UK politics live: minister defends Labour’s justice record after warnings of threat to public safety
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Housing minister Matthew Pennycook has defended the government’s record on prisons and sentencing in England and Wales after criticism from senior security officials, but said “we can’t build our way out of” prison capacity pressures in the short term.
Earlier today the Times newspaper reported that the heads of the Metropolitan police, MI5 and the National Crime Agency have told the government that plans to release prisoners early could be of “net detriment to public safety.”
Speaking on Times Radio the minister said “The risk to public safety I’d highlight is the prospect of our prison system collapsing, which is what we face and why we’ve had to act.”
He continued by saying:
What we were handed by the previous government in terms of the state of our prison system was nothing short of criminal neglect. They added just 500 places to the prison estate in their time in office, while at the same time, sentence lengths rose, and as a result, we got the prison population rising by approximately 3,000 people each year.
And we’re heading back to zero capacity. If we run out of capacity, courts will be forced to suspend trials, the police will have to halt arrests, crimes will go unpunished.
We’ll essentially be in a breakdown of law and order, so while we’re trying to add prison places as fast as we can as a Government – and we’ve already created 2,400 since taking office, allocated an additional £4.7bn to prison building, putting us on track to hit 14,000 places by 2031, we can’t build our way out of this particular crisis we’ve inherited because demand for places will outstrip supply. So sentencing reform is necessary.
In a letter to the Times, six police chiefs have warned that without “serious investment” they will be unable to deliver on the prime minister’s flagship pledges. The warning comes ahead of the government spending review, and they cautioned that cuts will lead to the “retrenchment we saw under austerity”.
The Liberal Democrats, who have been campaigning on water quality for some time, have responded to the news that Ofwat has imposed a total fine of £123m on Thames Water.
Tim Farron, their spokesperson for environment, food, and rural affairs, said:
This is shocking but hardly surprising. Thames Water has been failing for years; failing to invest, failing to maintain, and failing to deliver, and all the while it has been dumping sewage in our rivers and waterways. It has saddled customers with its debts and provided them with shoddy service in the meantime.
This should be the final nail in the coffin for Thames Water. It needs to be turned into a public benefit company and Ofwat needs to be scrapped and replaced with a real regulator with teeth.
Thames Water has been hit with a record £104m fine over environmental breaches involving sewage spills, after failing to operate and manage its treatment works and wastewater networks effectively.
The water regulator for England and Wales, Ofwat, confirmed on Wednesday that – on top of penalties for breaches related to dividend payouts – it was issuing the beleaguered water company with £123m worth of fines that would be “paid by the company and its investors, and not by customers”.
Sadiq Khan has backed calls for the partial decriminalisation of cannabis possession, as a wide-ranging study suggests the way the drug is policed causes greater harm to society than its usage.
“I’ve long been clear that we need fresh thinking on how to reduce the substantial harms associated with drug-related crime in our communities,” the London mayor said on Wednesday.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Helen Whately has accused the government of doing “a terrible job on keeping the country safe.”
She told listeners of Times Radio “We’ve already seen that they accidentally released a load of prisoners that they shouldn’t have done, including violent domestic abuses, which are clearly terrifying for the victims of that abuse. And they just don’t have the prison situation under control. They need to take responsibility. They’re now in government.”
Put to her that the Conservatives had just added 455 spaces to the prison estate in England and Wales in 14 years, she said “Labour are in government, they have to take responsibility for the decisions that they are making.”
Pressed on what the Conservatives would do differently in the present circumstances, Whately said “we’re no longer in government.”
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook has defended the government’s record on prisons and sentencing in England and Wales after criticism from senior security officials, but said “we can’t build our way out of” prison capacity pressures in the short term.
Earlier today the Times newspaper reported that the heads of the Metropolitan police, MI5 and the National Crime Agency have told the government that plans to release prisoners early could be of “net detriment to public safety.”
Speaking on Times Radio the minister said “The risk to public safety I’d highlight is the prospect of our prison system collapsing, which is what we face and why we’ve had to act.”
He continued by saying:
What we were handed by the previous government in terms of the state of our prison system was nothing short of criminal neglect. They added just 500 places to the prison estate in their time in office, while at the same time, sentence lengths rose, and as a result, we got the prison population rising by approximately 3,000 people each year.
And we’re heading back to zero capacity. If we run out of capacity, courts will be forced to suspend trials, the police will have to halt arrests, crimes will go unpunished.
We’ll essentially be in a breakdown of law and order, so while we’re trying to add prison places as fast as we can as a Government – and we’ve already created 2,400 since taking office, allocated an additional £4.7bn to prison building, putting us on track to hit 14,000 places by 2031, we can’t build our way out of this particular crisis we’ve inherited because demand for places will outstrip supply. So sentencing reform is necessary.
In a letter to the Times, six police chiefs have warned that without “serious investment” they will be unable to deliver on the prime minister’s flagship pledges. The warning comes ahead of the government spending review, and they cautioned that cuts will lead to the “retrenchment we saw under austerity”.
Welcome to our rolling coverage of UK politics for Wednesday. Here are the headlines …
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook has defended the government’s record on prisons and sentencing in England and Wales after police chiefs warned that sentencing reforms could put pressure on frontline services
The government has announced a package of measures it says is designed to streamline the planning system for small and medium sized housebuilders
The Treasury is reported to be in a standoff with some ministers over proposed cuts to public services including policing and social housing
Nigel Farage has been accused of leaving a multibillion-pound black hole at the heart of Reform UK’s spending plans after unveiling a series of expensive policy pledges to be paid for by cutting nonexistent items of government spending
The national water regulator Ofwat has fined Thames Water nearly £123m after two investigations into the company
London mayor Sadiq Khan has called for partial decriminalisation of cannabis possession
It is Martin Belam with you here. You can reach me at martin.belam@theguardian.com if you spot typos, errors or omissions, or have a question.