Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Andrew Lewin

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for his questions. I am sorry to hear about his personal experiences, but they will of course inform the valuable contributions that he makes in this House from his own lived experience.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is not a specific offence of domestic abuse in our legislative framework. To bring in the emergency release scheme to prevent us from running out of prison spaces in July, I have pulled every lever at my disposal. We can make these changes in law only by excluding offences, not offender cohorts or offender types. That is why the list of offences covered includes those most closely connected to domestic abuse situations, but it is not of course fully comprehensive. It cannot be, because we can exclude only offences, not offender types. I hope he will recognise that I pulled these levers as early as possible in the Parliament—almost as soon as I walked into the Department—because I wanted to give the Probation Service time to prepare for this change. Specifically, it was so that it could notify victims, work on proper release plans for these offenders, make sure that the licence conditions are the right ones and make sure that the monitoring of these offenders in the community is as strong as it needs to be.

The hon. Gentleman will also know that those who are flagged as having a domestic violence background are prioritised for tags. Every choice I have made in bringing forward these emergency release changes has been made to try to minimise the impact on victims. I really empathise with and am very affected by the concerns of victims that those who have offended against them are being released some weeks or months early. That might sound small, but I know it has a huge impact, and I do not seek to minimise that in any way. As I say, I have pulled every lever at my disposal to try to minimise those concerns.

On the sentencing review, when we reveal the whole panel we will ensure that victims’ voices are represented, as that is important. In the terms of reference we have tried to capture the fact that all of society suffers collectively when we do not get reoffending rates down. This is a strategy for cutting crime and producing fewer victims in future, which I hope the hon. Gentleman will support.

IPP sentences are specifically excluded. That is a challenging cohort of prisoners in our system, and where it is safe to do so I am determined to make progress on releasing those who are currently serving an IPP sentence. I worked with the previous Government and supported changes to the licence terms and conditions brought in by the Conservative Administration. We are implementing changes that were made in the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024, which was enacted just before the general election. What we cannot do is release people who still pose a risk to the public, and with this cohort of offenders I cannot release those who are still a danger to themselves and to others. Getting that balance right is incredibly important, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that it is not appropriate to put that cohort of offenders within the sentencing review.

[Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)]

Under the Conservative Government, more than one in two people who served short-term custodial sentences went on to reoffend. In total, reoffending is costing our country £20 billion a year. That is not working at all, and not working for the taxpayer. In my constituency, and across Hertfordshire, fantastic charities such as the Hertfordshire Association for the Care and Rehabilitation of Offenders are running innovative and pioneering programmes, and working with ex-offenders to ensure that they do not offend again. Will my right hon. Friend say a little more about how the Government will adopt a new approach and work with charities and broader civil society to cut reoffending for good?

[Shabana Mahmood]

My hon. Friend is right: reoffending has a huge cost for us all as a country because it creates more victims of crime. Indeed, it costs us more than £20 billion at about £22 billion a year. Charities and other groups have a huge role to play in helping to bring down the reoffending rate, but to allow that work to succeed we must bring down overcrowding and the capacity crisis in our prisons. I hope the sentencing review will help us to chart a new course when it comes to bringing down reoffending.