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Penal System

I am afraid that I cannot provide the hon. and learned Gentleman with all the information, but some of the places are in new prisons. Some are in additional units in existing prisons, and some are the result of doubling or trebling in prison cells, which is far better—[Interruption.] I thought that the Opposition, too, were in favour of making the best use of existing accommodation, which is what we have done. The number of rehabilitation courses that prisoners have been able to take has vastly increased since the Conservative Administration. Later, we will come on to the details of the pledges made by the hon. Gentleman, who continues to imply what the shadow Home Secretary has made explicit. The shadow Home Secretary has offered to ““spend what it takes”” to build new prisons. He admits that he has no idea how much that is, but we can give him all the calculations that he needs. At the same time, the Conservatives have made wild pledges to cut—not to increase—£21 billion of public spending. They disagree with one another about what their policy should be. The shadow Home Secretary is dreaming up uncosted plans for new prisons, while the hon. and learned Gentleman who adorns the Front Bench is saying that prison is not the answer and is calling for a review of sentencing. The hon. and learned Gentleman says that he is on a massive ““voyage of discovery””, but that voyage is clearly taking place on a mystical vessel crowded out with Conservative Front Benchers, all heading for some fantasy island, with just one problem—they have no captain, no map, no compass and they cannot agree on whether to go forward, back, left or right. There is, I will concede, one thing on which the Conservatives do agree—they want new prisons, but they do not want them in their own back yard. The hon. Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire), for example, a shadow Home Affairs Minister, says that he wants more prisons, as long as they are not in his parliamentary constituency, Hornchurch, where a plan for a prison in Rainham is, apparently, ““wholly inappropriate””. We have a little indication that the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs is in the same position. Even when there is a proposal to increase the category of his open prison at Ford from D to C—yes, to relieve some overcrowding, by making it more secure—he says that he is wholly opposed to that as well.