Prisons and Probation: Foreign National Offenders

Rob Butler Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

That is a fair question. It is always worth remembering that more than 90% of cases are disposed of in the magistrates court, where we are getting through a very significant number. He makes a fair point about the Crown court, because we are prosecuting 32% more rape offences than before, so the plea rate is lower, because—guess what?—people do not plead guilty to rape in the way that they might plead guilty to handling stolen goods, for example. So we address that by putting additional money into the system, with £141 million going into legal aid, and by ensuring that section 28 is used, with pre-recorded video evidence and so on. We make no apology for the fact that we have to let the system take its course on these appalling crimes and we will do everything we can to increase resources so that people—victims and witnesses—get the justice they deserve.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I very much support the carefully considered moves announced today by my right hon. and learned Friend, which reflect the reality of the pressures on our prison estate and on our excellent prison officers, following the extraordinary impact of covid. I especially welcome the additional steps he has announced to remove more foreign national offenders. He spoke of a reset in probation, so will he set out in a little more detail how he hopes it will reduce reoffending and so cut crime? What we all want to see, of course, is fewer victims of crime.

[Alex Chalk]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point. Probation is critical and I have made a point since coming into this role of speaking not only to senior probation officers, important though they are, but to probation officers on the frontline. That has been an incredibly instructive experience. One I spoke to in Luton and Dunstable told me that the measures we have taken to roll out 12 weeks’ guaranteed accommodation were the most significant steps that any Government had taken in the 30 years he had been a probation officer. The reset I referred to will follow evidence, not emotion. In other words, it will allow probation officers to calibrate and prioritise their resource to those parts of the licence period where reoffending is most likely to take place. That is common sense and it follows the evidence. Ultimately, measures such as that are why reoffending has gone down from 31% to 25%, thus saving a number of people from being victims of crime in the first place.