Sentencing Review and Prison Capacity

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Argar

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar (Melton and Syston) (Con)]

As always, I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for early sight of her statement, and for her coming to the House to deliver it, giving us the opportunity to ask questions. She is always unfailingly courteous in her dealings with this House.

The Lord Chancellor made several announcements today. It is important that we see the detail of her sentencing review, and that, whatever the outcome, it ensures that victims’ voices are heard throughout, that the worst offenders—for example, violent or sexual offenders—stay behind bars for longer, and that, as she alluded to, prolific offenders who cause so much blight and harm can still be subject to a custodial sentence where appropriate.

We saw an overall fall in reoffending since 2010 under the last Government, from around 31% to just over 25%, but there is of course still more to do. It is right that we look at all sentences, including tough community sentences, through the prism of what reduces reoffending, boosts rehabilitation and best protects the public. With that in mind, I know David Gauke well; he was my first boss as a Minister. He is a decent, honourable, able and thoughtful man, and I regard him as a friend, so I will not prejudge what he will conclude in his review. But the Opposition will rightly, as the Lord Chancellor would expect, scrutinise the review when it is published, and hold the Government to account on the choices they make on how to proceed subsequently. I hope the review’s terms of reference might include not just male prisoners, but female prisoners and female offenders, building on the female offenders strategy that David Gauke and I put in place many years ago.

As the Lord Chancellor has set out, prison capacity has been under significant pressure for some time, and while the situation was incredibly acute in 2008, 2009 and 2010, it remains a significant challenge. That is due to an increased average sentence length for first offenders—for which we make no apology—matched by the biggest prison-building programme since the Victorian era, with thousands of additional places built while tackling the legacy of the crumbling prison estate we inherited in 2010 and the Labour party’s absolute failure to build the 7,500 Titan prison places it promised while in government. Of course, though, the impact on the remand population of the decisions to not mass release during the pandemic and to rightly retain jury trials, compounded by the Bar strike, undoubtedly significantly increased pressure despite our prison-building programme.

The Lord Chancellor has set out her chosen approach, with more convicted criminals released today at the 40% point of their sentence, rather than the 50% point in tranche 2 of SDS40. We are seeing significant levels of concern from victims of crime about that approach—Sky News ran a powerful package this morning highlighting that concern—so I have several important questions on that aspect of the Lord Chancellor’s announcement. She said that she will publish data on SDS40 in the coming weeks in the normal run of statistics. I understand that, but we would be grateful if she could provide the date on which those statistics will be published. In the media this morning, she alluded to the rate of recalls being “very high” but disputed—based on her internal data—that it was as high as 50%, as was suggested on Radio 4. Can she expand on what that rate looks like?

In response to a written question from me, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Sir Nicholas Dakin) acknowledged that hotels are now being used in some cases to accommodate released prisoners under SDS40. In the light of the Lord Chancellor’s commitment at oral questions last month to be transparent about this matter—although it took a written question from me to get that confirmation—how many hotel rooms or places are being used, and at what cost? We have heard little thus far about deporting FNOs, so I am pleased that she has focused on that issue in her remarks, but when will she set out more details of her plans to improve the deportation rate of FNOs, and what targets is she setting for that?

Does the Lord Chancellor now acknowledge that—as we pointed out at the time, and as victims also pointed out—although the Government claimed that domestic abuse and domestic violence offences would be excluded from SDS40, that is simply not the case? DA offenders committing actual bodily harm or grievous bodily harm are not excluded. Will she revisit the exclusions list to review this matter? Will she also commit to building more prisons, over and above the six new prisons that we funded and have already been completed or are being built, and will she commit to funding that additional prison building?

Home detention curfew will further reduce the time that convicted criminals spend behind bars. Someone with a four-year sentence who is not excluded from SDS40 would now be out at around 19 months; with the possibility of 12-month HDC, that could mean that they were only inside for just over six months of a four-year sentence. I recognise that the interaction between different schemes and calculations is complex and may be different in individual cases, but can the Lord Chancellor reassure the House that a fixed minimum percentage will always be served by those sentenced to prison?

The Lord Chancellor will appreciate that with layer upon layer of reductions, some people will struggle to see that punishment or public protection are at the fore, so can she clarify a number of further points? While most DA offences would be presumed ineligible for HDC, that presumption is not absolute, and again, many common DA offences such as ABH or common assault are not presumed ineligible. What will the Lord Chancellor do to address that issue? Does she intend to examine the list of exclusions for both schemes—SDS40 and HDC—and come back to the House with a tougher list? Tagging is a vital part of HDC, but while there may be the tags, as she has mentioned, it appears that the ability to fit them swiftly is sadly lacking at present. What reassurances can the Lord Chancellor give that there is now no backlog at all in tagging? What steps is she taking to ensure that victims are contacted when perpetrators are released, and what additional resource is going into victim support services and probation, over and above what we had already committed to?

Turning to the rehabilitation activity requirement, it is right that experienced staff judge these cases. As the Lord Chancellor knows, the smaller numbers reflect both risk assessment and the complex interaction of RAR with other release schemes. I therefore fear that the bounty she might expect to get from the changes she intends to make will be limited. Will she confirm details of those proposed changes for the House in due course?

Finally, and most importantly, as I pressed the Lord Chancellor on last week, it is vital that the criminal justice system is not subject to a flat budget or, worse, cuts in next week’s Budget—cuts that would let down victims, those who work in the system, and the public. I fully appreciate that she will not be able to prejudge that Budget, either at the Dispatch Box or in the media, but a fair financial settlement, alongside her setting out her long-term plans for the system—a little of which I acknowledge we have seen today—will be absolutely essential if victims and the public are to have confidence in her Government on law and order.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the shadow Lord Chancellor for the courteous way in which he has approached this debate, and for his detailed questions.

Let me start with his point in relation to the sentencing review. The voice of victims will be heard: there will be a representative with experience of working with victims to make sure that is covered in the review, and I look forward to announcing further members of that review panel over the coming days. The review will be free to consider every aspect of the sentencing framework, including the use of whole-life orders and minimum sentences. We have not constrained the sentencing review in any way: the review panel should take a proper look at the sentencing framework that we have and go where the evidence takes them.

I acknowledge the progress that was made on reducing reoffending, but as the shadow Lord Chancellor accepts, there is much more to do. We know that 80% of offenders are reoffenders and that 90% of those sentenced to custody are reoffenders. We have a big problem with that revolving door in and out of our prisons—as a country, that is a significant challenge that we must overcome. As I said, I will be placing the terms of reference in the House of Commons Library. The shadow Lord Chancellor will be pleased to see that those terms of reference refer to cohorts of offenders, including female offenders. He will also know that in my conference speech in September, I laid out a different approach to how this Government deal with women in our prisons.

[Edward Argar]

I followed it closely.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I know that the shadow Lord Chancellor followed it closely. I am setting up a women’s justice board, which will report with a strategy in the spring. We need to do more with female offenders, especially given the impact that the incarceration of women and the breaking up of family homes has on their children, particularly as two thirds of women in prison are there for non-violent offences. I hope there is cross-party consensus in this House on dealing with women offenders differently.

On prison capacity, I say gently to the shadow Lord Chancellor that we can trade numbers across this Dispatch Box about things that the last Labour Government did before 2010, or he might want to acknowledge the failure that took place over his Government’s 14 years in power. He knows that only 500 net prison places were added by his Government over those 14 years, and that the crisis that faced me when I walked into the Department was acute—he knows that, because he had walked out of that same Department only a few days before. The previous Government ran our prisons boiling hot for far too long, so my inheritance when I took over was dire, leaving me with no option other than the emergency release of prisoners.

I note the shadow Lord Chancellor’s point about domestic abuse and domestic violence cases, but I remind him that his own early release scheme that his Government implemented for many months before the last general election—the so-called end of custody supervised licence scheme—contained none of the SDS40 exclusions. He knows that; he also knows that we pulled every lever available to us within the law to exclude the offences that are most closely connected to domestic abuse and domestic violence. As a matter of law, it is only possible to exclude offence types, rather than offenders. I have had to pull that emergency lever; I have sought to do so in the safest way possible, to make as many exclusions as possible, and to give the Probation Service the time it needs to prepare for this measure and to make sure victims are notified under victim notification schemes in the usual way.

I will be publishing the data in relation to tranche 1 and 2 releases in two ad hoc statistical releases before Christmas, so that data will be in the public domain. As the shadow Lord Chancellor will know from his time in the Department, the recall rate usually hovers between 6% and 10%—it can vary quite a bit between those numbers. Our current information is that the SDS40 releases are not showing a higher recall rate than we would expect compared with normal releases, but those statistics will of course be published in the usual way in due course.

On hotels, I made provision to allow the emergency use of hotel accommodation for prisoners released under the SDS40 scheme to prevent any homelessness that might lead to higher rates of recall. Fewer than 20 prisoners have been housed in hotels, and at a very low cost. This is a temporary measure, and I do not anticipate that it will be used any more extensively than it has been already. On foreign national offenders, I will return to this House on that matter, but work is under way across Government and I am working closely with my colleagues in the Home Office.

I will be publishing for the House, and will return to the House with, the detail of the further measures on the home detention curfew. The shadow Lord Chancellor rightly says that not everybody is automatically eligible for a home detention curfew. There is still a risk assessment, and safeguarding concerns are the No. 1 way in which domestic abuse issues show up as a red flag for a particular prisoner. I would not imagine that those previous and current arrangements will change very much with the measures we will take.

I thank the shadow Lord Chancellor for the contract concluded with Serco to deliver the tagging. It may not have been him directly and personally, but it was his Government. The performance of Serco has been unacceptable. Let me be very clear with the House: there is no shortage of tags in this country. It has failed to make sure that it has enough staff in place to tag everybody who needs a tag. Its progress has been monitored daily by me, my Ministers and officials in the Department, and we will continue to hold its feet to the fire. We will levy financial penalties, and all options remain on the table. Performance has improved a little—it has made progress—but all options are on the table if that falls back in any way.

The shadow Lord Chancellor will know that I am not going to comment on anything relating to the Budget. The Chancellor will make her statement in due course. I gently remind him that the budgets of the Ministry of Justice under the Tory party left a lot to be desired.

Criminal Justice System: Capacity

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Argar

Thursday 17th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar (Melton and Syston) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor and her civil servants for their typical courtesy in giving me early sight of her statement. I am also grateful to magistrates, to whom I pay tribute. In many ways, they are the backbone of our justice system, and like juries they root our justice system in our local communities. Their service is hugely appreciated, as is the work of the Magistrates’ Association, and I recognise their skill and dedication.

The Lord Chancellor highlighted the backlog as context. As she will know, in 2010 the backlog that we inherited in the Crown courts was 48,000. It was reduced to 40,000 by 2019, but we recognise that it is a lot higher now. The change? A pandemic. She rightly referred to significant increases in the remand population. During the pandemic, supported by the then Opposition, we opted not to mass-release prisoners, as other countries did, and not to cancel jury trials. That of course led to increases in the remand population, compounded by the effect of the Bar strike.

The vast bulk of the backlog is in the Crown courts, as the Lord Chancellor will know, and it is right to recognise the interrelationship between magistrates courts and Crown courts. I believe that the concordat on sitting days had not been formally signed by the former Lord Chancellor at the time of the election, and I therefore saw with concern that, in stark contrast to previous Lord Chancellors who increased sitting days, it appears we will see a reduction of 2,700 sitting days compared with last year. I would be grateful for the Lord Chancellor’s reflections on that. In 2019 there were 85,000 sitting days, and 107,700 last year. This year the cap appears to be at 105,000. That appears to be the Government’s choice, but I would welcome clarity from the Lord Chancellor on that.

The changes that the Lord Chancellor has set out were characterised by the chair of the Criminal Bar Association, Mary Prior KC, in The Guardian:

“This is a knee-jerk reaction, done without consulting—once again—the criminal barristers or solicitors who deal every day with these cases”.

There are therefore a number of questions about that and the broader criminal justice system, given the scope of the right hon. Lady’s statement, which I hope she will be able to answer. Has she conducted a complete impact assessment for the changes, and will she publish that and all the modelling on it prior to the statutory instrument being laid? How many people are currently on remand, and will she share with the House the latest, most up-to-date figure? Reports suggest that this measure will in the short term potentially increase pressure on prison places, so will she say by what amount her modelling suggests that will be? What prior consultation did she or her Department undertake with the Criminal Bar Association, the Bar Council and the Law Society before making this decision? What assessment has she made of the impact of the decision announced today on the backlog and on the number of short custodial sentence passed by the courts?

Given that the right hon. Lady explicitly referred to her prisoner early release scheme, I hope she will be able to answer all those questions, but there is also one important question that I hope she will answer today by way of reassurance: are any of the 37 prisoners released in error last month still roaming free, or have they all been safely returned to prison? I would be grateful for clarification on that, because it is important.

We will find out in under two weeks whether, in pre-Budget spending discussions with the Chancellor, the right hon. Lady has successfully fought for investment and in the interests of justice and victims of crime, or whether she has sold out the victims and the systems, and conceded cuts to the Treasury. If she has succeeded in securing additional investment, she will have my gratitude and support. If she has not, we will rightly hold her to account.

[Shabana Mahmood]

It is almost as if the shadow Lord Chancellor was not, in fact, a Minister in the Ministry of Justice just a few short months ago. Let me remind him of a few salient facts. First, on Crown court sitting days, I will not accept any suggestion or allegation from him that this Government have cut sitting days or trials in the Crown court. That is entirely untrue. As he knows, or ought to know, perfectly well—I am sure he can check with the former Lord Chancellor—on 28 June, the last Government and the last Lord Chancellor determined how many days the judges could sit this year. Since then, this Government have increased the number of sitting days by 500. As there is clearly some confusion here, it is important that I set the record straight.

Every year, the Government and the judiciary agree a number of sitting days, and an overall budget to fund those sitting days, in what is known as the concordat process. In June, the judiciary reached an agreement with the former Lord Chancellor to sit 106,000 days in the Crown court, with a total budget of £275 million. It has become clear that there has been over-listing against that budget, with more trials scheduled than the funding allowed for. As a result, some cases have had to be delisted, although far fewer than some recent reporting has suggested—it was claimed that around 5,000 sitting days were being cancelled, and I know that the shadow Lord Chancellor had some other numbers in his remarks. In fact, as I understand it, the number is more like 1,600 sitting days. Although misleading reports have abounded, one thing is clear: the concordat process has not worked as it should. I can assure the House that the first concordat process on my watch will be very different, and such confusions will not occur again.

The shadow Lord Chancellor asked a number of questions relating to the impact assessment for the changes announced today. I will publish all the usual impact assessments when the statutory instrument is published. As I said in my opening remarks, we expect an initial impact on prison places, but over time we expect that to come down. We have a little more space in prisons because of the action we have taken to stabilise the pressure on prison places. It is a sensible measure to then take the opportunity to bear down on the Crown court backlog by providing the extra 2,000 sitting days that this change will allow, while also bearing down further on our remand population.

As the shadow Lord Chancellor will know, the exact numbers are difficult to model because listing is a matter for the judiciary. Some of those on remand will ultimately be found not guilty and some will be found guilty and sentenced, and the whole range of sentencing measures is available to the independent judiciary. But we expect to make some progress on the remand population and, crucially, to be able to move people from the reception estate into the rest of the prison estate, thereby helping us to make sure we have the prison places where we need them. I can also confirm that all of the 37 people released in error because of being incorrectly sentenced are now back in custody.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Argar

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar (Melton and Syston) (Con)]

Under the early release scheme starting today, the detail of which was designed by the Secretary of State, how many people will be eligible to be released at the 40% point who have been sentenced, for example, for offences under section 20, grievous bodily harm, and section 47, actual bodily harm, of the Offences against the Person Act 1861, both of which carry a maximum sentence of five years, but for which more often a sentence will be awarded that is less than five years?

[Shabana Mahmood]

The shadow Lord Chancellor will know that we have made important exclusions in the design of the policy and that all those who have committed serious offences and have been sentenced to four years or more will be excluded from it. I will not be able to give details on the specific mix of offences per offender, but those offences that would otherwise be included, but that relate to serious violence or sexual offences, have been excluded from the policy.

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State, but I have the statutory instrument and the list of exclusions in the schedule here, and those offences are not specifically included in that list of exclusions. My fear is—and this would be deeply disappointing—that many domestic abusers who were convicted for those offences but received fewer than five years may be eligible for early release and be considered for it, because her scheme does not explicitly exclude those offences. Given that, the reality is that the Government’s claim that domestic abusers will not be eligible to benefit from the scheme will ring very hollow to victims of domestic abuse and the wider public, won’t it?

[Shabana Mahmood]

With respect to the shadow Lord Chancellor, what will ring hollow to members of the public is the Tory party’s new-found commitment to exclusions for domestic abuse, and the sheer hypocrisy of talking about exclusions to this policy when he was a Minister in the previous Government who brought in the end of custody supervised licence scheme, which had no exclusions relating to domestic abuse whatsoever—[Interruption.] He talks about the governor lock from a sedentary position, but he knows full well that that was an attempt to shift the blame away from ministerial decision making and to place it on governors—something I am not sure was much appreciated by those who run our prisons. We have taken every step and every mechanism available to us to exclude offences connected to domestic abuse and, crucially, to give the probation service time to prepare—something the previous Government never did.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Edward Argar (Melton and Syston) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for her previous answers on substantive questions about accommodation for prisoners released early. Further to that, have the Government contracted any specific hotels for potential use by early release prisoners?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I have authorised probation directors in areas to make appropriate provision, if that proves to be needed—at this point, it is not definite that it will be required—to ensure that there is no gap in provision for offenders being released under the SDS40 scheme.

[Edward Argar]

I think the Secretary of State said that none has been contracted at this time. If they are at any point, further to the point made by the hon. Member for Reading West and Mid Berkshire (Olivia Bailey), will she be open and transparent with the House, local authorities and the public about how many, at what point and, in broad terms, where they will be located?

[Shabana Mahmood]

Yes, I will.

Prison Capacity

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Argar

Thursday 18th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar (Melton and Syston) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Lord Chancellor for very timely advance sight of her statement. May I take this opportunity to congratulate her on her appointment, as well as the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones)? I congratulate the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the hon. Member for Swindon South (Heidi Alexander) on her return to this place. Notwithstanding the occasional tussle across the Dispatch Box, I look forward to working constructively with Lord Chancellor, and to holding her and the Government to account. She is of course a decent, courteous, and incredibly able person, and I wish her well in her role.

We recognise the challenges and pressures facing the prison and criminal justice system, and the need to ensure that our prisons function effectively. Of course, the Government were well aware of those things when they were in opposition, as I know from challenging oral question sessions. In Government, we took the right decisions to significantly toughen up sentences for those who commit the worst crimes, in order to ensure that society was protected. To reflect that, we set in train the biggest prison building programme since the Victorian era. More than 13,000 additional prison places were delivered while we were in government. Two new prisons opened; one prison is under construction; there are two prisons with planning permission; and one prison is on the cusp of a decision. Labour’s planning permission proposal for prisons would not impact any of those developments. In that respect, it is simply a gimmick.

Crucially, in the covid pandemic, supported by the then Opposition, we made the tough but correct decision not to mass-release prisoners as other countries did, and we maintained that bedrock of our justice system, trial by jury. Those correct decisions meant less space, and the number of people on remand waiting for trial or sentencing dramatically increasing from around 9,000 to 16,500, with resulting additional pressures.

In deciding to reduce capacity pressure, the paramount consideration for the Lord Chancellor must always be public protection. With that in mind, although we will of course have to scrutinise the detail of her proposed sentence reduction scheme, I must say that we have significant public protection concerns about what she has announced so far, and I hope that she will be able to address those concerns today.

The Lord Chancellor set out plans for limited exclusions relating to domestic abuse, but can she confirm that if a domestic abuser is convicted of, say, common assault, as is often the case, they would not be exempt from this policy? What exclusions does she plan to put in place to ensure that the worst, persistent, repeat offenders cannot benefit from this scheme? She set out that this was a temporary measure that will be reviewed after 18 months. What criteria will she set for its ending? Better still, will she commit to sunsetting the measure in the delegated legislation, and to returning to the House on this afresh in 18 months, if needed?

What additional resources are being made available to probation? We hear what the Lord Chancellor says about getting 1,000 more trainee probation staff by March 2025, but how many of those will actually be new? How many will be additional to those whom we already planned to have in place through the existing trajectory for new trainees? Can she guarantee that no prisoners will benefit from her early release scheme without GPS tags and strict conditions? Indeed, will she mandate the imposition of GPS tracking? Can she confirm to the House progress on bringing HMP Dartmoor’s places back into use, and her long-term plans for HMP Dartmoor’s places? The previous Government committed £30 million to acquire land for building new prisons, and had already begun drawing up a site longlist. Is she expanding that fund, or merely re-announcing the same thing?

More widely, the Lord Chancellor states that this is a temporary measure to ease pressure, so what are her long-term plans for meeting demand? Is she planning to scrap the tougher sentences for serious crimes that the Conservatives put in place to protect the public, and so to reverse our changes, or is she planning to build more prisons over and above the six that we committed to funding, to meet future demand? If it is the latter, has the Chancellor agreed the significant extra funding needed? Those are the long-term questions to which she and the Government owe this House and the public answers, given the changes that she is making today. I hope that she will be able to give clear answers.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I welcome the shadow Lord Chancellor to his place; we have always worked constructively together wherever appropriate, and I look forward to continuing to do so while he is in post. He made a heroic attempt to gloss over many years of failure in planning by the previous Government. I was surprised that he managed to say it all with a straight face. He knows full well that for many years the previous Government struggled to get such measures past many of their Back-Benchers, not all of whom have returned post the general election, but some of whom remain here, and remain implacable opponents of any kind of planning developments in their constituency. They think that national infrastructure is a good thing as long as it is elsewhere. I look forward to seeing whether there is a change of heart among those on the Opposition Benches. It would be welcome, because this Government will not allow the planning system to prevent our country from having either the prison places or the national infrastructure that we so desperately need. He also knows full well that of the 20,000 places that were supposed to have been provided by the previous Government by 2025, only 6,000 have been delivered.

I am concerned about the position relating to prisoners on remand. The shadow Lord Chancellor rightly notes that the number of those on remand in our prison estate is around 16,000. Of course, judges need to be able to remand people to prison for public protection reasons. That will not change. He will know, given his former role in the Department, that there are no immediate solutions, because many of those individuals will in the end be sentenced to custody. I am considering all options available to me for driving that number down as much as possible. In the end, we will need our 10-year capacity plan to take account of what we expect the sentenced population to look like.

On the sentences that are covered by this measure, the shadow Lord Chancellor will know that in order to make a change by means of a statutory instrument, it has to relate to specific offences. That is why we have taken every precaution and every option available to us to exclude sentences connected to domestic abuse. He knows that those will include—I am sure that he has seen the draft statutory instrument—offences related to the breaching of a non-molestation order; stalking, which I mentioned in my statement, including stalking involving the fear of violence, serious alarm or distress; strangulation or suffocation; controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship; the breaching of a restraining order; and a breach of a domestic abuse protection order. The common offences that we know are connected to domestic abuse are caught in the statutory instrument. On multiple and repeat offences, he will know that the decision relies on the combination that is reviewed when the sentencing calculation is done.

As I said in my statement, I will return in 18 months to update the House. We want to remove this temporary measure as quickly as possible, and we will be transparent throughout. The shadow Lord Chancellor will not need to chase me around this building trying to find out what is happening, as I had to when I was in his position and we were considering the previous Government’s early release scheme. We will be transparent in a way that the previous Government simply were not. We will do a quarterly release of all the data, and we will update the House regularly.

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman followed the announcement on Friday closely, so he will know that the announcement on probation does not involve new money. It is a re-prioritisation of resources, because strengthening probation to make sure that it is in the strongest possible position to deal with the early release scheme is incredibly important to us.

On Dartmoor, the right hon. Gentleman knows the history very well. Safety is our No. 1 priority, and after close monitoring of the situation at HMP Dartmoor, it has been decided that prison will be temporarily closed. I will update the House as the situation develops. I say to him gently that we have committed to a 10-year capacity strategy. We recognise that we need to make sure that this country has the prison places that it needs. We will deliver where the previous Government failed, and we will never allow the planning process to get in the way of having the prisons that we need in this country.

Longer term, however, we will also look at driving down reoffending, because the entrenched cycle of reoffending creates more victims and more crime, and it has big impacts on our ability to have the capacity that we need in our prison estate. That is why this Government will make it a key priority to drive down reoffending. That is a strategy for creating better citizens, not better criminals. It is a strategy for cutting crime, and in the long term, it will deal with our capacity problems for years to come.

End of Custody Supervised Licence: Extension

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Argar

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice if he will make a statement on the expansion of the end of custody supervised licence scheme.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Edward Argar)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her question.

Protecting the public is our No. 1 priority, so it is right that we take tough and decisive action to keep putting the most serious offenders behind bars, and for longer, as the public rightly expect. We are carrying out the biggest prison expansion programme since the Victorian era, and we are ramping up removals of foreign national offenders.

We have a duty to ensure that the prison system continues to operate safely and effectively, with offenders held in safe and decent conditions. This means ensuring that no prison exceeds a safe maximum operating limit. ECSL allows lower-level offenders to be released before their automatic release date. In March, the Lord Chancellor stated that we will

“work with the police, prisons and probation leaders to make further adjustments as required.”—[Official Report, 12 March 2024; Vol. 747, c. 157.]

This extension is in line with what he said.

ECSL operates only when absolutely necessary and is kept under constant review. I know that many Members of this House will be concerned about the early release of offenders into the community, but I make it clear that only offenders who would soon be released anyway will be considered for ECSL.

We have put in place safeguards, including that the Prison Service retains the discretion to prevent the ECSL release of any offender where early release presents a higher risk than if they were released at their automatic release date. There are strict eligibility criteria, and anyone convicted of a sexual offence, a terrorist offence or a serious violence offence is ruled out. Public safety will always be our No. 1 priority, and all those released will still be subject to probation supervision and stringent licence conditions.

[Shabana Mahmood]

Here we go again. Never in this country have a Government been forced to release prisoners more than two months early. This is the price that the public are paying for a justice system in crisis and a Government in freefall.

The early release scheme has now undergone three major extensions in just six months: it was quietly started in October, when the Government began releasing prisoners up to 18 days early; in March it was slipped out that it had been expanded from 18 to 60 days; and now it has emerged through a media leak that it has been extended once again, this time to 70 days. Worst of all, the Government are doing all of this in secret. They have not responded to any freedom of information requests, parliamentary questions or even the Justice Committee with any useful details about this scheme. The Government are releasing prisoners but not the facts. The strategy is clear for all to see: say nothing, try to get away with it and get to the other side of the general election. It is shameless and, frankly, a disgrace.

The public and this House rightly expect the Minister to be transparent and honest, so let us see whether he will answer these basic and simple questions. Why the increase of early release to 70 days? How many offenders have been released in the six months since the scheme became operational? How will they ensure that the probation service has the time and resources to adequately assess risk and protect the public? And will he give a guarantee to the House today that this secretive scheme will not be extended again?

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for her question and would gently say a number of things to her. First, she suggests we were sneaking this out in October and March; that included statements to this House and was entirely transparent. On the hon. Lady’s party’s record, it operated an early release scheme for three years between 2007 and 2010, which leaves her on rather shaky ground. She talked about a media leak. This was an operational decision with operational guidance sent out to His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and prison governors as well as other stakeholders, including, if I recall correctly, the probation union, for a minor change that was already reflected in the points made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Justice in March to this House.

The hon. Lady talked about data. The Secretary of State has been consistently clear that we will publish the data on an annualised basis, in exactly the same way as we do, for example, for deaths in custody and supplementary breakdowns of the prison population. We have been clear that we will always ensure that the prisons system has the spaces for the courts to be able to send people to prison. We are making an appropriate operational decision to ensure that continues to be the case.

The hon. Lady also rightly asked about probation, and I suspect that in our exchanges the one thing on which we might find ourselves in agreement is paying tribute to those who work in our probation service. As she will know, since 2021 we have increased the budget for the service by £155 million, with 4,000 additional probation officers in training. We have worked with the leadership of our probation service on this scheme and the probation union was one of the bodies we notified on the changes to the operational guidance.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Shabana Mahmood and Edward Argar

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

Prisoners are spending up to 23 hours a day locked up in their cells as a direct result of overcrowding and the prisons capacity crisis caused by this Government. However, I hear congratulations are in order following an announcement last month, not on the Government actually delivering any of the new prisons they have promised or on even getting spades in the ground, but on their submitting yet another planning application for the Leicestershire prison that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has already ruled on once. Is not about time that the Minister renamed the new prisons programme the no prisons programme?

[Edward Argar]

For a moment I thought the shadow Justice Secretary was referring to her own party’s record when in government—7,500 prison places in three Titan prisons that failed to be built, whereas we are committed to building six new modern prisons. Two have been built, one is being built at the moment and two have planning permission.

[Shabana Mahmood]

While prisoners are serving their sentence, they are not being allowed to leave their cell, but ironically the Government are also releasing some of them early. Despite a multitude of letters, questions and even a point-blank request from the Justice Committee, the Government are refusing to tell us how many prisoners are being released early and from where. The public and Parliament have a right to know, so will the Minister finally come clean on how the early release scheme has been used so far? If not, can he tell the House what he has to hide?

[Edward Argar]

As the shadow Justice Secretary will know, my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor has made clear that in line with other statistics, for example death in custody statistics, we will publish those figures on an annual basis.