'They need to stop going back to before the last general election and blaming us!' Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Helen Whately refuses to accept responsibility for the prison capacity crisis, saying the Government must take responsibility for the early release scheme.

Helen would like us to forget the Tories introduced lots of legislation increasing prison sentences, which sounds great until you remember they added less than 500 net prison places whilst letting in millions of people.

@elliecostelloTV Been in power for half a term now and still trotting out the same old excuses. Anybody’s fault but their own, time well overdue to own the problem.

Whately is appointed to help the elite grab money from the state. Parasites

FFS Tory vermin destroyed prison capacity. They are solely responsible for the early release

The Conservatives fucked the Uk and then they jumped ship.

I have heard that there is plenty of prison room. It is staff they are short of.

@elliecostelloTV Why? Which government was it that deliberately failed to increase the number of prison spaces?

That’s wuite funny, the Tories were still blaming the “last Labour government” for things well into their third term

So real

The Tories’ biggest failure was making the Labour Party look electable!

Since 2010, the Ministry of Justice CLOSED over 12,500 prison places, many older Victorian and Georgian facilities declared "surplus to requirements" to reduce operational costs.  Notable closures include  HMP Shrewsbury,  HMP Canterbury, HMP Portsmouth, and HMP The Verne