SerpApi.Org
The new Prime Minister has announced a review of Labour’s controversial prisoner early-release scheme just weeks after the legislation became law.
He has done so following a Telegraph interview with the mother of Pc Andrew Harper. Two men jailed for the officer’s manslaughter in 2019 are due to be freed in September halfway through their terms under the Sentencing Act 2026. His mother, Debbie Adlam, called it “an insult”, as indeed it is.
What would be just as insulting is for Andy Burnham to hint at changing this law and then do nothing about it. For some time it has been apparent that the Act would put thousands of serious offenders back on the streets, months or even years earlier than the term set down by the courts. Indeed, when the releases start in September this will be the first big crisis to hit the new Government.
But, until a few days ago, ministers were insisting that there was no alternative since the prisons were full to bursting. Since around 12 per cent of inmates are foreign nationals, perhaps a different approach could have been taken rather than one that will further undermine public confidence in the system. Yet deportation of criminals is almost impossible because of human rights laws, unless Mr Burnham is proposing to review those too.
In his first two days in office, the new PM has shown that he is never happier than when courting a good opinion of himself by offering to help people without saying how. Even at this early stage he appears to suffer from the fatal leadership flaw of a desire to always be liked.
He has promised to cut energy bills slightly through a temporary removal of VAT to be paid for by scrapping a digital ID scheme that was never funded, so where is the money coming from? The same can be asked about his latest wheeze to cap bus fares at £2.
The timetable for Mr Burnham’s leadership coup was engineered to coincide with the Commons summer recess so the Prime Minister could skip answering questions from MPs for six weeks.
But Parliament is still sitting. The House of Lords has carried on with its business and on Tuesday the Conservatives tabled a motion calling for a debate on the announcements being made by Downing Street. This was defeated by the Government with the help of the ever-compliant Liberal Democrats whose failure to challenge Labour’s cynical disdain for democratic scrutiny was shameful.
Our new Prime Minister now has an opportunity to show he is serious about securing justice for Pc Harper. He must recall the Commons and table emergency legislation to right this imminent wrong.
