Low-cost supermarkets would ‘blush’ at sentence review ‘discounts’, says Jenrick

Releasing prisoners once they have served one-third of their sentence is a “discount” which would “make Aldi and Lidl blush”, Robert Jenrick has said.

The Conservative shadow justice secretary criticised proposals for an “earned progression model”, which would see inmates released after one-third of their sentence, if they demonstrate good behaviour.

The Government has accepted this idea “in principle”, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood told the Commons as she responded to the Independent Sentencing Review led by former Conservative MP David Gauke.

Former justice secretary Mr Gauke said the scheme would set an “expectation that poor behaviour” such as violence or drug use “will not be tolerated” in prisons, and offenders who do not meet it face release later in their sentence.

Mr Jenrick referred to the low-cost supermarkets when he said: “What about the Justice Secretary’s plan for most criminals going to jail to serve just one-third of their prison sentence there, for her slashing of sentences across the board? Discounts so big they’d make Aldi and Lidl blush.”

He added: “Criminals who plead guilty – and most do – already get a third cut in their sentence, so under her scheme, a burglar who pleads guilty to an 18-month headline term would spend just one fifth of that term in jail, barely 11 weeks – 11 weeks for smashing through a family’s door, storming through a child’s bedroom looking for valuables, leaving them traumatised for life.”

Earlier, referring to the scheme, Ms Mahmood told MPs: “Under this model, an offender will not necessarily leave prison at an automatic point. Instead, their release date will be determined by their behaviour. If they follow prison rules, they will earn earlier release. If they do not, they will be locked up for longer.”

She added: “Under this new model, offenders serving standard determinate sentences with an automatic release of 40% or 50% will now earn their release. The earliest possible release will be one-third, with additional days added for bad behaviour.

“The review suggests a new maximum of 50%, but for those who behave excessively badly, I will not place an upper limit.”

As Mr Jenrick spoke at the despatch box, Labour MP for Bracknell Peter Swallow held out his arms and heckled “why didn’t you” when the Conservative frontbencher said: “Any government serious about keeping violent criminals behind bars, any government willing to do whatever it took could obviously find and build prison cells required to negate the need for these disastrous changes.”

Mr Jenrick described the proposals as a “‘get out of jail free card’ for dangerous criminals”, called for the Government to “disapply the Human Rights Act” which he claimed is stopping the authorities from “swiftly deporting foreign national offenders”, and urged ministers to strike deals with European countries which have spare prison capacity to rent overseas cells “at an affordable price”.

Ms Mahmood replied that ministers have “two options” to deal with limited prison capacity – “you either shut the front door in or you have to open the back door out”.

She said the Conservatives “did a runner” on prisons by calling last year’s general election.

“He talked about iron bars, but he was part of a government that did not build the prison places that this country needs,” the Justice Secretary said in response to Mr Jenrick.

Labour MP for Telford Shaun Davies said that “for some offenders, they would rather go to prison to be back with their mates, watching Sky TV, having three square meals a day”.

He asked whether Ms Mahmood agreed with him “that those who do go to prison should be treated harshly and more robustly than was the case over the last 14 years of the Conservative government”.

She replied: “We want to make sure that our prisons are used to punish offenders, that they have to abide by strict prison rules, that they should engage with programmes in prison in order to bring down their propensity to reoffend, and that ultimately we succeed in keeping his constituents safe by turning out better citizens rather than better criminals.”

Asked by Conservative MP for The Wrekin Mark Pritchard about “getting more of these mothers and babies into the community, rather than in prison”, where “there is not serious and violent offending” by women, Ms Mahmood said: “I hope to move to a position where the combined impact of the changes in this review and also the work that we are doing with the women’s justice board, means that we see a huge drop in the number of female prisoners.

“And I am particularly keen to ensure that pregnant women, mothers of young children are not anywhere near our female prison estate in the future.”