Oral Answers to Questions

Sadiq Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Blunt]

My right hon. Friend is, of course, correct. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is fond of the American experience, where 2 million people are in prison. The logical result of that is the experience in California, where the prison system has become so overcrowded and inhumane that the Supreme Court of the United States has ordered the Californians to release 30,000 prisoners within two years to sort out the prison system. We certainly do not want to find ourselves in that situation.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I welcome the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara) to the Front Bench to answer Justice questions. It is surely only a matter of time before the Prime Minister makes the move permanent. As has been said, half the ministerial team are not here today. For our part, we are flattered that both the Justice Secretary and the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice are running scared. Let us wait and see whether it makes a difference to the Front Benchers’ performance.

I will begin with an easy one. Do this Conservative-led Government still have a target of reducing the prison population by 3,000 from what it was in May 2010?

[Mr Blunt]

First, I am gratified by the confidence that the Justice Secretary and the Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice have in the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), and in my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara), our departmental Whip, who is also responding as a Minister.

We have never had a target. We have an estimate of what is happening and an estimate of the consequences of our policies.

[Sadiq Khan]

Sir David Latham, the former chairman of the Parole Board and Court of Appeal judge, who retired last month, has warned that due to decisions made by this Government, the only way to prevent a backlog of those who have completed their sentence is to change how the Parole Board reaches decisions, which means it

“may not actually be as effective in protecting the public”.

Does the Minister accept that by abolishing indeterminate sentences for public protection the Government are removing from the Parole Board the responsibility to deal properly with the most violent and serious offenders and taking a risk with public safety?

[Mr Blunt]

Absolutely not. The right hon. Gentleman’s attempt to juxtapose Sir David Latham’s points with the conduct of the current Government is pretty rich, given that the problem that we inherited came from the shambles of the administration of IPPs. The Labour Government estimated that there would be 900 such sentences, but we now have about 6,500 people in the prison system on IPPs, more than half of them beyond tariff. That presents the Parole Board with a huge problem, which his party’s Administration did not address in delivering its resources until far too late. The current Administration are now gripping all of that.

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[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

Is there a maximum number or percentage of prisons that the Government are willing to have run by the private sector?

[Mr Blunt]

We have said that we do not intend to compete in the high-security estate. There is a limit on how fast the private sector could absorb new prisons and on the capacity of the Ministry of Justice to compete prisons. There is no stated policy, but there are practical restrictions on the speed with which we can increase private sector provision.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

T4. rose—

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

It’s contagious.

[Neil Carmichael]

I have just got a new BlackBerry and I was so impressed with it.

What is the Minister’s overall assessment of the recent Brighton declaration in terms of the European Court of Human Rights?