Shabana Mahmood, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and Shadow Lord Chancellor, has vowed to complete the creation of 20,000 extra prison places and drive down reoffending, cutting crime and making our streets safer.
In a recent interview with Sky News' Trevor Phillips Shabana Mahmood said:
We are going to, deliver the full 20,000 places. So this government actually promised, the money is there, they failed to get on with building. So the changes we make is from day 1, a Labour government will deem prisons to be of national importance. It may it means that the planning decision is ultimately made by ministers rather than going through the usual local authority planning process. So we can move much faster than this government who've let themselves get bogged down by backbencher complaints and the planning process.
So we can deliver the full 20,000. The second thing that we will also do though is focus on cutting reoffending. Because, Trevor, I think you know 80% of offenders are reoffenders. So if you sort out reoffending, you can help deal with these crises. The government that can get building quickly and the government that is focused on cutting reoffending, which is a strategy for cutting crime and keeping the public safe as well as dealing with capacity issues, we can start to make a dent in this crisis.
https://twitter.com/ShabanaMahmood/status/1799746273870024943
