Speeches by Cox.

“The Government have ordered the biggest expansion of electronic monitoring since 1999. We have discussed the numbers involved in that expansion and your plans to deal with it. In terms of staffing, to ensure you are covered to deal with that expansion, how many staff do you currently employ, how many new staff will you…”

“I know you have got a number of pilots going on at the moment. You talked about the tag at source pilot. I understand there is also the domestic abuse perpetrators on licence pilot, and the acquisitive crime pilot, in which people convicted of theft, burglary or robbery are given additional spatial restrictions. Could …”

“What is your retention rate?”

“This is all part of the push towards more community-focused justice and effective measures in the community to address the prison crisis. You are likely to be taking on additional numbers of tagging cases. How can you do that securely and safely without impacting the services that you already run?”

“Is the facility classed as supported housing, or supported living, in terms of local authority provision? How do they own it?”

“It takes two weeks to train somebody?”

“That is part of the challenge of cross-departmental working, isn’t it? The MOJ will not necessarily see those savings, but other Departments will.”

“What is your retention rate?”

“On the cost-benefit analysis, I think I am right in saying that every set of avoided care proceedings would save between £50,000 and £100,000 on the proceedings alone.”

“Good afternoon. I am Pam Cox. My interests are as declared on the register. I will just add that I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on penal affairs.”

“How many alcohol monitoring tags do you roughly have at the moment?”

“Could you explain how Hope Street is funded?”

“Could you explain how Hope Street is funded?”

“I welcome this statement and the White Paper. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that programmes such as turnaround are felt in constituencies such as mine in Colchester and beyond?”

“As this parliamentary Session draws to a close, it seems like a good moment to reflect on the legislation passed since the general election—not all of it, of course. Many of us have walked through the Lobby to pass 60 Bills that have touched almost every aspect of British life, from the care of cats, dogs and ferrets t…”

“Good afternoon. I am Pam Cox, MP for Colchester. My interests are as declared.”

“Let’s stay with prisons but move on to demand for prison places. The annual statement on prison capacity for 2025 suggests that the reforms in the Sentencing Act 2026 will reduce the prison population by about 7,500 by February 2028. It also notes that those projections are uncertain and liable to change. Are you confi…”

“Thank you. I am sure that the Committee will come back to that as time goes on. One way to reduce the prison population is to reduce the reoffending linked to drug-related crime, say. The Committee published a report on the drug crisis in our prisons, and you responded to it. We interviewed and heard from a lot of very…”

“Given that there is a drugs crisis in prisons, do you think we might revisit those partially accepted conclusions?”

“I defer to the Chair, but that is certainly something that I would welcome. In the meantime, Chris Whitty has produced this weighty tome, “The health of people in prison, on probation and in the secure NHS estate in England”. There is quite an overlap between the sentiments of our two reports, and who tops Chris Whitty…”