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Prison Population

I thank the Minister for his statement. He will know that several of his announcements for the future are welcome, but as a new Minister in a newly created Department, does he accept that today’s announcement was the absolutely predictable end to a sorry story of failed policy over the past 10 years, that the situation is an embarrassment to the departing Prime Minister and undermines the criminal justice system, and that the announcement will do nothing of itself to prevent reoffending, or to reduce the number of offenders? Does he accept that each of the four Home Secretaries saw this coming, but clearly did not take adequate action to prevent it? Does the Minister agree that we need to address now the categories of people who are in prison, but should not be there? Is the number of foreign prisoners going down quickly, either at the end of sentence, or by agreement? Will we have secure places for the mentally ill—not just the 1,500 places that exist in mental hospitals—in which people will be treated for a mental illness instead of being locked up in a prison that does nothing? Will he implement Jean Corston’s proposals on women who do not need to be in prison so that such women can be placed somewhere they can support families and be rehabilitated? Will there be a speedy increase in the number of places for people with drug problems who would do better in secure rehabilitation centres instead of crowding our prisons? Given that we know that the numbers are approaching record levels, will we have from today a change to the crazy policy that has seen prison numbers and reoffending going through the roof and a realisation that unless we bring prison numbers down, rather than building more prisons, we will not be giving the public what they want: less crime and, above all, less reoffending?