Andy Slaughter asks Keir Starmer how the government will tackle reoffending

L: Andy Slaughter, MP, R: Keir Starmer; House of Commons; parliamentlive.tv

“Revolving door” of reoffending

In the Liaison Committee session on Monday (21 July), Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick, quizzed the Prime Minister on the government’s plan to reduce reoffending rates.

Andy is the Chair of the Justice Committee, a cross-party group of MPs working together to scrutinise the justice system. He said:

“We’ve got terrible reoffending rates in this country people leave prison without a job, place to stay, or support for addiction and mental health.

“Some become a nuisance on our high street, committing further offences and quickly finding themselves back in prison.

“But while you are building new prisons and substituting control and punishment in the community for custody, what plans do the government have to cut the numbers committing criminal offences by reducing reoffending, stopping the revolving door that destroys the lives of victims and perpetrators alike?”

The Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, responded:

“The first thing is more mental health and substance abuse support in prison whilst people are in prison, which we are putting in and does make a difference.

“I think for those that are out of prison serving their sentence in the community, there’s an initiative we’ve launched with councils to try and bridge them into well paid work at the end of that part of their sentence, which is shown to have material support, and then putting a better package of support around those actually leaving prison when they do leave prison. So those are the three things we are doing at the moment.”