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Linsey Farnsworth

Linsey Farnsworth

Labour — Amber Valley

Speaking in the House of Commons on 25 June 2025

Debate

Criminal Justice

Contribution

I, too, am a member of the Justice Committee. I am also a former prosecutor who worked in the criminal justice system. Today is an opportunity not only to examine the Ministry of Justice’s estimates for the coming year, but to assess whether our criminal justice system is being resourced to meet the scale of the challenges it faces and to make our communities safer. I want to talk about the sentencing review and its impact on resourcing, especially for the Probation Service. We inherited a system that was on the brink of collapse. The 2024 report on prison population growth revealed that England and Wales had the highest per capita prison population in western Europe. Our Government had to respond to that crisis immediately on entering into office. My right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary’s temporary early release scheme was a difficult but necessary decision to protect the justice system from breaking altogether, and to ensure that dangerous offenders were not turned away from the courts due to lack of space.
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