Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps she is taking to help reduce reoffending rates.

We are tackling the root causes of reoffending by investing in a range of interventions which address offenders’ underlying criminogenic needs and support their rehabilitation journey. This includes education, employment, accommodation and substance misuse treatment services.

We continue to work with prisons to improve offenders’ access to purposeful activity, such as education, which we know reduces the likelihood of reoffending. We have also recently launched regional Employment Councils, which will bring businesses together with Probation Services and the Department for Work and Pensions to support offenders in prison and the community.

Recognising that reoffending is twice as high among those released homeless, compared to those released to accommodation, we are expanding our community accommodation service; and working closely with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and other Departments on a new cross-government strategy to put us back on track to ending homelessness and to improve outcomes over this Parliament.

We are also reforming sentencing to ensure that we never run out of prison places again. Community sentences have been shown to be more effective than short custodial sentences at reducing reoffending. We are working closely with the Department for Health and Social Care to support the increased use of Drug Rehabilitation Requirements and Alcohol Treatment Requirements as robust alternatives to custody, in line with the recommendations of the Independent Sentencing Review.