Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Mosley Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

7. What progress he has made on his plans to bring down the level of reoffending.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

9. What progress he has made on his plans to bring down the level of reoffending.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

17. What progress he has made on his plans to bring down the level of reoffending.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

One of the key changes we are pushing through in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill, which is currently in the other place, will ensure that repeat cautions are not used in the routine way they have been in the past. My view is that if somebody systematically commits a particular offence they should be brought quickly before the courts. Although a caution might initially be appropriate, it is certainly not a tool that should be used again and again.

[Stephen Mosley]

Has my right hon. Friend made any recent estimates of the cost of reoffending both in financial terms and in terms of the harm it does to society?

[Chris Grayling]

The official National Audit Office estimate is that about £13 billion a year is spent by our nation as a whole on dealing with the consequences of reoffending. Reoffending is now a particularly significant part of our national crime picture. We have seen crime rates and the number of first-time entrants to the criminal justice system fall, so more and more of our problem is with reoffending and that is why it is such a priority for us.