I wish to repeat a statement made by the Lord Chancellor in another place.

The Ministry of Justice has been in existence for five weeks. I announced on 9 May my Department’s approach to penal policy. I announced that we would continue to protect the public by providing prison places for those whom the courts determine need custody, and that that would include asking the Sentencing Guidelines Council to review its guidance. I also made it clear that we should make best use of the best community sentences where evidence says that they reduce reoffending and offer more effective punishment, and that we would continue to deliver in line with the recommendations of Lord Carter’s 2003 review, including end-to-end offender management and public service reform.

Today, I wish to provide details to the House of how the Government will ensure that all those whom the courts send to prison can be accommodated. I will update the House on the detail of Lord Carter’s inquiry into prisons, announce the building of further custodial places, and set out further measures to improve the functioning of our prisons and to reduce reoffending.

We have made public protection from the most dangerous criminals a priority. We are bringing more offenders to justice than ever before—25 per cent. more than when we came into office. Those who commit violent or sexual offences can now receive an indeterminate prison sentence. The length of time for which criminals are sent to prison has increased, with the average custodial sentence in Crown courts rising by 25 per cent. between 1995-2005. As the House will know, more people are being sent to prison than ever before. That means that, overall, there are 40 per cent. more serious and violent offenders in prison than in 1997. Since 1997, the prison population has increased from 61,467 to 81,016 today, a record high.

Nationally, crime is falling. There are 5.8 million fewer offences than in 1997, but we know we need to go further. We have been working intensively with 44 of our most deprived communities, where crime and disorder are highest, to reduce crime still further. Early indications show that the work is making an impressive impact and crime is falling at twice the rate in those areas than the national average. The Government are determined that the public be protected from dangerous offenders, and that court sentences and other orders be obeyed.

In addition to those measures, we have taken steps to increase the resources spent on community punishments and interventions designed to address the causes of crime among offenders. Tough community sentences have been developed, which have proved more than successful in reducing reoffending. As I announced to the House in May, we shall, therefore, extend and expand such schemes.

We have built more than 20,000 more prison places since 1997, and we have a commitment today to build 8,000 more by 2012. We have increased expenditure on probation by 70 per cent. in real terms over the last 10 years and, as an example of our commitment to addressing the causes of crime, we have increased expenditure on drug treatment programmes in prisons from £7.2 million in 1997 to £79 million in 2007-08.

To help accommodate the current pressures, I can announce today that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made available new money to build an additional 1,500 places over and above the 8,000 already announced. We will be starting work immediately on 500 of those extra places and the first of the additional places will come on stream in January 2008.

As I announced on 9 May 2007, I have asked Lord Carter to look at the future of the estate and we will take decisions on the optimum timing and composition of the further 1,000 places announced today in the light of Lord Carter’s final report. I am today publishing the terms of reference for his review. As the terms of reference make clear, Lord Carter will look at the long-term future of the prison estate and at both the supply and demand of prison places.

Those additional measures will bring on more prison places, which are much needed. Currently, as I mentioned, the prison estate is near to full. To ensure that we can accommodate all those sent to prison by the courts, we will continue to rely on police cells, as a temporary measure, and where necessary court cells. I am personally grateful to chief constables in England and Wales for making police cells available to us where necessary and to the Court Service for more than 100 court cells to date. The use of police cells may be necessary until the end of this year at the latest, pending the increase in capacity from some of the 8,000 prison places coming on stream and then, at the beginning of 2008, from the additional prison places I have announced today.

In addition to increased prison capacity, I have authorised the issuing of guidance to prison governors to allow them to make wider use of the prison rules provisions to authorise release on licence for offenders who are coming to the end of their sentence. [Hon. Members: “Ah.”] The guidance will authorise release on licence, in accordance with existing prison rules, up to 18 days before their release date, for those who have been sentenced to a determinate prison sentence of four years or less. This is a temporary measure.

Let me be clear for all those in the House who are concerned—[Interruption.]

Order. Members must allow the Minister to make his statement; then we shall have questions.

Let me be clear from the outset: release on licence is not the same as Executive release. Releasing people on licence means that their sentence continues. Release on licence will be granted only to those who meet the eligibility criteria set out in the guidance that I will place in the Library of the House today. The criteria specifically exclude offenders convicted of serious sexual or violent crimes, those who have broken the terms of temporary release in the past and foreign national prisoners who would be subject to deportation at the end of their sentence. Release on licence will apply only to those who are not released on home detention curfew and while on licence the offender will remain subject to his sentence and will be liable to recall. The guidance comes into effect on 29 June and I will keep its operation under review.

In addition, yesterday saw the launch of the new bail accommodation and support service, which will enable courts to make greater use of bail in appropriate cases. The accommodation will also be available for prisoners who are eligible for home detention curfew if they have suitable accommodation.

The measures I have announced today are designed to ensure that the Government will be able to accommodate all those the courts send to prison. We will respect and give effect to the orders made by the courts and we will protect the public.

I commend the statement to the House.

I begin by thanking the Minister for showing me his statement—20 minutes ago. Earlier this afternoon during questions, he was given the opportunity to tell us the projected prison population figures until 2014, but he did not—they would not have made good listening.

The Government have done nothing to plan for and provide adequate prison capacity. The Minister re-announces 1,500 new places, continued reliance on police and court cells, early release and greater use of bail. The Government know, on present rates, that there will be well over 100,000 prisoners by 2012. There are no indications that that figure is anything other than on the low side. There is no sign that the Government have done anything constructive—

Order. I say to the hon. and learned Gentleman that he should not be making a statement; he should be questioning the Minister. If he puts his case in the form of questions, it is acceptable to me.

You kindly, but not for the first time, anticipate me, Mr. Speaker. I am just about to ask the question. But let me just set that question in context.

The Minister says that the Government have built 20,000 new places, but several of these new prisons were contracted for prior to 1997, and does he really believe that the 20,000 new places will be sufficient to deal with the crisis of overcrowding? Will the Minister accept, not only that the current problem of prison overcrowding will continue, but that it has been both predictable and predicted by everyone who has thought about the issue for many years? His noble Friend Lord Carter, Anne Owers the prisons inspector, and even my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary and I have warned the Government about this time after time. Did not the Home Office itself predict in 2001 that there would not be enough places for the expected numbers of offenders by the end of this decade?

Is it not clear that the only people who failed to react to what was happening and what was going to happen were the four Labour Home Secretaries and their Ministers, aided and abetted by the current Chancellor of the Exchequer, who on all the evidence, have done next to nothing? Why on earth did the Home Secretary claim last October in the House that my right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary

“has been making a dreadful, dreadful fuss because we are a couple of hundred short of maximum capacity”—[Official Report, 9 October 2006; Vol. 450, c. 38.]

instead of getting on with sorting out the mess?

What sort of Government demand that the courts send more offenders to prison, and for longer, but fail to provide the places to put them in? What sort of Government, after 10 years in office, look and sound surprised that the prison population has risen under their watch from under 60,000 to over 81,000, and that offenders are now having to be housed overnight in court cells, and for several nights in police station cells, and even kept in prison vans outside court while they wait for their cases to come on? And, Mr. Speaker, did you not hear this Minister say that he was pleased to announce that he was going to invite the police to do that until the end of the year?

There are prisons that have turned away prisoners because they have no more room. Why, if the Government thought it right to have 20,000 more inmates, did they not plan and build 20,000 more places?

The Home Secretary said last year that he would provide 8,000 more places by 2012. On the Government’s own projections, that will not be enough. But the Chancellor, the next Prime Minister, has not signed the cheque. Where are these places going to be, what will they cost in terms of building and staffing costs and when will they be ready?

To provide temporary accommodation, why have the Government not found the prison ship that they sold at a loss not so long ago? Why have they not made any use of redundant military camps, former secure hospitals and other available accommodation? Why did they not do these things last year or the year before that?

Watching the Government’s handling of this growing crisis has been like watching a train crash. Why have the Government been hapless bystanders and not taken decisive action? Is it because the Chancellor, driven by political rivalry, has refused successive Home Secretaries the resources needed to address the chronic lack of prison spaces? Is not the crisis that we now face a failure of design, for which the Chancellor bears responsibility? We heard today from Manchester that he will ensure extra fast-build prison places to address the problem. But why—if the Labour Chief Whip, the right hon. Member for Redditch (Jacqui Smith), would stop chattering—why, if the resources are available, were they not made available in time to prevent this predictable chaos? How much is the Chancellor providing? How many places will be built, and when will they be available? Are these not likely to be fast-fill prisons that will soon demonstrate the short-term nature of this Government’s approach?

The Government briefed the press this morning that they will release prisoners early. The Minister confirms that. Why then did the Lord Chancellor say quite the opposite over lunchtime on Sky television? The Government did that before, with tragic consequences for far too many innocent victims. In previous years, as they released inmates early from open prisons, they transferred unsuitable offenders from the secure to the open estate. Will the Minister undertake to the House in terms that he will do no such thing again?

We know that the police and the probation service, which are already overstretched, cannot keep their eyes on more released offenders. Every probation officer is already supervising between 20 and 80 offenders. Are not the public entitled to conclude that the Government’s strategic and day-to-day management of our prisons has been not just stupid, reckless and incompetent, but shamefully irresponsible? Do they not see an exhausted Government, who, as a direct result of their failure to plan and act, have increased reoffending, reduced public safety and wasted huge sums of taxpayers’ money? What do the Government offer but yet another review? Are there no limits to the Government’s inadequacies—

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I laid down a rule that there would be five minutes for questions and he is reaching six minutes. So, I think we will cut his comments short and let the Minister reply.

I think the Minister has got my point.

I am grateful to the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) for raising some issues. May I put him straight on one thing? He said that I am reannouncing 1,500 prison places, but I am not: I am announcing new money—£80 million—from the Chancellor of the Exchequer for 1,500 prison places. That is over and above the 8,000 places we have already committed to for this period. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) can chunter all he likes, but that is money that the Government have voted for, raised taxes for and will spend. I challenge him and the hon. and learned Member for Harborough to say where that money would come from in the context of tax cuts for the future.

The hon. and learned Gentleman is quite accurate to say that there are projections that show an increase in the prison population. I accept that. I have already indicated to him in questions that we intend to review the figure in August 2007. We have a building programme for 8,000 places already and 1,500 places have been announced today. We are committed to raising the number of prison places, but we are also committed to things that I know that—deep down, secretly—he supports, such as looking at better community sentences, ensuring that we get people out of prison by reducing reoffending, and looking at people who have under 12 months to serve to see whether we can make sure that they do not reoffend in the future. I know that he believes in that, although the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) takes a different view. I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Harborough will support us, not just in building the necessary prison places now, but in looking at the issues related to preventing reoffending in the long term.

The hon. and learned Gentleman helpfully suggested we consider prison ships or redundant Army camps—as if they were things that the Government had never thought of, examined and tried to do. The issues are difficult. We have looked at the ideas and they are not practicable in the short or long term. What is practicable is building proper prison places, putting in, in effect, extra prison resources, and looking at sentencing and community-based sentences.

The hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor has ruled out early release; he has ruled out Executive early release. Pressure has been put on us to take that step, but we are not undertaking Executive early release. Early release is letting people out. They are not under licence and we do not have control over them. For a small number of people, we have put in temporary transitional licence arrangements to bring them home in the last few days of their sentences. Those people do not include serious and dangerous offenders. I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will support that.

Can the hon. and learned Gentleman recall May 2005, when his party fought an election on a manifesto committed to the James review, which contained £35 billion of spending cuts? That was not a question of resources going to deal with issues in our communities. He needs to remember that.

Given the pressures on the prison population, the measures that my right hon. Friend has announced are clearly a sensible and balanced package, but we need to look at the longer term. He spoke about the 25 per cent. increase in the length of sentences passed by the courts over the last few years—often against the wishes of Home Secretaries and Lord Chief Justices. In many cases, those sentences are for crimes where there is no evidence that the increase produces better public protection or a bigger reduction in offending. What discussions are taking place with the Sentencing Guidelines Council to make sure that judges are using the punishment of imprisonment correctly and, secondly, that we make greater use of restorative justice—

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but I have told another hon. Member that one supplementary question is enough.

My right hon. Friend makes several important points. As he will know, my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor has already written to the Sentencing Guidelines Council to ask it to examine several matters relating to long-term sentencing. We certainly need to examine how we can mange supply and demand in the longer term through sentencing policy. Such a complicated and difficult issue requires serious consideration. We are willing and able to undertake that with the judiciary in due course.

My right hon. Friend mentioned restorative justice, and the Ministry of Justice has already undertaken several pilot projects. I know from my experience in my previous job in Northern Ireland that that can have a significant impact on reducing reoffending. One of the Ministry of Justice’s purposes is to examine sentencing across the board and the variety of penalties that might arise from other Departments’ legislation. We are acutely aware that extra legislation can often put pressure on prison places. We will continue to look at that and I hope that we are making progress.

I thank the Minister for his statement. He will know that several of his announcements for the future are welcome, but as a new Minister in a newly created Department, does he accept that today’s announcement was the absolutely predictable end to a sorry story of failed policy over the past 10 years, that the situation is an embarrassment to the departing Prime Minister and undermines the criminal justice system, and that the announcement will do nothing of itself to prevent reoffending, or to reduce the number of offenders? Does he accept that each of the four Home Secretaries saw this coming, but clearly did not take adequate action to prevent it?

Does the Minister agree that we need to address now the categories of people who are in prison, but should not be there? Is the number of foreign prisoners going down quickly, either at the end of sentence, or by agreement? Will we have secure places for the mentally ill—not just the 1,500 places that exist in mental hospitals—in which people will be treated for a mental illness instead of being locked up in a prison that does nothing? Will he implement Jean Corston’s proposals on women who do not need to be in prison so that such women can be placed somewhere they can support families and be rehabilitated? Will there be a speedy increase in the number of places for people with drug problems who would do better in secure rehabilitation centres instead of crowding our prisons? Given that we know that the numbers are approaching record levels, will we have from today a change to the crazy policy that has seen prison numbers and reoffending going through the roof and a realisation that unless we bring prison numbers down, rather than building more prisons, we will not be giving the public what they want: less crime and, above all, less reoffending?

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who has a thoughtful approach to such issues. One of the Ministry of Justice’s prime jobs is to try to prevent reoffending. We need to examine several long-term solutions, such as how we can have an impact on drugs and alcohol treatment, how we can work in the community, and how we can invest more in giving additional treatment to people in prison. However, I cannot get away from the fact that the public need to be protected from the growing number of serious and dangerous offenders. We are examining how we can build extra prison places. Our strategy involves building prison places and examining the wider issues of community sentencing and the way in which to prevent reoffending.

There is work to do on foreign national prisoners, whom the hon. Gentleman mentioned. There are still people in prison who need to be deported back to their home countries, or transferred to the immigration estate. The Ministry of Justice needs to work with its colleagues in the Foreign Office and other Departments to make progress because the small yet significant issue needs to be addressed.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the report by my right hon. Friend Baroness Corston. I said during Justice questions that my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor and I welcome the Corston report, which we intend to examine in detail. The Lord Chancellor has tasked the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), with looking at the details of the report to determine not how to reject the recommendations, but how and when we can implement them. It is our objective that there should be fewer women in prison. With the benefit of that report, we can achieve that over time, with difficulty, with resources and by examining the prison estate as a whole as part of Lord Carter’s review. I have already said that I expect the Government to respond to that report by late autumn at the latest, and I very much hope that we can do that.

Finally, in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 we put in place drug treatment orders and alcohol orders, which we need to examine more imaginatively and use again in the future.

The only area in which our views do not chime with those of the hon. Gentleman are his views about my right hon. Friends who have previously held positions in the Home Office. They were faced with difficult issues and had to make difficult decisions in respect of not only the prison estate, but terrorism and other matters. They did the best job they could in difficult circumstances. As the Ministry of Justice, we have assessed those issues, targeted a way forward and got the resources from the current Prime Minister and the future Prime Minister to see those proposals through, and I commend them to the House.

My right hon. Friend says that the issue of foreign prisoners is small but significant, but may I suggest that it is quite large? Will he confirm that about one in seven of the prison population is of foreign origin? Cannot more be done to arrange for them to serve their sentences in their countries of origin?

I accept what my hon. Friend says. In answer to the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes), I was referring to foreign prisoners who have served their sentence and are awaiting deportation. There are a small but significant number of those. I fully accept what my hon. Friend says in relation to the number of foreign prisoners in jails in England and Wales. We need to look imaginatively at how we can get those people to serve sentences in their home countries, and we need to take action on that to reduce that number of individuals. I have been in post five weeks. We have looked at a number of key significant issues, and that is one to which we need to return. I am sure that my hon. Friend’s contribution to that debate will be of great help.

As the crisis was both foreseeable and foreseen, can the Minister confirm that each of the past four Home Secretaries to whom he has just paid tribute asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the money required to provide the additional prison places that were necessary, but that the Chancellor of the Exchequer turned a deaf ear to those requests and refused to make the money available?

There are continuing demands on public expenditure, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman will recognise. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has already committed to a building programme for an additional 8,000 places. He has committed today to a further 1,500 places, 500 by January. We have dramatically increased the resource spent on the probation service. Since the right hon. and learned Gentleman was Home Secretary we have increased the resource spent on drug treatment, alcohol treatment, young people’s offending and other issues in the community. It is brass cheek for the right hon. and learned Gentleman, who went into an election committed to a manifesto to cut spending on the Home Office and put it into education and health through the James review, to come to the House and tell me to spend more money on prisons and prison services. While we are speaking of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, in his last year in office, 1,100 people absconded from prison—

Order. The Minister is in order to speak about the history of a Government Department. He was not in order when he was talking about a manifesto. Does he want to continue?

No, Mr. Speaker.

Will my right hon. Friend go into a little more detail on his comments about extending and expanding tough community sentences and their success in reducing offending?

As my hon. Friend knows, under the 2003 Act there are 12 community-based sentences that we can use, including alcohol treatment, home detention curfews, measures related to drug treatment and other sentences. I need to ensure that we expand the public understanding of the benefit of those schemes. They are tough schemes that prevent reoffending, often much more effectively than does prison. As I am trying to do, I need to visit the probation service, sentencers and the Prison Service and promote the idea that community sentencing has a value. In many cases, particularly for low sentences, it is much better at reducing reoffending and it makes community pay-back visible to people in the community. I want to ensure that we promote the benefits of community sentences both to the offender and to the community, for the simple reason that they prevent reoffending. That means, ultimately, that somebody’s garden shed will not have been broken into; somebody will not have been robbed on the street or mugged; and that some event will not have happened that would have caused crime to rise. I support the general drift of the approach that I think my hon. Friend would wish me to take.

The Minister mentioned this matter in his statement. The hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) said that one in seven prisoners were of foreign origin, and it is estimated that up to 25 per cent. of prisoners currently being held should not be there—low-level repeat offenders, people with medical problems, dysfunctional people and people who are not a danger to the community. Will the Minister’s Department undertake an urgent audit to see what kind of numbers can safely be released on to the street?

We are very aware of the foreign prisoner issue, which my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) mentioned. We have an ongoing review that is trying to get people repatriated to their country of origin. The over-stayers issue is equally important; it is a small but significant issue that I mentioned earlier. I certainly want greater emphasis on the point that the hon. Gentleman has made. We need to look at people on sentences of less than 12 months. Although prison can work, for some people who serve two, four, six, eight or 10 weeks, the level of intervention that can take place in prison cannot particularly help in getting on to the path of reduced reoffending. What we can often do through community sentences is bring people face to face with their crime and its consequences, and give community payback, which is also proved to have greater success in reducing reoffending in due course. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support us in pursuing those objectives.

Has the Minister had an opportunity to read the written evidence given by no fewer than 43 different organisations to the inquiry of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, entitled “Towards Effective Sentencing”, much of which argued that there is a range of sensible, workable alternatives to prison that will not put the public in danger?

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. I appeared before the Committee—two weeks ago, I think—to give evidence on behalf of the Government, and I am returning at the end of the inquiry to give further evidence. One of the matters on which I gave evidence was the need to put in prison people who are dangerous, violent or sexual offenders, so that the public can be protected from them. Equally, I emphasised the need for an examination of strong community sentences. We already have in place a very large number of community sentences. I think that we should increase that number if we possibly can and encourage sentencers to do so, not because such sentences reduce the prison population, although being honest, they do, but because they reduce reoffending, which is the most important consideration in bringing forward those ideas.

The Prison Service is full of young men, three quarters of whom have serious alcohol and drug addiction problems; about 60 per cent. of whom come from broken homes; and many of whom have the reading age and numeracy age of a child of 11. What this is really all about is the fact that the Government have known all along that that pool of people has been getting bigger and bigger, and it is therefore no surprise that the prison population has been rocketing, because the Government have done nothing about mending that.

I respect the right hon. Gentleman very much, and I respect his contribution to the debate on tackling some of the causes of crime, such as poverty, social exclusion and dysfunctionality, which very often are contributors to crime issues, but I have to say that I disagree as to how we should approach the matter. I happen to believe that public investment in tackling some of those issues is key and should be increased and looked at in the round. I happen to believe—we can debate this to the ninth degree—that ultimately the Conservative party will continue to reduce public expenditure, which will have a knock-on effect in dealing with some of those issues and in tackling crime.

I understand where the right hon. Gentleman is coming from. He and I know that we need to tackle dysfunctionality, social exclusion and long-term drug issues in particular. We can do that outside the criminal justice system in social policy, and we can do it, in my view effectively, in the criminal justice system through prison. Particularly, we can do it through some of the 2003 criminal justice orders, which will help in the community.

With prisons bursting at the seams and a new Department in charge, this is a watershed at which certain fundamental principles can be re-evaluated. Will the Minister say whether he intends to examine the key performance indicators within which the Prison Service is required to operate, because in the past organisations such as the Prison Reform Trust have criticised the KPIs, arguing that they do not measure whether the needs of the prison population are being met in respect of the distance that prisoners are kept from home and time spent out of cells? Will he revisit that matter, which will respond to sensitive involvement by the new ministerial team?

As my hon. Friend will know, I have been in post for five weeks. I need to examine a number of issues with the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), who has done a good job in the past year. We will examine the performance of the Prison Service with Phil Wheatley and the Prison Service and the National Offender Management Service. The Prison Service is doing a good job of meeting the objectives set by the key performance indicators. We need to keep the matter under review, and I will certainly consider some of the issues that my hon. Friend has mentioned.

Does the Minister accept that in the past 10 years four Home Secretaries have responded to media pressure by taking away discretion on sentencing from the courts and putting them under pressure, which has dramatically increased the prison population to almost double what it was when I was Home Secretary, without paying the slightest heed to the inevitable moment when they would hit the buffers and there was no accommodation? Although I do not know what the new Ministry of Justice is for, except perhaps to make the Minister an innocent victim—he has made a statement about a fiasco for which he is plainly not responsible—will the new Department produce a change of culture in which the platitudes about community sentences and making prison only for those who need it are turned into reality by returning proper discretion to the courts and ensuring that prisons are used only for violent, dangerous and recidivist criminals in conditions in which there is some hope that some of them will be rehabilitated?

I am grateful for the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s concern for my innocent victimhood. I do not regard those ideas as platitudes. I believe in community sentencing and considering how we can prevent reoffending in the long term. We are doing a considerable amount of work and putting extra resources into drug treatment orders, which is much more than what happened when the right hon. and learned Gentleman was in office. There is a big problem with drugs in the United Kingdom today, and we need to examine imaginative ways to deal with it. Drug treatment orders are important.

We are doing a great deal of work on the type of person who is likely to become an offender. When people enter the criminal justice system, they have often gone too far down the line to get them out of it. Perhaps we can achieve a cross-party consensus on some of those issues, and I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman uses his influence on the liberal tendency in his party to make that happen. We can make a difference, and I hope that we will.

As one who does not read the Daily Mail and who views the prospect of 100,000 of my fellow citizens being incarcerated more as a source of national regret than a symbol of political virility, may I compliment my right hon. Friend on having discussed the alternatives? May I draw his attention to the problem of secure accommodation and bail hostels, particularly in west London, where there are no vacant places today. I appreciate that the Minister launched a programme yesterday, but what hope can he give to those justices of the peace who want to place people in bail hostels but who are unable to do so?

My hon. Friend has raised an important point. As he has mentioned, yesterday the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South, announced an increase in the number of bail hostels in the course of this year. The bail hostel places programme will provide approximately 1,000 extra places in the course of this year, and I hope that we can examine the pressures in areas such as west London and make that figure a reality. Those 1,000 places are not cheap, and they are paid for through taxation. We make that our priority; other parties may not.

Is the Minister aware of the contribution to prison overcrowding made by the growing length of time spent in prison by unconvicted remand prisoners? In particular, there has been a big growth in the population of young offenders institutions since 2001. The issue is not more prison places, but more efficient courts.

There is a range of issues. I accept that many people are held on remand, in some cases for very long periods. Again, I cannot generalise. Some people are held on remand because they may ultimately be convicted of serious violent and sexual offences, and the public need that element of protection during the course of the trial process, which can be very long. I hope that in many cases the Ministry of Justice can serve an important function in considering the criminal justice system in terms of the supply side of prisons and community sentences, and in the efficient management of the Courts Service, so that we help to reduce some of the delays that mean that people spend a long time on remand before their conviction or acquittal.

Last week, my constituent, Kenneth Milburn of Enderby, was jailed for five years for illegal possession of handguns. The judge said that the crime did not merit a jail sentence and that he jailed him with “great sadness”. That was the result of poor legislation passed by this House. Mr. Milburn threatened or harmed nobody, and he is unlikely to reoffend. Will the Minister look at that case so that perhaps we can free up a place in prison for a burglar and let out Mr. Milburn, who is unlikely to harm anybody, and who is deaf, 63 and in ill health?

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that I am unable to comment on individual cases that he may bring up. I do not know the details of the case or the circumstances in which the judge considered it. However, the gun legislation is in place for a positive reason—to help to reduce gun crime and its impact. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to write to me with the details of the case, I will look at them and respond as positively as I can.

Does the Minister agree with staff at Dorchester prison, which I recently visited, whose assessment is that one of the main points of entry into prisons of illegal drugs and other contraband is through abuse of the release on licence system? In effect, what happens is that somebody who is released on licence loads themselves up with drugs in every available orifice, commits another offence, and then goes back into the prison having been used as a camel so that the drug material gets in there. I was told that that is the main means by which drugs are now getting into Dorchester prison. In that case, why is the Minister extending the system?

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s point. We need to tackle drug trafficking into prisons, perhaps through a range of measures given the variety of means whereby those drugs get in. Under the current system, 405,259 releases on temporary licence took place in 2005, of which only 339 are failures. The modest extension of the scheme that I announced today will involve about 1,400 individuals. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point very seriously. We need to tackle drugs in prison, and there is a range of ways in which we can undertake that. The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, South, is working hard with the Prison Service to do so. If the hon. Gentleman wishes me to, I will certainly look at some of the evidence regarding the prison in his constituency.

Given that more than 60 per cent. of the 12,000-plus people in our young offenders institutions suffer from speech, language and communication problems that prevent them from accessing education courses, and that the reoffending rate in that category is approximately 80 per cent., will the Minister display real courage and vision in agreeing that every such institution in the country should employ a speech and language therapist so that we can tackle the problem whereby people go into and come out of prison uncommunicative, uneducated, untrained, unqualified, unreformed and unemployed?

The hon. Gentleman makes an exceptional point. A large element among the people who are in prison today face the problems that he mentions. Through his all-party group on speech and language difficulties, he is doing significant work to raise those issues in Parliament. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and I have given him a commitment to consider the matter in detail. It is important that we raise the basic literacy and numeracy levels of people entering prison. We need to create, as I hope we will, greater employability for them on their release, because employability, confidence, literacy and numeracy are the keys to preventing reoffending.

Is this not yet one more blow to honesty in sentencing—the relationship between the nominal sentence and the time spent in prison? For example, how long will someone who receives a sentence of six months’ imprisonment spend in prison if they are released either under the provisions that the Minister announced or home detention curfew?

Again, I cannot go into the details. The reply depends on many factors, including a risk assessment that the prison governor undertakes and the crime that the individual committed. The statement made it clear that serious and dangerous offenders and a range of others will not qualify for any scheme. We will ensure that, when possible, individuals who are reaching the end of their sentence and can return home earlier under licence can also, if recalled in the event of any breaches, be helped to reintegrate into the community at the end of their sentence to help with some of the pressures that we face in the Prison Service and that they face in their daily lives. I cannot comment on the particulars but, if the hon. Gentleman examines the scheme in detail, he will realise that it is effective, operates already and will not pose the danger to the public that many people believe.