Burnham says he’s ‘increasingly confident’ PC Harper’s killers will stay in jail under revised early release scheme
Andy Burnham has written a post on his Facebook account about the prisoner early release scheme. Explaining why he has asked Alex Norris to come up with further plans, he says he is “increasingly confident” that the government will be able to revise the scheme so that PC Andrew Harper’s killers remain in jail.
He says:
I understand the depth of public concern about the potential early release of those involved with the killing of PC Andrew Harper – and I share it.
I fully appreciate the anguish of Andrew’s family and, more broadly, of all those victims and their families who may see those who caused them such harm not serve their full sentence.
It is incumbent on me as prime minister to do everything within my power to minimise that possibility. And I am determined to do so.
I have spent recent days considering in depth all of the issues involved and the range of advice I have received. I have been pushing for further progress. I have not accepted that it is impossible to do more.
As a result, I have asked the justice secretary to fast-track the development of a plan for presentation to parliament early next month to create more headroom within the prison system.
It will be based on a range of options including the three strands of further work I asked him to initiate last week: increasing the rate of removal of foreign national offenders from the prison estate to their country of origin; finding an early resolution to the long-running injustice of IPP sentences, which could allow for the release of lower-risk prisoners; and making greater use of the entire prison estate including using the female estate for male offenders.
I am increasingly confident that a more focused approach along these lines will allow us to reduce the number of people released early and, in the case of the most serious offenders like those convicted of the killing of PC Harper, prevent their early release altogether.
In advance of the justice secretary’s proposals being presented to parliament, we will seek to engage other political parties in discussions with the aim of gaining the widest possible public and political consensus on the approach being taken.
Murderers have always been exempt and our actions have already ensured that rapists, serious child sex offenders and those convicted of grooming offences will never be released early.
And today I have shown a determination to go further. However, I recognise that, even with all these changes, there will be concerns from many victims about who will still be released early for other offences. I am doing all I can, but it is simply not possible to prevent all offenders from being released early without the prison system collapsing.
Key events
Scottish Green MSP apologises for hurt caused by rape ‘spectrum’ comment
Yesterday we reported the calls for the Scottish Greens to withdraw the whip from their MSP Q Manivannan over their comment about rape being a “spectrum”. Manivannan, who is non-binary and who uses they/them pronouns, has now apologised for the comments, which were in a podcast made before they became an MSP.
As the BBC reports, they said:
I recognise that the words in the clip shared, without the full context of the conversation, have caused considerable upset.
For that I apologise. I will always stand with and for victims and survivors …
I would never seek to diminish or dismiss any survivor’s experience, or to make anyone feel that their pain was not heard or understood.
Tories, Lib Dems and Reform UK claim Burnham’s measures not enough to revive high streets
Andy Burnham did not want to be talking about prisons today. As Aletha Adu and Alexandra Topping report, the PM wants to highlight new powers to stop betting and vape shops taking over their high streets.
As with some of Burnham’s other early announcements, today’s initiative is an extension of one already in the pipeline. Here is the news release from last year when Keir Starmer’s government announced councils getting powers to “block gambling and vape shops on their high street”.
The opposition parties say today’s measures don’t go far enough.
This is from James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary.
Everyone can see what has happened to our high streets, with once-treasured shops being replaced by a smattering of rogue operators, many of which have links to organised crime and fraud.
Labour’s business rates hikes have hollowed out our high streets, driving out the shops people want and leaving empty units for whoever is left standing to fill. Conservatives would cut business rates for high street firms and back the small businesses that give a town centre its character.
This is from Max Wilkinson, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesperson.
Unless he beefs up powers to properly crack down on cowboy vape shops and dodgy operators, Burnham’s plan could go up in a puff of smoke.
Our high streets are in crisis, so rolling the dice and keeping his fingers crossed these minor changes are enough simply won’t win the hand. He should scrap the failed business rates system and urgently give sweeping new powers to councils so high streets can prosper and trading standards officers can permanently shut repeat offenders.
And this is from Robert Jenrick, the Reform UK Treasury spokesperson.
Until this government scraps the jobs tax, addresses sky-high business rates and provides real, fundamental support for high street businesses, this policy will only create even more empty shops on our high streets.
Preventing businesses from opening only works if the government and local councils make it attractive for the right kind of shops to open in their place. Labour is doing the opposite by making life harder for small, legitimate businesses to operate on our high streets.
Debbie Adlam, the mother of PC Andrew Harper, told the BBC this morning that she had a “bit of hope” about her son’s killers being excluded from the early release scheme followng a call from Downing Street about this last night.
Referring to a conversation with a member of the PM’s staff, Adlam told BBC Breakfast:
She said that he wanted to convey that he wants to do everything that he can and has more hope now of finding a resolution to this to try and keep them in prison.
I think the fact that it’s actually come from Downing Street – I’ve got to try and have some faith in it, but at the same time, I have to protect my own feelings.
Adlam said she had been on an emotional rollercoaster.
It’s just been up and down. It’s just the rollercoaster of just hope, not even more than that is really, really draining. We’ve now got a little bit of hope that we didn’t have before.
She was speaking before Burnham posted his latest message on Facebook. (See 9.58am.)
Burnham says he’s ‘increasingly confident’ PC Harper’s killers will stay in jail under revised early release scheme
Andy Burnham has written a post on his Facebook account about the prisoner early release scheme. Explaining why he has asked Alex Norris to come up with further plans, he says he is “increasingly confident” that the government will be able to revise the scheme so that PC Andrew Harper’s killers remain in jail.
He says:
I understand the depth of public concern about the potential early release of those involved with the killing of PC Andrew Harper – and I share it.
I fully appreciate the anguish of Andrew’s family and, more broadly, of all those victims and their families who may see those who caused them such harm not serve their full sentence.
It is incumbent on me as prime minister to do everything within my power to minimise that possibility. And I am determined to do so.
I have spent recent days considering in depth all of the issues involved and the range of advice I have received. I have been pushing for further progress. I have not accepted that it is impossible to do more.
As a result, I have asked the justice secretary to fast-track the development of a plan for presentation to parliament early next month to create more headroom within the prison system.
It will be based on a range of options including the three strands of further work I asked him to initiate last week: increasing the rate of removal of foreign national offenders from the prison estate to their country of origin; finding an early resolution to the long-running injustice of IPP sentences, which could allow for the release of lower-risk prisoners; and making greater use of the entire prison estate including using the female estate for male offenders.
I am increasingly confident that a more focused approach along these lines will allow us to reduce the number of people released early and, in the case of the most serious offenders like those convicted of the killing of PC Harper, prevent their early release altogether.
In advance of the justice secretary’s proposals being presented to parliament, we will seek to engage other political parties in discussions with the aim of gaining the widest possible public and political consensus on the approach being taken.
Murderers have always been exempt and our actions have already ensured that rapists, serious child sex offenders and those convicted of grooming offences will never be released early.
And today I have shown a determination to go further. However, I recognise that, even with all these changes, there will be concerns from many victims about who will still be released early for other offences. I am doing all I can, but it is simply not possible to prevent all offenders from being released early without the prison system collapsing.
Aileen O’Connor, chair of the Police Federation in Thames Valley, where PC Andrew Harper was an officer, has welcomed the news that Andy Burnham has ordered another rethink on the prisoner early release scheme.
She told the Today programme this morning:
There’s a little bit of glimmer of hope and encouragement with this latest release that we heard last night, but I can’t lose sight of just hours before that we heard that there was no possibility. So for me, I’m encouraged, I’m optimistic.
And I genuinely believe that the powers that be, Andy Burnham – and the difficult decisions that they have to make – he will make the right choices here, and he will come on board with us, and he’ll get the right side of the line.
The strength of feeling up and down the country, where over 900,000 people have signed that petition, that’s the British public that have got behind this campaign.
This is their voice, and this is about justice for Andrew and justice for Lissie and his family.
O’Connor was referring to this online petition at change.org.
How Burnham has ordered justice secretary to find way to exclude PC Harper’s killers from early release scheme
Here is Caroline Davies’s story on Andy Burnham ordering Alex Norris, the justice secretary, to revise the prisoner early release scheme again so that two of the killers of PC Andrew Harper are excluded from it.
Rayner says Burnham won’t accept ‘system says no’ advice over prisoner release scheme
Good morning. Andy Burnham has been prime minister for three weeks and one day, and arguably he is performing his first U-turn. It is in relation to the prisoner early release scheme and, in particular, finding a way of ensuring that two of the killers of PC Andrew Harper are not included.
Burnham has been looking at this for some time. Early last week he announced significant changes to the early release scheme that he inherited and that was due to come into force from September. Around 1,000 fewer prisoners were going to be included. But two of the three Harper killers (Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers) were not affected by the change, and remained eligible. The main perpetrator (Henry Long), who was driving the car that dragged Harper to his death, was not covered by the scheme anyway because his manslaughter sentence was longer than theirs.
In an article for the Daily Telegraph last week, Burnham implied that he had done as much as he could to toughen up the early release scheme. “I know I can look people in the eye and say to them there is nothing more I could have asked for without risking the prison system reaching capacity and collapsing within months.” At the Downing Street lobby briefing yesterday morning, the PM’s spokesperson also played down the prospect that there might be further tweaks to the system. The spokesperson said that No 10 could not simply adapt the scheme to exclude people convicted of the manslaughter of an emergency worker (one proposed solution), and he highlighted the risk of wider exemptions that could lead to the Prison Service running out of space.
But the spokesperson did not categorically rule out a rethink. And last night the government revealed, in a quote first reported in the Times, that Burnham has told Alex Norris, the justice secretary, to come up with further revisions to the prisoner early release scheme to keep Cole and Bowers in jail.
Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, has confirmed this. She has been giving interviews this morning and she told the Today programme:
The prime minister is determined to ensure that there is a solution to this, and I think he’s made that really clear. And he’s tasked the justice secretary to come to parliament in September with that solution. He’s looking at alternatives like the indefinite sentences, like women prisoners and speeding up foreign nationals being deported. So there is a lot of work that’s going on.
She was implying that, by extending early release to include prisoners on indefinite IPP (imprisonment for public protection) sentences or more women, or by speeding up the deportation of foreign offenders, the government could free up more space. This would allowing more manslaughter offenders like Cole and Bowers to be excluded from early release.
This is a U-turn in the sense that it is a shift from the position Burnham set out last week. Politicians normally get criticised for U-turns. But when the government is committed to a policy unacceptable to the public, ditching it swiftly is normally a wise move (at least, electorally), and that is what Burnham is up to here. This was the case that Rayner made in her Today interview. She said:
The prime minister is really clear. He will not just accept that the system says no. He understands the anger and the trauma that PC Harper’s family are going through, and other victims who are seeing this prison crisis unfold.
The risk for Burnham is that sometimes the system says no for a reason, and sometimes leaders just have to tell people they can’t get what they want. The prison system is in crisis because voters seem to like sending offenders to jail for longer and longer, but don’t seem to like the government building and funding more jails to house them all, and governments can’t deliver on both these wishes without the system eventually collapsing.
As Rajeev Syal reports, Burnham has been warned that, without an extensive prisoner release scheme now, he could end up having to approve another one just before the next election.
Burnham is doing a visit in Derbyshire this morning, and we will hear from him then because he will be doing some media.
Other than that, there is not much on the agenda. But I will be covering reaction to his announcement to give councils enhanced powers to stop betting and vape shops taking over their high streets.
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