Shabana Mahmood

Shabana Mahmood

Labour — Birmingham Ladywood

Speaking in the House of Commons on 22 May 2025

Debate

Independent Sentencing Review

Contribution

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising issues relating to the Probation Service. We have already expanded the number of staff. Last year, we recruited 1,000 extra, and this year we are on track to hit our target of 1,300 extra staff. Increasing resource—first and foremost with more staff—is a clear priority for us. We are investing in technology to help the Probation Service to be more productive. We have already funded programmes and pilots on AI tech designed to decrease the amount of file work that probation officers have to do to allow them to have more time to do the things that only a human can do: to spend time with the offender in front of them, to come up with a proper plan to reduce their reoffending and therefore to keep the public safe.

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