We inherited a set of contracts from the previous Government, some of which are not performing as we would like, particularly in the areas of maintenance and electronic tagging. The Prisons Minister in the other place is gripping this situation and driving progress, with regular meetings to review performance.

I pay tribute to the essential work that our prison officers do, day in, day out. This year’s pay award delivered another real-terms pay rise for our frontline prison staff. We are committed to effective training and development of existing staff, as delivered through the Enable programme, alongside the provision of extensive wellbeing services.

Prison officers benefit from the civil service pension scheme, which offers excellent public sector terms, low employee contributions and a 28.97% employer contribution, but we recognise that pension age is an important issue for prison officers. That is why we are fully engaged with the unions on this issue.

Me again, Mr Speaker. We are determined to back our hard-working probation staff by investing up to £700 million, which is a 45% increase in funding. We have already exceeded this year’s target by recruiting over 1,000 trainees. We will recruit another 1,300 more probation officers in 2025-26.

Halving knife crime is a moral mission for the Government. Every young person caught with a knife is referred to a youth offending team, and Turnaround is very successful in diverting youngsters on the cusp of crime away from offending. Alongside that, the Government will roll out prevention partnerships and Young Futures hubs.

Work to implement the power to refer cases to the High Court is well advanced, and we expect to be able to fully update the House later this year.

My hon. Friend asks a good question. In England, prison education contracts are awarded following a rigorous commercial process that awards providers on merit. I understand that PeoplePlus has been awarded education contracts for Scottish prisons, but that would be a matter for the Scottish Government.

The Government are determined to reduce youth reoffending as part of our safer streets mission. Despite the fiscal challenges we inherited, we have increased our core funding to youth offending teams and extended our effective Turnaround programme.

We inherited a system in which far too many people leave prison with no fixed address. Individuals in community accommodation service tier 3 are risk-assessed by probation and subject to ongoing monitoring. Suppliers work closely with probation to deal robustly with any behavioural concerns posed by residents.

It is a long-standing tradition in this country that people are free to peacefully protest and demonstrate their views provided they do so within the law. When people break the law, sentencing is a matter for the courts, which have a range of powers to deal with offenders effectively and appropriately.

Mr Speaker, I hear your words very clearly. I very much respect the role of Parliament and I am pleased to be here today to follow up the written ministerial statement that was laid yesterday by the Lord Chancellor.

This Government’s plan to support women is clear and ambitious. The aim is to reduce the number of women going to prison, and our Women’s Justice Board will lead on this. Following Susannah Hancock’s review, which was published in March, this Government have acted to prevent girls from being held in young offenders institutions.

This year, the Department will provide more than £1 million in funding to the Staffordshire youth offending team to supervise children and support them in turning their back on a life of crime.

The Government are determined to reduce youth reoffending as part of our safer streets mission. Despite the huge fiscal challenges we inherited, we have been able to increase our core funding to youth offending teams across the country, allowing them to support children away from crime.

I am happy to write to my hon. Friend on the detail of the data collection and remind him that we have a sentencing review in process that will be looking at all of those things.

The Ministry of Justice recognises the benefits of mentoring in resettlement and is currently reviewing our approach to peer mentoring to make sure it is consistent and effective. There are many excellent organisations delivering a range of peer-led rehabilitation support, including Ingeus, Wizer and the Wise Group.

This Government inherited a prison system on the verge of collapse. Under the last Government, in 14 years only 500 prison places were produced. Under the last Labour Government, there was a net increase of 27,830 prison places in 13 years. We are redoubling our efforts to match that number.

We took immediate action to prevent the collapse of the prison system by implementing SDS40. We are building 14,000 new prison places and have published our 10-year capacity strategy. We have launched an independent sentencing review, so that we never run out of prison places again.

The right hon. Lady is right to raise this issue. We inherited historic under-investment in maintenance and a rising prison population. That is why we have already published our 10-year prison capacity strategy and have plans to invest £220 million in prison and probation service maintenance in ’24-25, and up to £300 million in ’25-26.

We are mandating careers advice in prisons and introducing a life skills curriculum. All released prisoners have access to an employment advisory board that can connect prisoners with work, and banking and ID administrators are preparing prisoners for life after prison.

We will expand our transitional accommodation service and launch employment councils to strengthen the relationship between employers and HM Prison and Probation Service.

My hon. Friend is right to ask this question. Under the previous Government, a process was already under way to put in place new contracts for prison maintenance. We need to make sure that those contracts deliver good value for the public purse.

One of the very first actions of the Government was to accept the Prison Service pay review body’s independent recommendations in full, delivering a pay increase of 5% for prison officers. In addition, we monitor exit interview data and use it to help design interventions to improve retention.

By immediately reducing prison overcrowding, we have made prisons safer to work in. We have also accepted the 5% pay award recommended for prison officers in full.

The young futures programme will be a prevention-first approach to crime reduction, building on the Department’s successful turnaround programme. I was very pleased to visit the first secure school which will put education at its heart, ensuring children in custody turn their lives around.

Good reducing reoffending activity cannot happen in overcrowded prisons, which is why we took immediate action to relieve the pressure. This will allow for better access to purposeful activity, which we all know reduces reoffending.

With this Government’s scheme, unlike the previous Government’s rushed scheme, we are giving our excellent staff time to work with national and local housing partners to minimise any impact on local authorities.

We have reduced overcrowding to ensure that prisons have the capacity to focus on education and training. For example, HMP Highpoint’s state-of-the-art rail centre of excellence gives prisoners industry-standard training and guaranteed employment on release.

The right to protest is an important part of our democracy, but it has to be exercised within the law. Sentencing in individual cases is, of course, a matter for independent courts.

The hon. Member is right that drugs in prison is a big issue that the Government are working hard to tackle. I would be very happy to write to her with further details of what we are doing.