Oral Answers to Questions

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Gentleman will not be shocked to learn that I do not have that figure in front of me. As I said to his hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop), the Opposition need to think carefully about what they are really worried about. If they are worried about prisoners having access to books, I have reassured them that they do not need to worry about that. If, however, they are worried, as the shadow Secretary of State told us he was, about the influx of drugs and other contraband substances into prisons, they might want to reflect on the sense of restricting packages as they come into prisons. That is what we are proposing to do. What are they going to do?

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

What progress have the Government made towards their aim of greater honesty in sentencing so that the public at large and victims of crime in particular know that when a sentence is handed out, the time served will correspond to a greater degree to the sentence handed out?

[Chris Grayling]

As you know, Mr Speaker, I believe that in an ideal world 10 years would mean 10 years. I do not have the resource to deliver that immediately because of the financial constraints upon us, but I have started by ending automatic early release for the most violent and unpleasant offenders in our society so that they can no longer expect to be released automatically halfway through their sentence, and have a possibility of release ahead of time only if they are demonstrably no longer a threat to the public as assessed by the Parole Board.