Oral Answers to Questions

The Justice Oral Questions session began with the Secretary of State for Justice, Shabana Mahmood, responding to tabled questions on prison capacity. Mahmood explained that the government had to take emergency action to release certain offenders a few weeks or months early, changing their automatic release point from 50% to 40% of their sentence, in order to prevent the prison system from collapsing. She acknowledged this was not a long-term solution and more needed to be done to address the legacy of the previous government's "disgraceful dereliction of duty" that left the prison system on the brink of collapse. In the topical questions section, Olivia Bailey (Lab) welcomed the Secretary of State's commitment to transparency, in contrast to the previous government's "secret" early release scheme. The shadow Secretary of State, Edward Argar (Con), asked about the use of hotels to accommodate offenders released early, and the Secretary of State committed to being open about any such arrangements. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, Mr Lee Dillon, raised concerns about the risks posed by delays in domestic abuse cases, which the Minister for Justice, Alex Davies-Jones, acknowledged and said the government was working to address. The Minister of State, Heidi Alexander, then responded to tabled questions on the progress of criminal cases through the justice system. She outlined measures being taken to increase court sitting days and use Nightingale courts to tackle the backlog. In the topical questions, Jess Asato (Lab) asked about extending the victim contact scheme to all survivors of domestic abuse, which Davies-Jones said the government was considering. The session concluded with Alexander addressing questions about investment in court infrastructure and the work of the Criminal Cases Review Commission.