We have too many prisoners, says new Prime Minister Keir Starmer

Sir Keir Starmer has said he wants to reduce the number of people going to prison through renewed efforts to reduce reoffending.

In his first press conference as Prime Minister, Sir Keir said many people returned to prison “relatively quickly” after being sent there.

He added that intervening to prevent young people from committing knife crime would be one of the first priorities of his new government.

But he said there would be “no overnight solution” to prison overcrowding, adding: “We have too many prisoners but not enough prisons.”

This came after he appointed a businessman as prisons minister, who had previously said only a third of prisoners should be there.

James Timpson, boss of the shoe repair chain which has a policy of recruiting ex-offenders, said in an interview with Channel 4 earlier this year: “We are addicted to punishment”.

The Labour Party, which won a landslide victory in the general election on Thursday, has vowed to review sentences after returning to office for the first time since 2010.

The country has also inherited a growing crisis in British prisons and has already pledged to maintain the previous Conservative government’s early release scheme to ease current levels of overcrowding.

Last week, the Prison Governors’ Association, which represents 95% of prison governors in England and Wales, warned that prisons would run out of space within days.

Former Conservative Justice Secretary Alex Chalk first announced plans to release prisoners in early October 2023.

Mr Chalk, who lost his seat to the Lib Dems in the general election, told MPs at the time that “the prison population is higher than it has ever been” and that the UK “must make better use of prisons”.

However, he added: “We must do whatever it takes to ensure there are always enough prison places to hold the most dangerous criminals in order to keep the British public safe.”

The details of Labour’s review have not yet been revealed, but Mr Timpson’s appointment offered an early sign that a change of approach may be underway in this area.

Sir Keir appointed him a member of the House of Lords, allowing him to take up the role of prisons minister at the Ministry of Justice.

The businessman told a Channel 4 podcast in February that the prison was a “disaster” for around a third of prisoners, and another third “probably shouldn’t be there”.

He said many people being locked up for “too long” was an example of “evidence being ignored because there is this sentiment around punishing and punishing”.

“We are addicted to sentences, we are addicted to punishments,” he added.

Asked about his comments at a Downing Street press conference, Sir Keir did not offer an opinion on whether he agreed with those estimates.

But he added: “We need to be clear about how we use prisons.

“For so many people [who] They leave prison and return to prison relatively quickly afterwards.

“This is a huge problem we have in this country and we need to solve it.”

He said his party particularly wanted to reduce knife crime and cited its plan to create a network of “youth centres”.

Sir Keir, a former barrister, added: “I have sat at the back of I don’t know how many criminal courts and seen people being processed through the system on an escalator to go to prison.

“I often thought that many of them could have been taken out of this system sooner if they had had support.”

Steve Searby – from the Prison Officers’ Association, which represents thousands of prison workers – told BBC Breakfast the situation had “been going on for years and years”.

“I don’t see how we’re going to get out of this crisis,” Mr Searby said. “It’s not something that goes away, you have to deal with it. There’s no quick fix.”

He added: “You need to get people around the table who know what they’re talking about.”

Labour says it wants to create 20,000 prison places by allowing ministers to override local councils in planning decisions.

But it also plans to maintain the scheme implemented by the last government, under which some minor offenders can be released up to 70 days early.

Sir Keir said Conservative ministers had created a “mess” by failing to build enough prisons and mismanaging the prisons budget.

Defending his decision to maintain the early release scheme, he added: “We don’t have the prisons we need and I can’t build a prison in 24 hours.”

The latest official figures, published on Friday, put the prison population in England and Wales at 87,453, out of a “usable operational capacity” of 88,864.

The SNP-run Scottish government, which is responsible for prisons in Scotland, plans to release between 500 and 550 prisoners in the coming months.

It came as Sir Keir called the first Labour cabinet meeting in 14 years, telling his senior staff he expected them and their departments to uphold the “highest standards of integrity and honesty”.

A Downing Street statement on the meeting said the Prime Minister told ministers that “the whole country was looking to the Government to deliver on its priorities”.

After the cabinet, Sir Keir was questioned by journalists in his first press conference as Prime Minister.

Asked about tax rises, Sir Keir said he would make “tough decisions” and face challenges with “raw honesty”.

The new Labour government faces tough choices over public finances, with forecasts suggesting major spending cuts.

But Thursday’s landslide victory in the general election has given Labour “a clear mandate to govern in all four corners of the United Kingdom”, Sir Keir said as he set out plans to tour all four countries of the UK in the coming days.

The final results of the general election were also announced on Saturday, with the Lib Dems winning the constituencies of Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire.

The result was originally expected at 05:00 BST on Friday, but a recount meant the results were delayed until Saturday afternoon.

Candidate Angus MacDonald won a majority of 2,160 votes over the SNP’s Drew Hendry.

This means the Lib Dems have won 72 seats in Westminster. Six of these are in Scotland, meaning the Lib Dems have overtaken the Scottish Conservatives as Scotland’s third largest party in Westminster.

Across the UK, Labour won 412 seats, while the Conservatives took 121.