levels?

Sadly, the problems in our criminal justice system are not limited to prisons. Probation manages hundreds of thousands of offenders released from prison. All but a handful of the most dangerous prisoners will at some point leave prison. Probation has a vital role to play in keeping our communities safe. The Government’s decision to break up our probation system, alongside the decision to outsource the monitoring of some of the most dangerous offenders in bail hostels, has left the public at higher risk. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the consequences of the failed probation reforms for the monitoring of those convicted of terror offences?

Finally, I turn to sentencing. Judges can ensure that the most dangerous offenders are not released halfway through their sentence and that instead they serve a minimum of two thirds, and are released then only if the Parole Board determines that it is safe for that to happen. We will look at the proposals referred to in the Secretary of State’s statement, because our priority must be to keep the public safe. But to be clear, the Government cannot use sentencing as a way of distracting from their record of bringing the criminal justice system to breaking point.

[Robert Buckland]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making his points, and I will do my very best to answer them all. On his last point, about sentencing, he is right to make reference to the extended determinate sentence system—but that, of course, depends on the learned judge making a finding of dangerousness. In this particular case, that option was open to the court, but the court decided not to take it, which is why the term was a standard determinate one. More needs to be done on the framework, to make sure that it does not depend on the need to make such a finding and that we can end automaticity when it comes to early release. I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman and his party would support that approach when it comes to the necessary legislation.

The hon. Gentleman makes observations more generally about the justice system. I remind him that the responsibility for the supervision of serious offenders has always lain with the National Probation Service, which remained within the hands of the state. I reassure him that the reforms to probation that I am driving forward mean we will bring together all the arms of the probation service in a way that will leader to greater co-ordination, a better spread of casework for probation officers and improved purchase on the regime, which needs to be applied. We are actively recruiting more probation officers.

Ian Acheson made his report in 2016, and eight of the 11 consolidated recommendations were adopted, with disagreement on three of them. I commend the work that he and others did. Things have moved on considerably since that point, and it is right for me to emphasise the joint working the Home Office, my Department and the security services do to make sure we are all working together to monitor not just offenders of this nature in the community, but terrorist offenders in prison. Other countries are learning from that experience.

The hon. Gentleman made the general remarks about the justice system that we hear from him regularly, so I simply remind him of the choices we had to make at the beginning of the last decade, the difficulty we were placed in and the fact that we are increasing counter-terrorism funding and bearing down on the risk we face. There has never been any question, at any time during the Conservative Government’s period in power, that we have prioritised resources over the need to protect the public. We will continue to put public protection at the centre of our deliberations, irrespective of the cost.