Speeches by Dakin.

“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…”

“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 …”

“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 tog…”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“No, it is not. This is about people who have already served their sentence in prison; they are out in the community. If they breach a condition of their licence, they are returned to prison. The hon. Gentleman might as well ask why the Government he supported did not take any of the measures that he mentions. Our Gover…”

“This is not about releasing people from prison earlier.”

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

“We speak to the Victims’ Commissioner regularly; the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), is speaking to them later today.”

“My hon. Friend points out the actions that we must take to address the challenges that we face in the system, and to make the system work better for victims and protect the public.”

“We are committed to getting this right. The early release scheme that the previous Government put in place did not have the same exceptions as our early release scheme did for the sort of offenders that the hon. Gentleman draws attention to, but these matters are very difficult. The most important thing is ensuring tha…”

“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.”

“The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Victims and Courts Bill is about to go through Parliament, and that is the sort of issue that we will look at during the Bill’s passage.”

“It is clear that tagging technology has huge potential. A recent study has shown a 20% reduction in reoffending by offenders wearing curfew tags, but my hon. Friend is right to draw attention to concerns about the contract. Serco’s performance is improving, but it is still not acceptable. The reporting in the “Dispatch…”

“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.”

“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 prison…”

“I have made clear the exceptions that apply to this tight, fixed-term recall alteration. The management of people in the community will be risk-assessed, as always. If the view is that a different approach needs to be taken, it will be taken.”