Downing Street Says » Prisons/Home Office split

» Monday, January 29, 2007

Prisons/Home Office split

Asked if the Prime Minister accepted the Government miscalculated prison places as set out in the 2003 Act, the PMOS said that the Government had built nearly 20,000 extra places. HM Prison Kennett opened in Merseyside today, which could hold up to 350 prisoners. In terms of the 2003 Act, that was also about reducing the length of some sentences, as well as increasing others. It was getting the balance right that was important. Nobody was pretending that it was not tough, as it was. That was precisely why we had asked for another 8000 places.

Put that John Reid had set out that he needed a 2 ½ year timetable at the Home Office to "finish the job" and was that a timetable that the Prime Minister recognised and agreed with, the PMOS replied that John Reid had identified the timeframe for the process of reform. Nobody doubted that there was a need for reform, but equally, people should not forget the successes there had been, for example, reducing crime, or increasing the numbers of police officers. Therefore, it was not a wholly negative picture, but it was one where there were problems that still had to be resolved. The PMOS gave the example of the Sex Offenders’ Register, because 10 years ago, there was not a Sex Offenders’ Register; today, there were 33,000 names on it. With regards to the timeframe, John Reid was the person in charge of identifying the problems and resolving them. Therefore, we would take his analysis.

Asked if the Prime Minister had made up his mind about splitting up the Home Office, the PMOS said that that was a matter that had to be given serious consideration. It was being, and it would be seriously considered, as there were serious issues involved. Because the focus of it was in terms of counter-terrorism, it was a matter being dealt with with some urgency, but it would take some time.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.