Burnham and Badenoch clash over prison early release scheme
Andy Burnham insisted prisoners would not be released early in September under plans to ease overcrowding in jails as the Tories demanded emergency legislation and the possible recall of Parliament to address the issue.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called for a rapid change in the law to stop the early release of serious offenders, including paedophiles and rapists. She apologised to victims for the Conservatives not doing enough on the issue when the party was in power.
But Mr Burnham said the Government had already taken action to pause the early release scheme, which was set to be phased in from September 2.
He said he would do “anything I can to minimise the risk to the public” but blamed the Tories for failing to build enough prison places to prevent overcrowding.
The Prime Minister told reporters: “It is a challenging situation, and we shouldn’t actually be in this position as a country.
“But we have to deal with the reality of where we are.
“But I will do anything I can to minimise risk to the public and that is why I am looking again and why I have put the release plan for September on hold and we’ll make further statements on this in due course.”
Under changes in the Sentencing Act, some 6,000 offenders were set to be let out of prison in September after serving a third of their sentence – rather than half – in a bid to ease prison overcrowding.
Prisoners serving longer sentences of four years or more would be eligible to release at the halfway point of their term, rather than at two-thirds as had previously been the case.
The changes were due to be phased in, beginning with prisoners serving sentences of less than 575 days, going up to inmates jailed for 12 years or more being eligible for early release in June next year.
Mr Burnham said: “The pause is real and it was one of the first things I did coming into office last week, so the September releases is on hold.
“And then secondly, the review that I have instigated is also a real process and we are taking a very serious look at the situation.
“Of course, this goes back a number of years when the previous government failed to put in place the prison places needed.”
At a press conference in London Mrs Badenoch admitted “the situation with prisons is challenging” but said her party “never had killers, rapists, paedophiles on early release”.
She did apologise to victims for not doing more on prison places when the party was in power.
The Conservative Party leader said: “On the crisis in prison places, this has been a long time coming. We did some things, as I said, it wasn’t enough, and I’m sorry about that.
“But I can’t fix the past, but what I can do is come up with solutions for now, and for tomorrow.”
Mrs Badenoch had earlier said: “When we were in Government, we saw the challenge.
“We created 14,000 prison new prison places, it was nowhere near enough.
“We had a prison-building target in our manifesto.
“Covid derailed that programme.
“We’d sold some prisons to get the money to build new ones but the programme, as I said, was derailed.”
She said “we also had early release but not like this”.
“We never had this category of prisoners being released.
“We never had killers, rapists, paedophiles on early release.
“That is what I want to stop.”
She has suggested the Government could rent cells overseas, as Sweden does in Estonia, and remove foreign prisoners from the UK to free up space.
Published: by Radio NewsHub