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Lord Clarke of Nottingham (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 14 October 2025

Debate

Prisoners: Reoffending

Contribution

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the biggest problem facing the rehabilitation work in which he has been so involved for decades now is that many of the prisons in which the training and other support is offered are overcrowded, dangerous, Victorian slums? As our incarceration rate is now the highest in Europe, thanks to the average prison sentence roughly doubling over the last few decades, would he consider reconsidering, with the Sentencing Council, the guidance given on the use of prison as a sentence to the courts? Does he agree that experience in the Netherlands and other countries where there has been enlightened reform shows that it has no adverse effect at all on the rate of offending and the crime rate in the country if incarceration rates are brought down to a more sensible level?

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