Nicholas Dakin MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 3 Jun 2025 · Protesters: Sentencing · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member will be reassured to know that we do not have a blasphemy law in this country, and that is the right and proper position.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is right that those sorts of schemes are exactly what are needed. That is why we have increased funding for youth offending teams and protected funding for the Turnaround scheme, which is highly successful in moving people who are on the edge of youth crime away from crime. We are continuing with that funding and we have the Young Futures prevention partnerships coming in.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Prison officers do an amazingly positive job in our prisons. Occasionally, prison officers let themselves down, and those cases are properly looked at. We continue to keep a tight look, and we learn from any issues that occur.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Centres such as the one that my hon. Friend describes in her constituency do excellent work and help to reduce youth offending. If she writes to me about the case that she refers to, I will look into it.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Prisons: Rehabilitation · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend can write to me with his list of potholes, and we will see what we can do.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Prisons: Rehabilitation · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend highlights another excellent piece of work that is going on, and the difficulties in ensuring that funding is effectively used as we move forward in a difficult situation due to the funding inheritance that we had from the previous Government. If he writes to me about that particular case, I will be very happy to meet him.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Prisons: Rehabilitation · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is right to emphasise all those programmes. They are clearly extremely important, and we publish and monitor a range of performance metrics linked to rehabilitative programme delivery, including employment at six weeks and six months post-release, or at the start of a community order, and engagement with substance misuse treatment. All those measures are in place and are properly monitored, but as always, there is more to be done in this area.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Prisons: Rehabilitation · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend highlights yet another piece of excellent work that is going on across our prison estate in partnership with other organisations. Again, if she writes to me, I would be happy to allow my diary manager to see how my diary is performing.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Prisons: Rehabilitation · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is right to highlight the good work going on in her constituency. As I said, I saw trauma-informed activity in operation at HMP Humber. It is something we need to learn from across the prison estate.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Prisons: Rehabilitation · Hansard source

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  A key priority of this Government is that our prisons rehabilitate offenders, making them better citizens rather than better criminals. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the fantastic prison staff, who mentor and support prisoners in custody every day. I saw at first hand the benefit of the creating future opportunities programme when I visited HMP Humber in April.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Prisons: Rehabilitation · Hansard source

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  Third sector organisations like LandWorks deliver valuable rehabilitation, wellbeing support and advocacy services across England and Wales, and they partner effectively with HMPPS in many different ways. The work of key organisations like the one the hon. Member mentions is incredibly important and essential in reducing reoffending, and we continue to invest in it. I would be happy to meet her to discuss the matter further and see what more can be done.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Prisons: Rehabilitation · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is right to highlight dyslexia, and neurodiversity is common among people in our prisons. That is why we have neurodiversity officers in each prison to ensure that we are doing our very best for these people so that they can be rehabilitated and become better citizens when they come out of prison.

• 3 Jun 2025 · HMP Lewes · Hansard source

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  Since the disappointing inspection in 2023, healthcare improvement funding has been put in place, as has mobile phone detection equipment to disrupt illicit activity. HMP Lewes’s most recent inspection in 2024 was encouraging and highlighted the strengths of the invigorated leadership team. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service is continuing to closely monitor and support the prison.

• 3 Jun 2025 · HMP Lewes · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend will be well aware that a lot of the information is commercially confidential, but we are investing up to £300 million in 2025-26 to keep our prisons are safe and secure, and we have a prison estate conditions survey programme in place to better understand our estate.

• 3 Jun 2025 · HMP Lewes · Hansard source

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  It is important that HMPPS continues to monitor the prison carefully, and the chief operating officer’s visit on 7 May found a number of further improvements. If the hon. Gentleman wants to write to me, I can send him a full update on the actions being taken in relation to that prison.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Employment: Ex-offenders · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right that securing employment is known to reduce the risk of reoffending significantly. The Minister for prisons in the other place has led a business with a track record of getting offenders into employment, and I understand that National Highways is starting to build strong partnerships as chair of the employment councils in Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Employment: Ex-offenders · Hansard source

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  I am very happy to share good practice across Northern Ireland and other regions of the UK, so that we can all learn from one another, and officials meet in the five nations group, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. He is right to say that we need to ensure that people are supported as they move into the community. That is why we are investing in probation, as my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor said, onboarding more than 1,000 probation officers this year and another 1,300 next year.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Employment: Ex-offenders · Hansard source

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  This Government’s plan to support women is clear and ambitious. The aim is to reduce the number of women going to prison. Our Women’s Justice Board will support that. The independent sentencing review’s recommendations— [ Interruption. ] I am on the wrong question; apologies. [ Interruption. ] Well, you got a preview of the next answer, Mr Speaker. We are committed to ensuring that offenders leave prison with the jobs and skills needed to lead law-abiding lives. That is why we have launched regional employment councils, which for the first time bring businesses together with prisons, probation and the Department for Work and Pensions to support offenders in the community.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Imprisonment for Public Protection: Sentencing · Hansard source

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  We continue to support IPP offenders through our updated action plan, which contributed to a 9% decrease in IPP offenders in prison in the last year, but we will not put public protection at risk. The Prisons Minister in the other place and I continue to meet regularly with MPs, peers and other stakeholders to work together on supporting this cohort.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Imprisonment for Public Protection: Sentencing · Hansard source

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  It is right and proper that IPP sentences were abolished. Various organisations have considered resentencing. None of them has identified an approach that would not involve releasing offenders whom the Parole Board has determined pose too great a risk to the public. We do not wish to give false hope to those serving the sentence by establishing an expert panel, but we will continue to work robustly with this group and do everything in our power to address the problem that we recognise.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Reoffending: Young Offenders · Hansard source

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  I agree wholeheartedly. It is very important that substance abuse is properly tackled. Probation services and youth offending teams do a lot of work in that space.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Reoffending: Young Offenders · Hansard source

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  We are working across Government to tackle the root causes of youth offending. We are also creating the Young Futures programme, which will have prevention partnerships, so that we can intervene earlier. The child poverty taskforce will soon publish a cross-Government strategy for reducing child poverty.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Reoffending: Young Offenders · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady draws attention to an important issue. Inspections are significant in identifying where additional support and effort are needed. The Department will do everything it can to give proper support to Somerset Youth Justice Service.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Reoffending: Young Offenders · Hansard source

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  The Government are determined to reduce youth reoffending as part of our safer streets mission. Despite the fiscal challenges we inherited, we have increased our core funding to youth offending teams and extended our effective Turnaround programme.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Reoffending: Young Offenders · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the importance of essential organisations such as Young Gloucestershire and the Nelson Trust. I am grateful for the invitation, and ask him to please write to me about the organisations. We will see what my diary can do.