Criminal Justice Bill (Ninth sitting)

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 18th January 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

The Minister is making an important point. An excellent point was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley on the importance of prisoners being close to their family.

There is a very busy local prison in my constituency of Chelmsford. From time to time, I get the prison governor and other experts explaining to me that sometimes it is important to split people up. For example, if people have come from the same criminal gang or opposing criminal gangs, it can be important to move them so that they are not all in the same prison. There are parts of the country where getting “overseas” can sometimes be easier than visiting a family member who may, for example, be a long distance away in our own country. Sometimes, cases are different and are not about making sure that the prisoner stays in the local prison. That might not provide the best circumstances for that prisoner’s rehabilitation.

[Laura Farris]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her intervention. She is quite right. I will try to distil her point. I expected the challenge from the Opposition this morning about the circumstances of each prisoner being vital—whether they have family or connections—but it is true, as she said, that some prisoners will not have family or connections; there may be different imperatives. Obviously, we would be looking precisely at considerations of that nature before making a decision about prison transfer.

It is not possible to say that every prisoner needs to be imprisoned locally or is going to be the primary carer for all their children. Look at how decisions on the deportation of foreign national offenders are made by the immigration appeal tribunal: if an offender who has committed a serious offence tries to rely on the fact they have children in the UK, the tribunal will very often say, “You have already abandoned them because you were in prison for 10 years.” Some of that claim is lost anyway.