Oral Answers to Questions

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

I do not think I have ever said that. I have made it quite clear that the prison population responds to demand. I did not anticipate the riots, but we have to have a prison population that can cope with the judgment of judges and magistrates who send us a number of people who have to be dealt with and punished in that way. I have said that I expect to have a more stable system, but I cannot understand why everything possible was done under the last Government to push up the total number of prisoners but to let them all out earlier, so that the system looked tough but actually turned into something of a shambles. I am also hoping that prison can be made somewhat more effective, and that it might be better at putting people to work, getting them off drugs, tackling their mental health problems and getting fewer of them to go on to commit more crimes—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful, but we must move on.

[Mr Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking to improve the functioning of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

Payment by results is gathering pace. We are piloting a number of different approaches to see what works best. Two prison pilots have been put in place at Her Majesty’s prisons Peterborough and Doncaster.

Pilots also will begin in public sector prisons next year. Six justice reinvestment pilots have been put in place through memorandums of understanding with either local authority chief executives or local police chiefs in Manchester and London.

In 2012 two community pilots will commence to rehabilitate offenders while serving sentences in the community, in addition to one or more provider-led innovation pilots. We are also working with the Department for Work and Pensions through the Work programme and with the Department of Health on drug and alcohol recovery to look more widely at payment by results mechanisms which fully—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I advise the Minister, for next month the answers should be a bit shorter. They are just a bit too long.

[Ben Gummer]

I thank the Minister for that careful reply. He will be aware of the Justice Committee’s recommendation that contracts should follow the offender through the criminal justice system, rather than attach themselves to the various institutions through which he or she might pass. What progress has the Department made in considering those proposals?

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[Mr Blunt]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I thank him for his energetic chairmanship of the all-party group on human trafficking, and for continuing to bring the issues to my attention. Trafficking drugs and people are both extremely serious offences, and when people are caught—obviously, we want to make sure that they are, on every conceivable occasion—they should serve an appropriately serious tariff.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the Minister both for his succinctness and his control of his breathing, which was impressive.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do apologise to colleagues whom I have not been able to accommodate. I could listen to the Secretary of State all day—and indeed all night for that matter. An additional session should be put on precisely perhaps for that purpose, but today I am afraid that we must move on.