Speeches by Dakin.

“The young futures programme will be a prevention-first approach to crime reduction, building on the Department’s successful turnaround programme. I was very pleased to visit the first secure school which will put education at its heart, ensuring children in custody turn their lives around.”

“We are already on track to remove more foreign national offenders than the Conservative party ever did.”

“My hon. Friend tells it how it is. The Conservative party left our Prison and Probation Service in a mess. Our job, on behalf of the British people, is to clean up that mess. That is what we are doing.”

“By immediately reducing prison overcrowding, we have made prisons safer to work in. We have also accepted the 5% pay award recommended for prison officers in full.”

“My hon. Friend is right: the quality of prison education must continually improve if we are to achieve the best possible rehabilitation outcomes.”

“The right to protest is an important part of our democracy, but it has to be exercised within the law. Sentencing in individual cases is, of course, a matter for independent courts.”

“It sounds like an interesting approach. I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman wrote to me so that I can look into it and write back to him. It is certainly the sort of thing we need to be looking at.”

“We have reduced overcrowding to ensure that prisons have the capacity to focus on education and training. For example, HMP Highpoint’s state-of-the-art rail centre of excellence gives prisoners industry-standard training and guaranteed employment on release.”

“Each case is different, so I come back to the importance of individual plans for individual prisoners, and the fact that they need to know, from conversations with the prison authorities, exactly where they are and what intervention is there, and they can see themselves progressing positively towards a positive outcome…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Mr Efford. We have had a full and informed debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) for securing it and setting it off in such a positive way. He drew our attention to the issues and reminded us, as others did, of …”

“I am happy to meet my right hon. Friend and colleagues across both Houses with Lord Timpson to discuss progress on this in broad terms, because we can work together. We all want improvements, and we want this long-standing injustice to be put right for the future, and if we work together we are more likely to achieve t…”

“Each IPP prisoner should know what they need to do in order to make progress through the system or towards the community, and each IPP prisoner should also know what the system should be doing to support them. That is the question, really, and I look towards friends and family because they are a massive resource in thi…”

“I will very happily revisit the report as my right hon. Friend advises, but the reality is that we need to crack on with this. We need to get things to a better place as quickly as possible, and that means having the right support available to support each individual, to move them on their way. There may be a way of re…”

“My own example demonstrates that training and education are very important in whatever role one takes on, so I agree wholeheartedly with what the hon. Member says.”

“Hon. Members are right to focus on reducing reoffending. Nearly 80% of offending is reoffending, and it has an immense cost to the taxpayer and to communities. As the Lord Chancellor said, we have inherited a difficult situation in relation to prison capacity, which makes it harder to address the rehabilitation needs o…”

“We are taking the hard decisions that are necessary to create space and capacity in the Prison Service to address that issue. The hon. Member is right that the report from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons identified the provision of sufficient purposeful activity as its No. 1 issue to address. We know that educati…”

“My hon. Friend is exactly right: literacy and numeracy are crucial. I was pleased to visit HMP Humber recently, where I saw excellent best practice. It is important that those programmes are in place, that we learn from best practice and that we continue to do our best in that area.”

“The hon. Member is right that this is a big issue. The Prison and Probation Service is working hard to ensure that appropriate accommodation is available, and working hard with partners across the country in different regions. I am very happy to meet the hon. Member to talk about the issue further.”

“The hon. Member is right that drugs in prison is a big issue that the Government are working hard to tackle. I would be very happy to write to her with further details of what we are doing.”

“I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that matter. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service worked to reprocure the next iteration of the graduate scheme, with contracts for an open procurement exercise. Although Unlocked Graduates was identified as the winning bidder and was offered the contract, it did not c…”