Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I regard it as a national shame that so many former members of our armed forces are in our prisons. I have discussions with the Minister with responsibility for veterans issues, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois). I see the issue as something that we need to take forward in the next few months. It is certainly sitting high in my in-tray as a priority for us all.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to tackle reoffending.

[The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Chris Grayling)]

I refer my hon. Friend to the answer that I gave a few moments ago. We intend to apply payment by results to the majority of rehabilitation work conducted with offenders in the community as soon as we can.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer and for the one he gave my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones). Reoffending is to some extent also linked to lack of preparation prior to release. As a member of an independent monitoring board, I noted that we placed a great emphasis on induction and less on “outduction”—preparation prior to release. What is my right hon. Friend doing in that respect?

[Chris Grayling]

Our aim is to deliver a service that flows through the prison gates. One of the failings of the current system is that, as the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) said a moment ago, there is not enough co-ordination between what happens in prison and after prison. The contracts that we build will begin while an offender is in prison and will see them through the prison gate to ensure that the continuity to which my hon. Friend refers is present.