Keir Starmer ‘wasn’t sure’ if the UK’s overcrowded courts and prison systems would be able to handle the rioting crisis when disturbances broke out three weeks ago, a senior Labour figure has said.
Pat McFadden, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, revealed that the PM was alarmed by how much harder it was to deal with widespread rioting this summer than it was in 2011, when he was Director of Public Prosecutions. In a speech on Tuesday, Mr Starmer will warn that things will get worse before they get better as he highlights the scale of the challenge facing the new Government.
Mr McFadden told BBC Breakfast: “What he’ll say is that because of the inheritance that we had, the awful state of the prisons, the overcrowding, at times he just wasn’t sure if the system could handle the disturbances that we were seeing. He will also praise the courts for stepping up to the plate, for making sure that those responsible were swiftly tried and sentenced. That’s really, really important.
(
Getty Images)
“But he will use that as an example to say we haven’t just inherited an economic problem, we’ve inherited a society problem.” Days after coming to power Labour announced that thousands of inmates will be freed after serving 40% of their sentence, rather than 50%, in order to free up prison spaces.
And an emergency operation was triggered in parts of Northern England last Monday as jails were at risk of running out of beds. Operation Early Dawn allows defendants to be kept in police cells until a prison space is available.
More than 1,600 people have been arrested in connection with rioting, which broke out at the end of July. The Government launched swift sentencing to deter more disorder.
In his speech on Tuesday the PM will say: “Things are worse than we ever imagined. In the first few weeks, we discovered a £22 billion black hole in the public finances. And don’t let anyone say that this is performative, or playing politics.”
And he will warn: “Frankly – things will get worse before we get better. I didn’t want to release prisoners early. I was Chief Prosecutor for five years, it goes against the grain of everything I’ve ever done.
“But to be blunt, if we hadn’t taken that difficult decision immediately, we wouldn’t have been able to respond to the riots as we did.”