Speeches by Munt.

“I wondered whether there might have been a bit of intellectual curiosity when he is making a statement like that, because it appears to me to be quite critical of the system. If someone had said that about my department, I would be on the phone to him next morning asking, “What do you need? What do you not have? Why ha…”

“I want to ask a little bit about prison building and the increase in places that is going to be needed, from 95,000 to 105,000—that is over the next four years, isn’t it? That is what was anticipated. The 14,000 additional places that were going to be in the three G prisons—Grendon, Garth and Gartree—are going to happe…”

“You will be there, will you? You will get your 14,000.”

“Could you tell me what an RDEL and a CDEL are?”

“What does DEL mean?”

“I am very sorry, but I don’t understand what you are saying. If anybody is watching this, they might not understand either. I don’t know whether people spend their afternoons watching the Justice Committee, but frankly I hope they do.”

“I understand that; I couldn’t understand the acronym. I am completely cool with what you have now explained. Thank you.”

“I wondered what the costs of re-tendering the ISG work were.”

“When do you anticipate having some idea of the costs of the loss?”

“I might ask you to write to the Committee with some information about that as it comes along. Thank you.”

“Can you remind me when the contract was let?”

“Yes.”

“If we focus particularly on the work that they were undertaking for the two prisons that are being rebuilt—I recognise that there are other things, such as maintenance work—when was the last letting of that contract? When were they last scrutinised as financially fit and permitted by the Government to go ahead? What da…”

“Bearing in mind it is taxpayers’ money, it should have been stopped before it all—”

“I would ask you to inform the Committee in writing, if you would. I would like to know that information about when the Government last decided that they were financially fit to take on work with the MOJ and others. I am particularly interested in the MOJ, and to have some understanding of when it was that the flags wen…”

“What do you think Charlie Taylor means when he says he cannot get the data? What conversations have you had with him? I am sure you would have picked up that comment last week. What do you imagine he means by not being able to get hold of the information he needs?”

“I thank the Prime Minister for everything he has done over the last few days—it has been admirable. Will he endeavour to ensure that we prioritise military spending on outcomes rather than, strictly, the amount of money that is spent? The rush to avoid criticism of underspending often means that cost-effectiveness can …”

“No, you are right. You are absolutely right.”

“Wouldn’t it? If I may ask a supplementary, I am intrigued as to how the local authority knows that somebody has popped up in its area with a need for care of the nature that you describe.”

“Can I just ask you to talk a little bit about netting? Certainly, we have done a prison visit where there has been stuff like tennis net. If you throw something burning into it, you get a whopping hole and in you go. On the boundary there is almost always metal-grid stuff. Why don’t we use something like that?”