Afternoon summary
Keir Starmer has described the Conservative party at PMQs as sliding into “brain-dead oblivion”. (See 12.08pm.)
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has claimed that Keir Starmer’s immigration speech on Monday shows he seems to be “learning a very great deal from us”. (See 12.25pm.)
For a full list of all the stories covered here today, scroll through the key events timeline at the top of the blog.
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'Clear risk to public safety' - MoJ chief explains how prison overcrowding could lead to breakdown of justice system
Here are more extracts from the speech by Amy Rees, the interim permanent secretary at the Ministry of Justice, at the start of her MoJ press conference with Shabana Mahmood.
On how the prison population has grown over time
In 1993, the population was less than half its current level – at around 40,000 prisoners.
When I first joined the Service, in 2001, it was 65,000.
In recent years, it has accelerated rapidly to its current levels, and is forecast to be more than 100,000 by 2029.
The primary cause of this is clear.
Sentence lengths have increased considerably.
In 2005, the average custodial sentence was 13 months.
By 2023, it was 21 months – a 66 percent increase.
We now have a larger population of sentenced prisoners in our prisons – serving longer sentences than they used to.
On how recall numbers have increased (which is why Mahmood announced measures to day to reduce these figures – see 4.16pm)
The number of offenders brought back to prison after being released – known as recall – is a significant, though lesser, contributing factor [to rising prison numbers]
In 1993, this ‘recalled’ population in prison was virtually non-existent at just 100 prisoners.
By 2018, it was 6,000.
And since then, levels have soared – more than doubling to 13,600 in March this year.
On how successive governments have responded to prison overcrowding
Until now, successive governments have attempted to manage prison capacity primarily by carrying out early releases.
In late 2023, the prison system was running at around 99 percent of its capacity.
Faced with the prospect of running out of prison places altogether, the End of Custody Supervised Licence Scheme was introduced in October 2023.
This meant eligible prisoners were automatically released up to 18 days before their scheduled released date, later increased to 35 days and then up to 70 days in May 2024.
This measure prevented prisons from running out of places entirely, but it only bought the service time.
By July last year, prisons were again operating close to maximum capacity.
Ministers announced plans for some prisoners serving standard determinate sentences to be released automatically at the 40 percent point of their sentence, rather than 50 percent.
A surge of these releases took place over two tranches in the autumn and again prevented prisons from filling up entirely.
In parallel, we have brought in other smaller-scale measures to manage capacity.
This includes moving some risk-assessed offenders out of prison and onto Home Detention – tagged and curfewed for a longer period.
On what would happen if the government does not take further action
If Operation Early Dawn [see 3.52pm] is unable to manage the flow of prisoners, the situation becomes intolerable.
We would, at this stage, see the managed breakdown of the criminal justice system.
Police holding cells would be full, and the police would be faced with being unable to make arrests.
Courts would need to consider bail for offenders they would normally consider dangerous enough to remand to prison.
If the system reaches that point, there would be a clear risk to public safety and the only solution would be rapid emergency releases.
This would mean offenders being let out of prison without time for probation officers and other services to put in place release plans designed to protect the public.
And even this would only buy us time.
The prison population will keep rising.
Without a long-term plan, sooner or later we would run out of places once more.
That is the situation in the prison service as it stands today.
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