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Prison Population

As my hon. Friend will know, I have been in post for five weeks. I need to examine a number of issues with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), who has done a good job in the past year. We will examine the performance of the Prison Service with Phil Wheatley and the Prison Service and the National Offender Management Service. The Prison Service is doing a good job of meeting the objectives set by the key performance indicators. We need to keep the matter under review, and I will certainly consider some of the issues that my hon. Friend has mentioned.