There is a strong sense in the Conservative Party that the leadership contest should not merely be a matter of choosing a personality, but of resolving the Party’s identity crisis. The task is to restore meaning to the Conservative Party by clearly articulating Conservative beliefs – and adopting policies that reflect those principles.
Such a proclamation would be just the start, of course. A coherent position should mean that everyone can see easily enough what we stand for. It doesn’t mean they will agree. The political process is about argument – seeking to persuade enough people to win an election.
We start from the position that some Conservative beliefs are more popular than others. The free enterprise cause is at a low ebb in this country – with all its necessary components such as the price mechanism, the profit motive, and inequality of incomes. 58 per cent support the nationalisation of Ticketmaster. On the other hand the core Conservative aspiration for home ownership – usually associated with “settling down”, getting married, and having children – remains resilient.
The Conservative insistence on a robust approach to law and order is certainly widely held. Maintaining personal responsibility is regarded as fundamental. There is an opportunity for the Conservatives to reassert their outlook as the Labour Government’s early release of prisoners has prompted popular dismay. 1,700 prisoners last week. Another 1,700 tomorrow.
Labour, of course, insists it had no choice as the prisons are full and the Conservatives are to blame. That has been greeted with some scepticism. A responsible Government should regard public safety as an imperative and look for urgent measures to protect it when challenges arise.
The Ministry of Justice tells me, via an FOI request, that there are nearly 2,000 prison places “out of use for maintenance and refurbishment work.” Where is the sense of urgency in getting those into use?
What about more prisoners sharing a cell? Not ideal but better than letting them out on the streets.
If necessary, should not emergency detention camps be established and run by the army?
We have 10,435 foreign nationals in prison. They should be deported. The exemption for Irish nationals should end – as should the exemption for those with custodial sentences of less than a year. If the ECHR is an obstacle to deportation then emergency legislation should be pushed through to override this.
It’s not just foreign prisoners who should be sent abroad. We could do this for British prisoners – paying to rent prison places. Alex Chalk, the former Justice Secretary, outlined this proposal at the Conservative Party Conference last year. Labour ridiculed it at the time. But they are now considering it more seriously. In Estonia, the annual cost of each prisoner is between £10,000 and £20,000 per prisoner. The cost of housing a prisoner in England and Wales is nearly £50,000 a year. The cost of building a jail is £600,000 per prisoner.
There was a good leader in The Spectator, 22 years ago, which proposed exporting prisoners to Africa. Then, as now, the financial advantage would be considerably greater than Estonia. But it was also suggested that there would be a cultural advantage with the tougher regime:
“A recent ruling of the European Human Rights Commission has made it impossible for prison governors to reduce the remission of prisoners, so that the withdrawal of a privilege is now to be regarded as an infringement of human rights. In such a cultural atmosphere, it is impossible to punish with serious intent, and the criminals know it.”
If such a deal could be lucrative for the host countries – while offering considerable savings for the British taxpayer, it is disappointing that no progress has been achieved. “No prisoners were placed abroad under this proposal and legislation to enable it was not completed before the election on July 4th 2024,” the Ministry of Justice tells me.
When, in 1993, Michael Howard became Home Secretary his officials told him that it was inevitable that crime would continue to increase each year. His response was that: “Prison Works”. There were 44,500 prisoners at the time. It is more than double that now. Crime has fallen. Technological advances have helped – in CCTV and DNA detection. But locking up more criminals for longer reduces crime. Letting them out on the streets increases crime.
Can you imagine Howard acquiescing with a passive shrug to thousands of prisoners being released early? He would have been determined to find whatever temporary alternatives were needed until more prisons were built.
The prison building should be speeded up by being given an exemption from the normal planning delays. Those living near the sites designated for new prisons could be given financial compensation in recognition of this.
The claim that we can’t afford more prison places misses the point that there is great variation in the cost of prison places at present in the UK. Some of the Victorian prisons in London have high maintenance costs and could be closed releasing valuable sites for housing that in turn could pay for more prison places elsewhere.
Thus far the prescriptions I have offered has all been about how we can make it financially and logistically viable to lock up more criminals for more time. Is that all there is to it? No. The criminals should be locked up. But we should certainly do more to reduce the number who become criminals and to reduce reoffending.
Around a quarter of prisoners were in care as children. Any serious crime reduction strategy should have a sharp increase in the adoption rate as a central component. Yet it is scarcely mentioned.
Strengthening marriage is a crime fighting strategy. So is redeveloping council estates to remove dystopian tower blocks and slab blocks and restore thriving communities. So is having schools like Michaela rather than “progressive” schools where discipline breaks down.
The Troubled Families programme was an important Conservative achievement in seeking to “turn round” families with multiple problems – truancy, crime and anti-social behaviour, unemployment. It addressed the bureaucratic failure where various state agencies had been involved with different family members but not in a coordinated way.
Then there is the importance of reducing reoffending. Sometimes the most modest changes can help. One study found that taking vitamin, mineral and essential fatty acid supplements reduced anti social behaviour among prisoners.
Probably more significant would be to ensure that illiterate prisoners learn read. They could be given the incentive of early release if they achieve this. Similarly if they work in prison and learn a skill and start putting it to use while still incarerated. They could be rewarded with both an early release and some of the earnings they are due for the work they have done inside.
It is important that prisoners who are addicted to drugs do not get access to them via drones. Rory Stewart found, when he was Prisons Minister, that privatised prisons are better run in this respect than others. But this would be another advantage of exporting prisoners abroad – despite the ingenuity of their associates.
“In victory, magnanimity,” declared Churchill. Those who turn away from crime should be given every encouragement to make a positive contribution. Those who reoffend should be severely punished. There is no contradiction between these two sentiments. Man has free will. He is not beyond redemption for his misconduct but he should held responsible for it.
The Conservative MP Danny Kruger previously ran a charity for ex-offenders, Only Connect. The journalist Harriet Sergeant has investigated penal policy extensively. Then we have Jonathan Aitken, of course. None of them are pinkos. But they could all assist with developing a Conservative policy of enlightened penal reform.
So our approach should be that more criminals need to be locked up, for a longer period of time. But that we also need to do far more to reduce the reoffending rate. Also to break the generational conveyer belt that increases the probability of children growing up to become criminals in the first place.