Valerie Vaz
Main Page: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall South)Department Debates - View all Valerie Vaz's debates with the Ministry of Justice
(7 years, 11 months ago)
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Michael Gove
It absolutely will. The effective team managing the National Offender Management Service under the superb public servant Michael Spurr has found an additional £10 million to help mitigate the effects of prisoner violence and to reduce violence overall. That money will go direct to the front line.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
One area of reform should be to stop pregnant women having to give birth in prison. I know that the Government are committed to that, but can we consider carrying out a pilot study so that women do not have to give birth in front of unnamed guards?
Michael Gove
The hon. Lady makes a vital point. We are looking at how female offenders are treated overall. One thing we need to do—I know that this is not a view universally held by all my hon. Friends on the Back Benches—is to think hard about how we can reduce the female population in prison, and treat women who are in custody more sensitively.