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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Gove says he wants to see prison numbers fall - Politics live

Michael Gove, the justice secretary, says he wants to see the number of people in jail falling
Michael Gove, the justice secretary, says he wants to see the number of people in jail falling Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

Summary

  • Michael Gove, the justice secretary, has said he wants to see the number of people in prison fall. (See 10.10am.)
  • Justine Greening, the international development secretary, has said that Russia’s military intervention in Syria has exacerbated the refugee crisis driving more civilians to flee the country. Speaking to journalists, she said:

If you look at the Russian action that is taking place in northern Syria at the moment and that the most likely flows from that would be north up through Turkey, then there is the real concern of upward pressure on the Syrian refugee crisis more broadly. There is no doubt that the increased military action is putting more pressure on ordinary civilians who have already had four years of military action in Syria.

  • The Spectator has hedged its bets by naming David Cameron parliamentarian of the year and Jeremy Corbyn campaigner of the year in its annual awards. And here are the others.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

On Twitter a reader points out that Ian Dunt has a good commentary on the House of Lords pornography debate on his Twitter timeline.

Peers debate pornography

I’m back from my stint on the Sharm el-Sheikh blog.

In the House of Lords a debate is underway on the impact of pornography on society. I have not been following it, but luckily colleagues are on the case. Here are some highlights.

Before the debate the House of Lords library produced an eight-page briefing note on the subject (pdf). (But don’t read it in the hope of finding some smut, because you’ll be disappointed.)

The Bishop of Chester

Lord McColl, a Conservative and former doctor

Lord Giddens, a Labour peer and academic

Bishop of Bristol

Lord Farmer, a Conservative

Lord Cormack, a Conservative

Lady Murphy, a crossbencher and former doctor

The Ukip MEP Patrick O’Flynn is a bit worried by Michael Gove’s prison speech. (See 10.10am.)

I’m off to the lobby briefing now.

And then I will be posting what Number 10 is saying about Sharm el-Sheikh, and covering Patrick McLoughlin’s Commons statement, on the our Sharm el-Sheikh live blog. That means I will not be posting again here until after 1.30pm.

Gove says people who commit crimes may have grown up in 'moral poverty', as well as actual poverty

Conor James McKinney, a legal writer for Full Fact, has been in touch to say that he was also tweeting highlights from Michael Gove’s speech last night. He has some lines that the Howard League (see 10.10am) Here they are.

  • Gove says people who commit crimes may have grown up in “moral poverty”, as well as actual poverty.

UPDATE: After I posted a tweet about this last point, Conor James McKinney sent me a clarification.

Updated

The Resolution Foundation released some details of its analysis last night about George Osborne could afford to abandon his planned tax credit cuts. But that the event this morning (where Frank Field was speaking) it has produced further figures to boost its case.

Here are some of the key charts from its presentation.

  • The Resolution Foundation said that having a higher minimum wage and bringing forward the planned personal tax allowance increase would not make much difference. It has estimated that, under Osborne’s original plans, 3.3m families would lose £1,300 each next year. Even with a higher “national living wage” and the £12,500 tax allowance coming in in 2016 (at a cost to the Treaury of £9bn), instead of by 2020 as planned, families on tax credits would still lose £900 on average.
  • It says the impact of the tax credit cuts are very regressive. This chart shows who benefits from the “national living wage” and tax cuts (all income groups, roughly equally - the light brown bars on the chart) and how loses from the tax credit changes (the poor - the dark and light blue bars on the chart).
  • It says the government’s plans to increase the tax allowance to £12,00 and the higher rate tax threshold to £50,000 are highly regressive.

Frank Field tells George Osborne how he should reform tax credits

Frank Field, the Labour chair of the Commons work and pensions committee, has been speaking at a Resolution Foundation event this morning. It is the one where the thinktank is presenting new research explaining how the Treasury could afford to abandon its plans to cut tax credits. In his speech, Field said George Osborne should use the tax credits debacle as an opportunity for serious tax credits reform.

Here are the key points.

  • Field criticised the Treasury for refusing to release proper information about the impact of the proposed tax credit cuts.

The Treasury appears to be operating a policy of non-cooperation. Every attempt to gain information, every parliamentary question tabled, is batted back with the same tired old response that the answer could only be gained at ‘disproportionate cost’.

One example is the numbers of low earners who roll on and off tax credits each year. The Centre for Social Justice, who have contributed their own proposals to protect low earners as well as their own welfare reform creation, universal credit, say that by 2020 only 9 per cent of people currently on tax credits will still have a live tax credit claim.

But the Treasury’s policy of non-cooperation means we cannot say with any certainty how many of today’s tax credit claimants will either have migrated to universal credit or floated off in-work benefits by earning higher wages.

  • He said that Osborne should avoid trying to mitigate the impact of the tax credit cuts by increasing the tax allowance or the national insurance threshold.

The chancellor must resist the urge to shower any new money on the whole working population. Any moves to increase the personal allowance, or increase the national insurance threshold, whilst welcome in themselves as part of a general budget strategy, would not compensate the 3.2m low earners who stand to lose out from his current tax credit reforms. Their losses would largely remain undiminished by changing the thresholds.

The only way the chancellor will be able to protect those children in families who currently stand to lose out is by changing his proposals to reform the tax credit system itself.

  • Field said that, having been forced to conduct a rethink on tax credits, Osborne should take the opportunity to introduce “serious tax credits reform”.

The unholy tax credit muddle offers the chancellor the possibility of becoming a serious welfare reformer.

The muddle the chancellor is in results from his starting point of aiming simply to save £4.4bn. The inability of the chancellor to get his tax credit cuts through the House of Lords allows him to ask a different question: ‘How do I transform the role of tax credits from one that was a general subsidy to low wages to one that will become a benefit to poorer children, underpinned by a national living wage strategy?’

  • He said Osborne should transform tax credits into a benefit intended to help low-paid people for children. Tax credits for workers without children should be phased out by 2020, Field said, although he said that there might have to be some “transitional protection” after that date for people unable to increase the number of hours they work. By 2020 the “national living wage” should be £9 an hour, he said, and this should be the key measure helping this group. Instead tax credits should be focused on those with children, he said.

This move is no silver bullet, but it would kick-start a wider reform programme by bringing tax credits back to their original conception. This was to ensure that the money earned by individuals with children, together with child benefit and the tax credits, would afford them a higher standard of living than the childless, and those out of work and dependent on benefits.

  • He said that jobcentre staff should actively help claimants focus on increasing their earnings. And, to give them an incentive, people should be able to increase their earnings by up to £5,000 over 18 months without losing tax credit, he said.

Both for the childless, and for tax credit claimants with children, the Department for Work and Pensions should build up the capacity to offer tax credit claimants the first of what might become a whole series of job coaching support exercises.

Claimants enrolling on this pay progression scheme would be invited into Jobcentre Plus to discuss how they might increase their earnings over the next few years.

It would be in the interest of all claimants to engage fully and therefore the interviews need not be made mandatory.

At these interviews Jobcentre Plus staff should offer a package of support so that individuals can begin to transform what they earn. For some this may be difficult at the current time, and for others it may be impossible, but all working tax credit recipients should be offered the same deal.

The aim would be for Jobcentre Plus staff to work with claimants to find new job opportunities paying higher wages, or to negotiate with existing employers to be able to work longer hours in the same firm.

The incentives should be clear; raising claimants’ pay by up to £5,000 within any 18 month period should be free of any loss in tax credit entitlements. The chancellor should therefore extend the time over which this ‘income disregard’ would count and reverse the decision to halve this disregard to £2,500.

Frank Field
Frank Field Photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/REX Shutterstock

Updated

Michael Gove's prison speech - Highlights

The Ministry of Justice has not got a text of Michael Gove’s speech. He was speaking off the cuff, although a transcript may be available later.

But the Howard League posted the highlights on Twitter. Here they are.

  • Gove says rehabilitation is the most important task for prisons. He suggests that role is even more important than the part prisons play in protecting the public.
  • Gove confirms he wants to give prison governors more operational freedom.

HL is the Howard League.

  • Gove says he wants to see prison numbers fall.
  • Gove says he wants to close insanitary Victorian prisons.
  • Gove says he would like to see more prisoners using body cameras.

The Harris review said understaffing in prisons was contributing to suicide levels.

Dame Sally Coates is conducting a review of education in prisons.

John Howard was an eighteenth century prison reformer after whom the Howard League was named.

When Michael Gove gave evidence to the Commons justice committee in July for the first time as justice secretary, he was specifically asked if he wanted to see more people in jail, or fewer people in jail. He ducked the question, saying that it was up to the courts to decide what sentences they handed out.

Last night, speaking to the Howard League for Penal Reform, Gove gave a different answer. He said that, over time, he did want the prison population to fall.

What has changed? Well, for a start he has had more time to think about his approach to the job. When he gave evidence to the justice committee in July, it was clear that he was still feeling his way into his new brief.

But since July we’ve also had a clear indication from David Cameron that he rejects the ‘lock ‘em up and throw away the key’ approach to penal policy beloved of many traditional Conservatives. In his conference speech Cameron devoted a large section to the need for penal reform, and he explicitly acknowledged the limitations of jail. He told the Tories:

There’s another service run by the state that all too often fails and entrenches poverty.

Prison.

At Westminster attention is focused his morning on the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s, visit to Downing Street, and the repercussions of the government’s surprise decision to suspend British flights to and from Sharm el-Sheikh because it believes a bomb may have caused the crash of a Russian plane that left the airport on Saturday. But we’ve got a separate live blog focusing exclusively on that story, and so I will be leaving that to my colleague Matthew Weaver.

Otherwise the most interesting story to emerge overnight comes from Michael Gove, the justice secretary, who told the Howard League for Penal Reform last night that he wanted to cut the number of people in jail in England and Wales. He said:

Obviously I’d like to see the prison population fall over time. I believe the best way we can do that is by dealing effectively with those offenders who are in our care at the moment, through effective rehabilitation.

I’ll cover more from the speech, and the reaction to it, as the morning goes on.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.30am: Frank Field, the Labour chair of the work and pensions committee, speaks at a Resolution Foundation event where the thinktank is publishing a report on five alternative measures George Osborne could take that would allow him to abandon his planned tax credit cuts.

Around 11.30am: Patrick McLoughlin, the transport secretary, is expected to make a statement in the Commons about Sharm el-Sheikh.

Around 12.30pm: The Spectator holds his parliamentarian of the year awards.

12.45pm: Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, holds a press conference as the Bank publishes its quarterly inflation report. My colleague Graeme Wearden is covering this on his business live blog.

As usual, I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on@AndrewSparrow.

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