Alex Norris

I am grateful for the Liberal Democrat spokesperson’s contribution. As I hope she heard me say, I do accept that the impact of our taking the summer to carve more offences out of this regime in a way that is safe and means we have a resilient prison estate has had an impact on victims and survivors and on their families, as they wait with uncertainty. I hope that is not unforgivable, in the sense that I hope it is understood that our aims were noble ones and have allowed us to go further—I think all Members would say that was a good thing. My mitigation and attempt to balance the situation is in what we do now. I am making a commitment from this Dispatch Box about the quality of engagement with victims and survivors. Everyone is being written to immediately to have a contact sent to them—trauma-informed engagement. This will introduce a conversation with a victim liaison officer specific to them and specific to the information about their offender’s release date and whether it is changing, and will help them to tailor the controls on their perpetrator so they can live the fullest possible life. On probation and capacity, I pay tribute to my predecessors as Lord Chancellor for the work that has been done to recruit more staff. That is not at its end state, but the £700 million investment is nevertheless starting to bear fruit. I think that gives us optimism for probation, but I am aware that there are still challenges. I have met staff and will continue to engage, and we of course want to avert strike action, as the hon. Member says. The hon. Member’s point on the national Criminal Justice Board speaks a little bit to the point I made to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott): I want to reinvigorate it as a place that takes real ownership of a reform of our criminal justice system. I think we would all accept that our criminal justice system is not delivering, and we are paying a lot for failure as well. I have not had very long in my role, as I hope the hon. Member would accept, but I certainly look forward to meeting the board. On convening Cobra, I have to say that it is not in my gift, but it is in the Prime Minister’s. However, the changes we have made are exactly to avert the scenario of getting to such a crisis. In the spirit of what the hon. Member says, I am conscious of the pressures we have put on over the summer—they have been for good aims—but now we need to build a much better system.