Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Hayes Excerpts

Tuesday 8th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

The right hon. Gentleman will know that I cannot and will not comment on individual sentences. I urge him to live up to the responsibility of being the shadow Lord Chancellor, because commenting in the way that he regularly does on individual sentencing decisions, stripped of context and without all the information, is wrong. Those are independent decisions made by the independent judiciary in individual cases.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

10. What steps she is taking to increase prison capacity.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Sir Nicholas Dakin)]

We took immediate action to prevent the collapse of our prison system. The last Government added just 500 places to our prison estate over 14 years, whereas the previous Labour Government added around 28,000 places over 13 years. We intend to match the ambition of the last Labour Government, not the last Conservative Government, which is why we are committed to building 14,000 new prison places. By the end of this Parliament, we will have more people in prison than at any time in our history.

[Tom Hayes]

Every week brings new concerns about crime in Bournemouth, and I will pick up this issue with the police and crime commissioner for my area in my Boscombe office on Friday. Increasing prison spaces keeps dangerous people away from the public, and punishes serious crime. Increasing prison spaces stops reoffending, and I thank Tim from Athelstan Road for his creative suggestions to achieve that, which I have forwarded to the relevant Minister. Can the Minister outline the steps that he is taking to stop reoffending, especially where it applies to violent crime?

[Sir Nicholas Dakin]

My hon. Friend is right. Public protection is our No. 1 priority, but we are also tackling reoffending, with proper programmes in place in prison. We also need to support people when they come out of prison, and probation is part of that solution.