Oral Answers to Questions

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I strongly agree: we do have a problem at the moment. A recent study showed that nearly a fifth of offenders in prison who had ever tried heroin had tried it for the first time in prison. In some cases, offenders get on to drugs, and we also have a problem with treatments, with drug rehabilitation requirements that are not completed. We have to get more rigour into drug treatment. That is why the payment-by-results model that we will pilot to get offenders off drugs, for both community orders and post-release treatment, is such an attractive way forward.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

2. What definition of a long-term custodial sentence his Department uses.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Kenneth Clarke)]

The Criminal Justice Act 1991 defines a long-term prisoner as

“a person serving a sentence of imprisonment for a term of four years or more”.

There are still some prisoners serving sentences under the 1991 Act, but the term has not been in use since 2003.

[Dr Coffey]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that answer. I am sure he is aware that another Department is relying on the definition he provides. A lot of my constituents will be concerned that some serious offences are not attracting the term of four years that he refers to. For example, a rape recently carried a sentence of three and a half years and an armed robbery in which the offender brandished a knife carried a sentence of under four years. If we want to be serious about crime, we have to be serious about sentencing.

[Mr Clarke]

Nobody draws an arbitrary line. However, I quite agree that serious offences do not always attract four years’ imprisonment. I suspect that my hon. Friend’s reference to another Department concerns the Deputy Prime Minister and a prisoner’s right to vote, which I believe is the subject of the next question. The four-year divide is used for some purposes in the Prison Service: people with more than four years are regarded as unsuitable for home detention curfew before release. The approach to prisoners’ voting rights is an attempt to find a rational threshold above which it makes sense to draw the line. No doubt we will return to that issue—perhaps in a few moments.