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'Pathetic' for Labour to blame anyone but themselves for prisoner manhunts, says senior Tory · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This is an absolute mess. No one's going to disagree
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: with that. Who's to blame? Do you reckon? Well?
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: First of all, I think David Lammy should have given
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: an honest and straightforward answer in the House of Commons today.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: He was asked five times by my colleague James Cartilage
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: about the accidental release of prisoners. Five times he was
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: asked and instead of giving a straightforward answer, he blustered,
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: he shouted, he frankly didn't attend, didn't properly answer the
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: question at all. It now turns out that not only
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: were two prisoners in the last few days accidentally released
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: early from Wandsworth Prison, it turns out that he actually
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: had a folder in his possession at PMQ's as he
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: was standing there with the details of those early prisoner releases,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: certainly one of them which he found out about last night.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: And even though he was standing there with the details
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: in a folder, he did not say anything, and he
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: subsequently tried to justify that by saying, oh, the police
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: didn't want it released, or the police have since come
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: out and confirmed they had no objection to the probation
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: being disclosed. This is basically about transparency and.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: It is but it's also a little bit of a process.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: And we were talking about the accidental release the two
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: prisoners here, and I'm asking you who is to blame?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Rather than who said what and when? This is much
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: more about who do you think is to blame?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it is about honesty actually, because he
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: was asked questions in front of the whole country at
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Prime Minister's Questions and he didn't give an honest answer.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: So it is actually also about honesty, about integrity, about
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: being upfront with the public instead of trying to hide it,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: as David Lammy clearly did. I've just been in Parliament
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: just now calling for him to come back to the Chamber,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: back to Parliament to give a full explanation of himself
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: and explain why it was I didn't give us the reason.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I'm asking the question about who is to blame because
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of people, frankly, to blame for this.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: One of them might be One's worth. Prisons itself. It's
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: been in special measures since April twenty twenty four, and
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: previously it's not had a great record. That was when
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: you guys were in government. The point here is the
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: wider point is the Prison Service has been in a
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: state for quite a long period of time. I mean
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: hundreds of prisoners were accidentally released when you guys were
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: in government. Well, the Labor how were you rushing to
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Parliament to make statements?
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Well, I think you know, when Conservative ministers were asked
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: a straightforward question, they usually gave a pretty straightforward answer
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: with David Lammy someth didn't do. Look, the Labor government
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: has now been in office for getting on for a
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: year and a half, so I think it's pretty pretty
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: pretty pathetic to try and for them to try and
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: blame anybody apart from themselves in relation to foreign offenders.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: So the first offender released accidentally from Wandsworth last week
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: an Algerian national, And there was also obviously the notorious
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: case of the Ethiopian man who sexually assaulted a fourteen
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: year old girl in Epping removed recently. In those cases
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: where you have a foreign national, my view is that
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: when a foreign national completes their sentence, they should all
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: be immediately removed from the country.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: But happened when you guys were let's look at this,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: so one's worth prison was and special measures when you
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: were in government. Second of all, we know this. You
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: talk to expersson officers, talk to ex governors. They say,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the big problem of the last couple of decades is
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of experienced prison staff have left, and they
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: left because you cut the budget they just did. The
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: reason is that we have got a lot of inexperienced
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: prison officers now because lots of them left while you
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: were in government.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Well, and a lot we're recruited as well. More prisons
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: got built in not experience. So look, I come back
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: to the point of made. We're a year and a
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: half now into this labor government. This is this is
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: on their watch. They didn't start in government last week
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: or last month. They've been in power for a year
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: and a half now, they've had plenty of time to
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: make the changes they may want to make. Now we've
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: got new leadership. We've got a new leader, We've got
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: a new shadow Home Secretary, which is me. Neither of us,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: neither Kemi was Prime Minister nor was I Home Secretary before.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: We have a new approach, which in relation to foreign criminals,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: is that we should come out of the ECCHR, the
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: European Convention on Human Rights, and that will mean we
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: can immediately deport not just some, but all foreign offenders
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: as soon as they are eligible for release. And that
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: means this question of accidentally releasing people into the community
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: would not arise.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, So coming back to essentially why we're in this situation,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: So I'll go through it again. Once was in prison
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: was and special measures when you were in government. The
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: number of prison officers were cut when you were in
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: government and lost of experience officers left. And now get
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: down to the crux of the matter, which is how
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: many prison places net prison places were made when you
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: guys were in government for fourteen years? Do you know
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the answer to that?
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: No, I don't. I don't know that, but I do know.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Well, i'll tell you that. We said, okay, well, i'll
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: tell you it was five hundreds. Population in this country
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: increased by millions of people over that period, and you
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: increased prison places by.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Five how much? And you hang on me, I ask you,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: do you know how much crime went down by over
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: that fourteenth period fifty years?
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: And what did you have to do at the end
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: of your government? You had to release prisoners early because
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: there were not enough spaces to refer to the labor
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: party tonight, they may well have responsibility for this. David
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Lammy may have questions to answer, but the prison servers
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: was an absolute mess when you left it in twenty
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: twenty July twenty twenty four. That's that is a fact.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: It was a mess. Everyone who worked in the prison
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: service said it was a mess.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Well, okay, I mean you may assert that, but we
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: did have more people in prison than ever be We
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: had record numbers of police officers one hundred and forty
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: nine thousand, seven hundred and sixty nine to be precise,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: and overall crime had fallen by about fifty percent according
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: to the Crime Survey of England and Wales. But look,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: to be honest with you, that is in the past.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Labour have been empowered for a year and a half
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: and you repeated your questions are repeat my point. Labour
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: have been in power for a year and a half.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: They must take responsibility for the failures that they are
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: presiding over. And for David Lammy to be asked a
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: straightforward question five times and not to answer it, even
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: though he had the information in a folder in his file,
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I think is disgraceful. It's hiding things from the public.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: He has been found out in a pretty bad way,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: he needs to apologize and get himself back to Parliament
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: this evening to explain himself.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, Chris, phil thank you very much. Indeed, thank thank you,