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Prison Population

There are continuing demands on public expenditure, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman will recognise. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already committed to a building programme for an additional 8,000 places. He has committed today to a further 1,500 places, 500 by January. We have dramatically increased the resource spent on the probation service. Since the right hon. and learned Gentleman was Home Secretary we have increased the resource spent on drug treatment, alcohol treatment, young people’s offending and other issues in the community. It is brass cheek for the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who went into an election committed to a manifesto to cut spending on the Home Office and put it into education and health through the James review, to come to the House and tell me to spend more money on prisons and prison services. While we are speaking of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in his last year in office, 1,100 people absconded from prison—