Politics latest: Prisoners to be released earlier as jails 'on brink of collapse', minister to announce (2024)

Sir Keir Starmer wraps his first NATO summit but a week since that exit poll dropped predicting his landslide majority.

It has been a whirlwind start, but the prime minister and his team are leaving Nato content that their objectives were met.

The trip had two main aims:

• Carry out some speed-dating diplomacy;
• Set out their foreign policy priorities around Russia, Ukraine, Europe.

One senior government figure told me as the trip drew to a close that it had been "great" to have so many leaders here in the first full week of Starmer's term.

"It's short cut a process that could otherwise have taken months to get round everyone, and meant we could make the most of the momentum coming out of the election and while there was maximum interest in the PM to raise all the strategic issues we wanted to and reset from our predecessors."

In this, there was both continuity and change.

When it comes to NATO and Ukraine, Sir Keir is all about continuity Sunak - re-committing to the £3bn a year of funding already promised, while also urging NATO allies to lift defence spending over time.

In his closing remarks, Sir Keir told NATO allies that "in light of the grave threats to our security, we must go further". He urged allies to lift spending to 2.5% of GDP as he reiterated his pledge to “set out a clear path” to get the UK there - despite telling me in an interview earlier that it would be "unserious" to "simply to pick an arbitrary date".

If he intends to reach the target, he has to make good on the pledge in his first term, and I suspect this will be a theme that keeps running through his defence review and his premiership if he refuses to commit in the first term of office.

It also somewhat undermines his overtures to fellow allies.

But while there is change is over Europe, the new administration is keen to shake off Brexit baggage and reset relations with EU partners after a tense few years between successive Conservative prime ministers and other European capitals over Brexit its execution.

Sir Keir wants to deepen trade, security and defence ties with European neighbours, and viewed this summit as an opportunity to kickstart that work.

But on the edges of this summit, the PM also talked about issues back home - the prisons crisis being the top of his in-tray, with an announcement expected later outlining how the government will tackle the acute shortage of prison places.

As one of the No 10 team put it to me: "We're well aware this is the honeymoon."

It's only going to get harder when they get home.

The prime minister gave a news conference at the NATO summit late last night. But before he took to the podium, US president Joe Biden made a very public gaffe.

The 81-yearold president mistakenly referred to Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin" - triggering gasps in the room, and intensifying calls for him to bow out of the presidential race.

Sir Keir Starmer was asked by Sky's political editor Beth Rigbyif he stood by his comment to her earlier in the day that concerns about his cognitive ability are misjudged.

He replied that the NATO summit was "successful", adding: "He [Biden] led it, he deserves credit for that.

"The outcome that matters is that Ukraine, you know, they are - look at what happened in that hospital last week. They are facing Russian aggression in its physical sense every single day. They are dying every single day, children are dying. And they need are support.

"And [it's] not just support for Ukraine - it is also about our values, and it is about what we stand for. And it's about what NATO values are."

The PM went on to say that the allies reached a declaration at the end of the summit, and added: "President Biden deserves credit for planning this, leading this, and getting us to that stage."

Watch Sir Keir's comments in full here:

The government has just published some new data on prisons ahead of an expected announcement of measures to ease overcrowding.

According to the release, there were just 708 places left in the adult male prison estate on 8 July.

Since the start of 2023, 60 out of 69 weeks have seen the occupancy rate higher than 99%.

Overall, the population of adult male prisons has increased by around 60 people per week on average.

That increase in the prison population is despite theEnd of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) that was first announced in October 2023, allowing some prisoners to be freed 18 days before their conditional release date.

That wasincreased to 35 days in March, and then to 70 days in May.

Data shows that between 17 October 2023 and 30 June of this year, 10,083 people were released under the programme.

The government is expected to expand early releases to ease the prison population, with some prisoners to be freed after serving just 40% of their sentences, rather than 50%.

We reported a little earlier that four people died while attempting to cross the English Channel to the UK from France overnight (see post at 7.59).

The home secretary has just issued a statement, describing the loss of life as "truly awful", saying: "My thoughts are with all those affected."

Yvette Cooper added: "Criminal gangs are making vast profit from putting lives at risk.

"We are accelerating action with international partners to pursue and bring down dangerous smuggler gangs."

By Tim Baker, political reporter

Sir Keir Starmer has "doubled down" on his promise to hold a free vote on assisted dying in the future.

The new prime minister has not committed to a timeline for considering a change of law, although hinted it may not be in the coming year.

But his stance is that MPs will be able to choose to vote with their conscience, rather than along party lines.

Speaking on his trip to NATO in the US, the new prime minister was asked when he would hold the vote he had previously promised on the topic.

He said: "What I said was that we would provide time for this, obviously by way of a private member's bill."

A private member's bill is a proposed change of law suggested in the Commons by an MP and not on behalf of the government.

The prime minister added: "There'll be a free vote - that remains my position for reasons I set out.

"Having probably got more experience in this than most people having personally, looked at, tens of cases in my time as director of public prosecutions.

"As to the timing of it. I haven't made a commitment on that, and I don't want to because... It's just, we've got to set our priorities for the first year or so.

"But I will double down on the commitment that we are going to do that. We will allow time for a private member's bill. It will be a free vote."

Read the PM's full comments here:

We've just been hearing from former justice secretary Sir Robert Buckland ahead of the new government's expected announcement of measures to ease prison overcrowding.

Sir Robert lost his seat at the general election last week, and he clarified that he is not speaking on behalf of the Conservative Party, but rather as someone who has worked in the justice system for many years.

Asked for his view on the expected announcement that certain prisoners will be released after serving 40% of their sentences, rather than the current 50%, he replied: "I don't think any of us should say that it's a great thing. I think all of us want to see certainty in sentencing."

He said the most serious offenders are not part of this early release scheme, and advised the new justice secretary to "make sure that we aren't releasing people who could pose a risk, particularly domestic abusers, stalkers, though those type of offenders".

We asked why the issue of prison overcrowding was allowed to get so bad, and he admitted that when he was in post in from 2019 to 2021, he "was constantly battling and making sure that we didn't exceed capacity".

"The prison system is always run, as we say, in a very hot way - 98% of the prison estate will be full at any one time, and the prison building programme... is coming forward, but not at a pace that is quick enough, I think, to meet demand."

He blamed the "slow" planning system for the failure to build new prisons.

Sir Robert said he wants to hear more than a "sticking plaster" from the new government today, but a long-term plan for the system.

He also warned against "sending mixed messages about punishment", saying it is"not a good way, frankly, to start a penal policy".

Sir Keir Starmer has refused to put a date on when he will increase defence spending to 2.5% of national income.

The prime minister is under pressure to match the timeframe set out by the last Conservative government, which said it would increase spending by 2030 in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the rising threats posed by China and Iran.

Speaking to Sky News's political editor Beth Rigby, Sir Keir said it was "right to say" that European nations were going to have to "put more in" to their defence budgets and that such discussions formed the "big theme" of the NATO summit in Washington DC that he attended with US President Joe Biden.

But asked repeatedly whether he would commit to increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP "by the end of the parliament", the prime minister said he thought it would be "unserious... to simply pick an arbitrary date".

He said the figure was a "serious commitment" and that he wanted to "set out a roadmap to it within our fiscal rules".

"I'm not going to put a date on it because it's going to be within our fiscal rules," he continued.

Read more from the PM's interview with Sky News here:

Four people have died while attempting to cross the English Channel to the UK from France.

The French coastguard confirmed the deaths after a boat capsized and said 63 migrants had been rescued during a crossing attempt overnight.

The deaths were first reported by the French newspaper La Voix Du Nord and the broadcaster BFM TV, who cited local authorities.

Large numbers of people have continued to cross the Channel this year.

Last month,almost 900 people made the journey in a single day.

With certain prisoners set to be released earlier to ease overcrowding, we asked Mark Icke, the vice president of the Prison Governors' Association, about the risk to the public.

He said there is "always a risk [in] releasing every prisoner", but they conduct "rigorous risk assessments" when releases are considered.

"And for some prisoners, you know, we work with parole boards, we work with the probation service, and we work with outside agencies as well about resettling prisoners back into the community.

"So with every release, there is always a certain amount of risk. But we have very good risk assessment processes in place.

"And, you know, governors up and down the country and their staff are working incredibly hard right now, risk assessing thousands of prisoners."

Mr Icke called more broadly for a review of sentencing and the use of prisons, along with an increased emphasis on rehabilitation.

"Rehabilitation has to be at the forefront of how we use prison because, you know, whether you like it or not, these guys and women are going to be released at some point, and they could end up being your neighbour.

"So do you want somebody that pays into a prosocial environment and have a positive impact on the community, or do you want them to come out with no hope? And I certainly would want something that's more hopeful."

He also said they would welcome more prison stock, as well as existing ones being improved.

We've just been speaking with Mark Icke, the vice president of the Prison Governors' Association, and we started by asking for his view of the situation in prisons at the moment.

He told us: "There's no way of describing it other than it is a crisis. Overcrowding is the worst I've ever experienced."

He said that since he joined the service in the late 1990s, "it's got to a pretty shocking state where we've got more people in custody than we can really deal with".

Mr Icke agreed with the prime minister that the blame "absolutely" lies with the previous government.

"We were warning them for some time and working very closely with ministerial teams. And for whatever reason, they never got it over the line," he said.

He welcomed the expected move from the new justice secretary to release certain prisoners after serving 40% of their sentences, rather than 50%, saying they had been campaigning for it "for some time" in order to ease pressure.

"I think the general public were probably slightly unaware that prisoners are released around the 50% mark anyway, listening to some of the conversations that we've held. And so 40% is welcomed by us."

He added: "We would hope to give us a bit of breathing space in the system in order for us to start working with prisoners in a more sort of proactive way."

Asked what he would say to those opposed to early release on the basis people are imprisoned for a reason, Mr Icke replied that he would agree "to some extent", because "we all deserve to feel safe".

But he said: "We've got to a point where we've got so many people in custody that we're near a total collapse of the criminal justice system."