Oral Answers to Questions

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

T3. For some weird, inexplicable reason, the Government have a dangerous and flawed obsession with handing huge contracts to private firms to run our prisons. I appreciate that the Secretary of State may not heed my call for prisons to be returned to public ownership, but will he at the very least implement a moratorium on private prisons until an independent review has ascertained whether they are indeed more violent?

[Robert Buckland]

I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman has said, and I have to say, with respect to him, that the characterisation of “public good, private bad”—or, indeed, vice versa—is wrong. There are plenty of examples of privately run prisons that are more than passing muster with the inspectorate, and are doing an excellent job. I have always believed in a mixed approach, and I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that will continue. I will base my decision on hard evidence rather than on blind ideology in which, I am afraid, his Front Benchers have indulged far too much in recent years.