Nicholas Dakin MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 15 May 2025 · Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits · Hansard source

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  We are always alert to the need to assess how policies apply to the wider public and victims. That is important.

• 15 May 2025 · Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits · Hansard source

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  Victims absolutely need to be kept informed, and we continue to work with victims’ groups and the Victims’ Commissioner to ensure that they are.

• 15 May 2025 · Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits · Hansard source

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  I have carefully gone through the exclusions from this measure, and emphasised the importance of good professional bodies continuing to apply proper risk assessments. When risk assessments say that a standard recall is more appropriate than a fixed-term recall, that will happen.

• 15 May 2025 · Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits · Hansard source

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  I say gently that we have deported more foreign nationals in the first year on our watch than the previous Government did in the years on their watch. He is right that we have to roll up our sleeves and continue to get on with the job.

• 15 May 2025 · Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits · Hansard source

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  I am very sorry to hear about the cases mentioned by my hon. Friend. I am happy to meet him to take the matter further.

• 15 May 2025 · Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits · Hansard source

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  We have great respect for the Victims’ Commissioner. What would be letting down victims is if we allowed the prison system to get to a place where we cannot lock prisoners up—that would be unconscionable. That is why it is important that we have taken these steps. I remind the hon. Member that we are excluding those prisoners who pose the most risk and are managed under MAPPA—multi-agency public protection arrangements—levels 2 and 3. That means various agencies working together. The exclusion also includes all those convicted of terrorist and national security crimes. Proper action can be taken where agencies identify risk to move from a fixed-term recall to a standard recall.

• 15 May 2025 · Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a good point, and the House will have heard it.

• 15 May 2025 · Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits · Hansard source

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  The commissioner has been spoken to by the team. To be clear, the impact assessment will be published when we come to consider the statutory instrument.

• 15 May 2025 · Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits · Hansard source

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  This is not about releasing people from prison earlier.

• 15 May 2025 · Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits · Hansard source

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  I hear the right hon. Gentleman’s question, and I will write to him.

• 15 May 2025 · Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits · Hansard source

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  We have deported more foreign national offenders in 12 months than the last Government did in the previous 12 months, and we are continuing to work hard with the Home Office to deport foreign national offenders. We will never be able to do that on the scale necessary to address the challenges that we face in our prisons at this time.

• 15 May 2025 · Recalled Offenders: Sentencing Limits · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is quite right. We faced a real emergency when we came into office. It is unconscionable that any Government would do that to an incoming Government. The previous Labour Government added 28,000 prison places in 13 years. In their 14 years, the Conservative Government managed to add 500. In 10 months we have already delivered 2,400 prison places.

• 12 May 2025 · Protection of Prison Staff · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend raises a question about prison maintenance; that is always under review. Contracts were in place when this Government came into office that needed to be taken forward to ensure that our prisons were kept as safe as possible. Those who are assessed as posing a raised risk of violence are supported through a case management approach that is centred around the individual and addresses the underlying causes of their violence, including specific risk factors and needs, to help them manage and move away from violent behaviours.

• 12 May 2025 · Protection of Prison Staff · Hansard source

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  I am happy to meet those unions and the right hon. Member on the charter. Obviously, until we see the charter, it is difficult to know where things are going on that, but I am sure that HMPPS will be proactive in working with all the associations on getting the charter right.

• 12 May 2025 · Protection of Prison Staff · Hansard source

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  I agree wholeheartedly that the safety and security of our prison staff must always come first and foremost. To address the other part of the hon. Member’s question, I have already indicated that a review is going on. That needs to be done properly and effectively, and we will come back and inform the House in due course.

• 12 May 2025 · Protection of Prison Staff · Hansard source

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  I can certainly commit to ensuring that that is raised at the five nations forum. The hon. Gentleman raises a sensitive and serious issue that needs to be addressed in the right and proper way. I thank him for his question.

• 12 May 2025 · Protection of Prison Staff · Hansard source

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  I congratulate that prison officer for the award he got and the work he did. The Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018 requires courts to consider the fact that serious offences were committed against emergency workers. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 doubled the maximum penalty to two years, so there are actions in place, but we need to be ever vigilant on this matter. That is why the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) was right to ask the urgent question: we need to be ever vigilant and work ever harder with the brilliant people who run and work in our prisons.

• 12 May 2025 · Protection of Prison Staff · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a good point about the way in which the Government immediately recognised the need for an uplift in pay, in line with the independent pay report, and took action straightaway. As I said, immediately after the terrible incident at HMP Frankland, the Lord Chancellor, the Prisons Minister in the other place and I met the Prison Officers Association. Lines are open with all the other staff associations across the piece. It is important that we work with them to address this issue properly.

• 12 May 2025 · Protection of Prison Staff · Hansard source

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  I am very happy to continue to work with the Prison Officers Association and other staff associations working in the prison sector to try to address the issues that my right hon. Friend rightly raises.

• 12 May 2025 · Protection of Prison Staff · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for his question and for meeting me earlier in this Parliament to discuss these issues. Yes, these things rightly need to be kept under review, and the conversations taking place with the workforce through the Prison Officers Association and other bodies will continue to make progress on this matter.

• 12 May 2025 · Protection of Prison Staff · Hansard source

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  I agree with the right hon. Member that this needs to be looked at as quickly as possible. This summer, an operational trial on Tasers will be launched, involving specialised officers, to help staff respond to high-risk incidents more effectively. The findings of the trial will inform any future decisions about the use of Tasers in the prison estate. We need to learn from what we do so that we can get it right in the future.

• 12 May 2025 · Protection of Prison Staff · Hansard source

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  Where an assessment is needed for stab-proof vests now, they can be deployed, but following the recent incident at HMP Frankland, HMPPS has commissioned a review to establish whether it is necessary for prison officers to wear protective body armour routinely. The review will inform any decision on the use of protective body armour on the prison estate and will report in June. June is next month, so it is happening pretty quickly, and rightly so because this is an urgent issue.

• 12 May 2025 · Protection of Prison Staff · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right to point that out. A violence reduction training module is available to all staff to help them better understand the drivers of violence and how to mitigate and manage those risks, including the use of a case management model for those at raised risk of being violent. Measures to ease prison crowding are vital for improving prison safety, as we know that crowded conditions can fuel violence. In recent years, prisons have expanded security measures, such as X-ray body scanners and airport-style enhanced gate security, to tackle the smuggling of drugs, mobile phones and other contraband that can drive violence in prisons. We must always be alert and moving things forward because the situation is forever changing.

• 12 May 2025 · Protection of Prison Staff · Hansard source

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  I absolutely give that commitment: this Government will do all we can to make sure that people are as safe as possible when they go to work. Nobody should suffer what happened to these very brave, wonderful prison officers doing their duty; that should not happen to anybody when they go to work.

• 12 May 2025 · Protection of Prison Staff · Hansard source

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  Immediately after the incident at HMP Frankland, the Lord Chancellor, the Prisons Minister in the other place and I met the Prison Officers Association. That was a significant discussion, and commitments were made to ensure that things were addressed properly and correctly. The Prisons Minister will be speaking shortly at the Prison Officers Association conference. The reviews that are in place are being done in fast time, but they need to be done properly so that we can learn the lessons and take the appropriate actions. They also need input from the people who know exactly what is going on: those in the workforce and those who manage our prisons.