The Gauke review of sentencing policy is expected to produce recommendations that might lead to some reduction in the number of people being sent to jail, and Keir Starmer indicated that he favoured a different approach when he appointed James Timpson, a businessman with progressive views on penal policy, as prisons minister.
But there are limits to how far the government will go. In her interview on the Today programme Shabana Mahmood was asked if she agreed with a comment Timpson made before he became a minister. In an interview in February Timpson said:
We’re addicted to sentencing, we’re addicted to punishment. So many of the people in prison in my view shouldn’t be there. A lot should but a lot shouldn’t, and they’re there for far too long.
Asked if that was the government’s view, Mahmood replied:
No. The view of the government is that prison has to do two things. We have to punish people who break our laws, and we have to show that there are consequences for not living by the rules that most of our citizens live by.
There have to be consequences to bad behavior, to the breaking of our laws, and that means prison will always have a place.
The Law Society of England and Wales has said that building more prisons will not be enough to solve the problems with the criminal justice system. Its president, Richard Atkinson, put out this statement about the Ministry of Justice’s announcement.
The lord chancellor’s investment in the criminal justice system is welcome. However, as an essential service protecting the public, the criminal justice system can only be dealt with holistically, so it will be essential that building more prisons is matched by investment in legal aid, the Crown Prosecution Service and courts. It is vital that the government also invests in rehabilitation for prisoners to reduce reoffending rates and tackle the courts backlogs to help bring down the remand population.
The Howard League for Penal Reform is more critical, saying the money spent on new prisons could be better spent. Its chief executive, Andrea Coomber, put out this statement.
We cannot build our way out of this crisis. The billions of pounds earmarked for opening new jails would be better invested in securing an effective and responsive probation service, working to cut crime in the community.
Problems in prisons spill out into the towns and cities around them, and new jails put added strain on local public services. When violence and self-harm are rife behind bars, it is hardly surprising that proposals to build more prisons meet significant opposition from residents living nearby. This is why the forthcoming review of sentencing is so important. Unless we see concerted action to make sentences proportionate and reduce demand on the system, this crisis will deepen and leave an even bigger mess for future generations to tackle.
Good morning. Labour inherited many problems with public services when it took office, but few were worse than the prison overcrowding crisis. This was so dire that it prompted Rishi Sunak into holding an early election. With the Ministry of Justice just days away from ordering a fresh early release system (which would have been unpopular with voters), this was one of the main reasons for Sunak holding the election in July, not last autumn.
Today, as part of the government’s response, Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, is announcing plans to create 14,000 prison places by 2031. PA Media sums up the plans here.
The government has said it will build four new prisons within the next seven years in a bid to grip the overcrowding crisis.
The Ministry of Justice promised to find a total of 14,000 cell spaces in jails by 2031.
Some 6,400 of these will be at newly built prisons, with £2.3bn towards the cost over the next two years.
The remaining places will be found by measures including building new wings at existing jails, or by refurbishing cells currently out of action, and an extra £500m will go towards “vital building maintenance”, the department said.
The move is part of a 10-year plan to “make sure we can always lock up dangerous criminals”.
Prisons will be deemed sites of “national importance” amid efforts to prevent lengthy planning delays, and new land will be bought for future prisons, the MoJ added.
But Mahmood is also saying that extra spaces alone will not be enough to stop the prison estate filling up. In an interview with the Today programme, she said:
Demand is still rising faster than any supply could possibly catch up with. We’re very honest and transparent in the strategy itself that building alone is not enough because the demand is rising more quickly.
The demand for prison places is actually 4,500 extra every single year. Even with the emergency measures that I’ve been forced to take, that’s 3,000 every year, we can’t get there just by building alone. That’s why I set up the sentencing review just a few weeks ago, because we need a longer term solution.
Asked to confirm that she was saying that, even with the new the four new prisons, the government would still run out of places, Mahmood said:
We will run out, because even all of that new supply, with the increase in prison population that we will see as a result of that new supply, doesn’t help you with the rise in demand, because demand is still rising faster than any supply could possibly catch up with.
The sentencing review Mahmood mentioned is being led by David Gauke, one of her Conservative predecessors. In an interview with Rajeev Syal, he gives some indication of his thinking.
The government wants to talk about prisons, but much of the debate today will be taken up with pay, and the union backlash against government proposals for some public sector workers to get a 2.8% pay rise in 2025-26.
In a separate interview, Mahmood stressed that the government proposals was just the start of the process. She told BBC Breakfast:
I would say to, trade unions and everybody else, that this is the start of that process, and of course I would hope that they recognise that the government’s fiscal inheritance has been extremely difficult, and we do have to make sure that the books overall balance as well, and that pay is on a sustainable footing.
This is the start of that process, and I wouldn’t want to get ahead of where we think the pay review bodies might ultimately make their recommendations.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Lord Timpson, the prisons minister, gives evidence to the Welsh affairs committee on deaths at HMP Parc.
10.30am: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, speaks at the launch of the National Collaborative Charter of Rights in Glasgow for people affected by substance use.
11am: Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers’ Union, gives evidence to the Commons environment committee about the future of farming.
11am: Peers begin the second reading debate for the House of Lords (hereditary peers) bill.
Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.
Noon: Farmers hold a rally at Westminster protesting about the budget plan to extend inheritance tax to cover farms.
Afternoon: Kim Leadbeater is expected to announce the names of MPs chosen to sit on the bill committee for the assisted dying bill.
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Updated at 04.15 EST