Sentencing Bill

Kirith Entwistle Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jake Richards]

Yes. Legal aid is vital, and the right to legal aid is important. The Government understand that right and will continue to look at it. There are financial constraints, which we are all aware of, but legal aid is very important. We have made certain commitments with regard to employment tribunals, and we will continue to look at that over the coming months.

Amendment 7 would remove clause 20 regarding changes to be made to the release of certain offenders. Let us start with the most basic promise of our justice system. When offenders are caught who pose a risk to the public, we ensure that there is capacity in our prisons for them to serve a custodial sentence. It sounds straightforward and a fundamental tenet of the social contract, but that is what was damaged and broken by the Tory Government. In July last year our prisons were essentially full, and the Government disgracefully could not fulfil that most basic promise to the British people. The Conservatives should be ashamed of themselves for the lawless disorder they caused.

The changes that the Bill makes are necessary to stabilise our prison system. There is no alternative. What have heard from Opposition Members, carping from the sidelines, are wholly unserious proposals. Reform UK say that we should build paperweight temporary prisons. Portacabins holding hardened criminals in our backyards? No thank you.

Let me clear: that would place the public at serious risk of harm. We cannot simply rustle up a secure setting to incarcerate dangerous offenders. This Government are building more prison places than we have seen for over 100 years. Following the changes to be brought in by this Bill, there will still be more criminals in prison than ever before—2,000 more by 2029 than there are now. On the other hand, Reform has no serious plans to keep our communities safe.

The Tory position is even more absurd, if that is possible. Last week the shadow Minister began to apologise for the legacy that the Conservatives left behind in our prisons. He said that if he had been Prime Minister or Chancellor it would not have happened. We had five Tory Prime Ministers and seven Chancellors in 14 years. I am not sure that giving another one a go would have made the difference. Meanwhile the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), says, “Deport more foreign offenders. That will solve it all.” Completely unserious.

Under this Government, deportation of foreign national offenders is up by 14%. We have accelerated decision making on deportation, which can now happen when 30% of the sentence has been served. That is something that the Tories never did. Because of this legislation, we can go even further and deport a foreign offender immediately upon sentencing. These are practical measures from a Labour Government who are cleaning up the Tory mess.

[Kirith Entwistle (Bolton North East) (Lab)]

My father is a retired senior prison officer, and I know at first hand the devastation that 14 years of the Tories brought on our prison system. Does the Minister agree that it is incumbent on us as a Government to clean up the mess they left and fix the system urgently through reforms?

[Jake Richards]

I thank my hon. Friend’s father for his service. Prison officers across the country do a brilliant and important job. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; I have sat through hours of this debate over the last few weeks, and while it has been important, the crowing from the Tories is galling considering the legacy that they left behind.

This Labour Government faced a crisis when we came into power last summer. The Tories had left our prison system on the brink of collapse, and lawless chaos was on the verge of breaking out. We took action, with plans to build 14,000 prison places—the biggest prison-building programme since the Victorian era—and 2,500 places in our first year, compared to just 500 places that were built during 14 years of the Conservative Government.