The justice minister responsible for Violence Against Women and Girls, Alex Davies-Jones, has said she is still ‘concerned’ about her own government’s early release scheme. Asked on Sky News if she was concerned “about what it means for violence against women and girls,” Davies-Jones said even Burnham’s tweaks aren’t enough:
“Yes, I am, being quite blunt. That’s why I am determined to work with probation, with our victim support agencies and with our police to ensure all of the measures we’ve announced as part of that early release scheme are put into practice. Whether that is a presumption of tagging, working on our world-first restriction zones to prevent perpetrators from leaving a specific area, or working with our victim liaison officers on trauma-informed communication to victims and survivors about the date their perpetrator is being released. All of this needs to be put in place, and that is my focus right now: implementing it ahead of October…
We were really clear as a government that if we could have gone further on the exemptions, we would have. We have exempted rape, child grooming offences, child sexual abuse, murder and any unlawful killing. If we could have gone further, we would have. But the impact on our prisons and the crisis in prison capacity right now is such that we just couldn’t…
Release doesn’t mean freedom. I want to be really clear to the viewers who will be nervous about this. When they are released from prison after serving a third of their sentence, that doesn’t mean freedom. There will be a presumption of geotagging. There will be a presumption of restriction zones. And that support for victims and survivors is there.”
Who is buying Labour’s line that probation officers – who do not work 24-hour days – will be responsible for running what are essentially open-air prisons on the streets of Britain? Unsustainable…
Andy Haldane, Burnham’s recent adviser on the economy who has not taken up a No10 job, told Andrew Marr on LBC:
“The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better TikTok videos…
imposing windfall taxes on oil & gas or on banks or upping capital gains tax would […] repeat the mistake that Rachel made […] The Achilles heel, the fiscal Achilles heel of this government thus far has been its unwillingness and/or inability to cut public spending.”