Criminal Justice

Josh Babarinde Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I thank the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), working with the hon. Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth), for making the pitch to the Backbench Business Committee to secure this debate. I join him in thanking the incredible staff who work across our criminal justice system. If I may, I will add that charities such as the incredible abandofbrothers in Eastbourne work with young ex-offenders across my hometown to tackle crime.

As has been documented in this Chamber today, the last Government left our criminal justice system in a state. Our prisons were left in crisis and overcrowded, with increases in violence and self-harm incidents at their highest since records began. Our probation services were left high and dry, with an electronic tagging contract that left offenders with violent convictions unmonitored for far too long. Our courts were left dealing with staggeringly high backlogs, with tens of thousands of open cases and victims waiting months and even years for justice. As has been mentioned by hon. Members, reoffending is through the roof, with 80% of people in our prisons being reoffenders. That is a symbol of more crime, more victims and more misery and harm. That carries an enormous price tag, with reoffending costing society more than £18 billion a year.

The consequences of that dire set of circumstances have been plain for us all to see; I saw them myself when I worked in this space before being elected to this House. I spent my career supporting young ex-offenders out of crime and out of gangs in the east end—very far from Eastbourne in many different ways. I remember working with a particular young person. I said to him ahead of his first day of work with us to come in wearing some smart trousers, and he did not know what I meant. He said, “Josh, do you mean court trousers?” What a sad state of affairs it is when a young person in our country has grown up more accustomed to the criminal justice system than to our education system. I am afraid that is a legacy of the last Government.

I remember working with another young person who went into a young offenders’ institution that was notorious for its issues with violence. He was working with us as a phone repair technician before he went in. He came back when he came out of that institution, except he came missing a finger as a result of some of the things going on in that place. Again, some of our institutions are out of control.

As a victim, I have experienced what it is like to wait for years to have a case heard through an adversarial criminal justice system that seeks to beat down victims, as opposed to supporting them to rise up. That needs to change. Giving credit where it is due, I welcome the investment that this Government are making in our criminal justice systems through the spending review, but that investment is not a silver bullet, and it might not go far enough to right the wrongs of the past: it must be accompanied by reform.

There is no mention in the spending review specifically of investing in our crumbling courts, which cause so much inefficiency and cost our system, victims and justice. As the hon. Member for Solihull West and Shirley (Dr Shastri-Hurst) mentioned earlier in the debate, the Magistrates’ Association has been particularly concerned about the lack of mention of funding for legal advisers in magistrates courts. The lack thereof is resulting in one in 10 sittings being cancelled.

While investment in creating new prison places has been announced, the spending review features no reference to extra funding for women’s centres—an alternative to custody—despite David Gauke recommending that in his independent review and charities such as Working Chance telling us that women’s centres are often at least 10 times more effective at reducing reoffending and are more cost-effective than the prison system. Although we welcome the £700 million committed to the Probation Service, it is critical, as per the demands of Women’s Aid, that some of that cash goes towards mandatory training for probation officers as far as recognising domestic abuse and protecting survivors of domestic abuse is concerned.

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

On that point, we are clear that the money that goes into the probation system may not be enough to deal with the scale of the added pressures on the probation system. I think the Chair of the Justice Committee, the hon. Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), talked about contract management. The example of Serco is a really good one; there will be so much more reliance on electronic tagging. Will the money actually allow that to happen?

[Josh Babarinde]

I agree with the point that my hon. Friend makes. This is about much more than just the spend: it is about the efficiency of the spend. Taxpayers deserve far better than what they are getting at the moment from the Serco contract, under which, as I said earlier, many offenders are being left without the proper, robust monitoring that victims, survivors and our communities need and deserve.

Let me come on to reoffending. The Gauke review offered many recommendations to unlock supply in our prisons, but it was fairly light on what can be done to stem the demand going into our prisons. Preventing crime and reoffending was the Cinderella of his review. It may be out of scope in some respects, but it is critical that our criminal justice system is reformed in a holistic way. That is the true means of being able to make our criminal justice system more efficient.

When it comes to victims and survivors, commitments around reversing the damaging impact of the national insurance increases for employers were missing from the spending review. Victims’ charities have written to me to say that the increase in those taxes, as well as cuts to police and crime commissioner core budgets, are tantamount to a 7% real-terms cut in their budgets. This means that victims’ services—services not dissimilar from the independent sexual violence adviser services that I once accessed at SurvivorsUK—will be compromised. I urge the Government to look again at this issue.

The status quo of more reoffending at an exponentially high cost to the taxpayer is both immoral and unsustainable. While this investment will go some way towards reducing backlogs, increasing prison capacity and improving our probation services, vital challenges are still unmet. As I have said just this week—in fact, it may have been yesterday—directly to the Minister, Liberal Democrats stand ready to work constructively with the Government. We will scrutinise their measures, but also give credit where it is due in order to help achieve more justice for victims, survivors, and our communities.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.