Prison population in England and Wales reaches new record high
The prison population has reached a new record high, PA Media reports. Official figures showed there were 88,521 people imprisoned on Friday, 171 more than the previous record set at the end of last week.
The prison population has risen by 1,025 people over the past four weeks and now stands at its highest level since weekly population data was first published in 2011.
The latest figures come days before the government’s temporary early release scheme is due to come into effect on 10 September.
Key events
The government has announced that Jonathan Powell has been appointed as a special envoy for negotiations between the UK and Mauritius over the Chagos Islands.
Foreign secretary David Lammy said:
Negotiations with Mauritius over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) / Chagos Archipelago are critical to the UK’s security. We are determined to protect the long-term, secure and effective operation of the joint UK/US military base on Diego Garcia.
Jonathan Powell’s experience working with governments of all colours in the most sensitive international negotiations makes him uniquely qualified to serve as the prime minister’s special envoy.
I look forward to working with him as we endeavour to reach a settlement that protects UK interests and those of our partners.
Powell was previously a chief of staff to prime minister Tony Blair, and David Cameron’s special envoy to Libya between 2014 and 2016.
In January, acting in his then-role as foreign secretary, Cameron provoked fury by abruptly ruling out the resettlement of former inhabitants of the Chagos Islands, months after his predecessor revealed that the UK was discussing their potential return. In March 2023, James Cleverly had confirmed that talks between the UK and Mauritius over the future of the Indian Ocean islands included “resettlement of the former inhabitants of the Chagos archipelago”.
Today’s government announcement of Powell’s appointment says:
Working in close coordination with the US, the UK government will continue the previous government’s policy of aiming to reach an agreement that protects the UK’s security interests, respects Chagossian communities, enhances environmental cooperation and builds a long-term strategic relationship with Mauritius as a close Commonwealth partner. The UK-Mauritius negotiations began in November 2022. To date, 12 rounds of talks have taken place.
Peter Walker and Geoffrey Lean report for the Guardian that campaigners have accused ministers of making misleading promises about protecting green belt sites from development:
Huge expanses of green belt land in England could be built on to meet government housing targets, it has emerged, with guidelines saying that councils lacking enough brownfield sites will be expected to offer untouched plots for construction.
The proposals, set out in consultation documents for the revised planning rules across England, prompted condemnation from campaigners, who accused ministers of making misleading promises about protecting the green belt.
There is also concern that the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) waters down targets for affordable homes, with a previous stipulation that at least 10% of new homes having to be affordable being scrapped.
When the draft NPPF was unveiled in July, part of a pledge to build 1.5m new homes over five years, it was announced that councils that failed to meet construction targets could be forced to use “grey belt” sites, low-quality areas of the green belt such as former car parks and petrol stations, and sites on the edges of towns and villages.
But within the consultation document for the NPPF, totalling 15 chapters and nearly 30,000 words, it says that if there is not enough grey belt land councils should be pushed into building on “higher performing” green belt sites – which would include previously untouched land integral to the green belt’s purpose.
Read more here: England’s green belt at risk amid pressure to meet housing targets
Former chief inspector of prisons Nick Hardwick appeared on the media this morning, and said that recently visiting prisons for the first time he felt concerned about his own personal security.
He told listeners of the BBC Today programme:
I’ve been in a lot of prisons, what I’ve noticed in some I’ve visited recently is for the first time I’ve felt concerned for my own personal security – they’re dangerous and frightening places, and staff are struggling to keep control.
He said he didn’t think the government had any alternative to its planned early release scheme, but it came with problems. PA Media quotes him saying:
That will remove the immediate pressure, I don’t think the government had any alternative in the short-term other than to do these releases.
But it’s a bit like squeezing a balloon – you release the pressure in one place but the bulge goes somewhere else – and the real problem now is, first of all, some of those released will re-offend for certain, and some of those released, a lot of those released, I fear will end up homeless because there simply isn’t the accommodation for them.
Jamie Grierson
A government minister has refused to deny reports that officials are looking at sending criminals convicted in England and Wales to Estonia to serve their prison sentences.
The Daily Telegraph reported that the Ministry of Justice was investigating “all viable options” to increase capacity after the Baltic state said it had offered to rent out spare capacity to other countries.
Angela Eagle, a minister in the Home Office, did not comment directly when asked on Sky News whether the government was considering renting cells for British prisoners in Estonia as it was “not directly my ministerial responsibility”.
She said: “I’m sure that colleagues are considering all sorts of actions to deal with the crisis that we’ve been left by the previous government in prison places and the prison service, and the criminal justice system generally.”
She added: “The last government closed loads of prison places and didn’t replace any of them, so I think that colleagues in the MoJ will be considering anything that they can to alleviate the problem.
“What we cannot have is people who are convicted of perhaps violent or serious crimes not being able to be in jail.”
Read more here: Minister won’t deny UK government may rent prison space in Estonia
Prison population in England and Wales reaches new record high
The prison population has reached a new record high, PA Media reports. Official figures showed there were 88,521 people imprisoned on Friday, 171 more than the previous record set at the end of last week.
The prison population has risen by 1,025 people over the past four weeks and now stands at its highest level since weekly population data was first published in 2011.
The latest figures come days before the government’s temporary early release scheme is due to come into effect on 10 September.
Jessica Elgot
Our deputy political editor Jessica Elgot has this piece today suggesting there will be a diminished presence from the left of the Labour party at this year’s conference:
Senior leftwing Labour figures have said the left will have a greatly diminished presence at this year’s party conference.
The conference in Liverpool is likely to be dominated by delegates from the party’s centrist wing, though there will be moves to force votes on issues such as the two-child benefit cap and the winter fuel allowance.
Momentum and other leftwing grassroots groups are also fighting to save their last remaining seats on the party’s governing body, which now has a significant majority for the centrist faction, organised by Labour to Win.
One Corbyn-era shadow cabinet minister said members who were dissatisfied with Keir Starmer’s leadership – especially his policies towards parliamentary selections and party discipline – would probably steer clear this year. “I think future years to come there will be more space to put pressure on from the left,” they said.
Seven prominent leftwing MPs, including the former shadow chancellor John McDonnell and the former shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon, are suspended from the Labour whip for rebelling on an amendment to abolish the two-child benefit limit.
A Momentum spokesperson said there were still areas where leftwing members would be active:
While the balance of delegates at conference is likely to be favourable to Starmer, the Labour party is beset with major internal disagreements between the majority of members and trade unionists – who support commonsense progressive policies such as the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap and want to see an end to austerity policies after 14 years of Tory misrule – and a small grouping around the leadership, who remain obsessively focused on control freakery and are happy to have economic policy dictated by the Treasury.
The World Transformed, the leftwing political festival that has acted as a fringe event to the conference for the past eight years, will not return to the conference in Liverpool this year.
Read more from Jessica Elgot here: Left’s presence at Labour conference will be diminished, say leftwing figures
Former immigration minister Jenrick accuses Labour of having ‘surrendered to smuggling gangs’
Robert Jenrick, the Conservative former immigration minister and candidate for the party’s leadership, has accused the new Labour government of having “surrendered to the smuggling gangs”.
Jenrick, whose party while in government oversaw record numbers of people crossing the English Channel in order to seek asylum, told Sky News “We have seen thousands of people crossing the Channel illegally since Labour came to power. They got rid of the one credible deterrent, which was the Rwanda policy.”
Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda deportation policy never reached the statute books, and not a single asylum seeker was forcibly deported there.
Speaking about home secretary Yvette Cooper’s planned meeting today on small boat Channel crossings, Jenrick said:
Yvette Cooper will meet the National Crime Agency and police chiefs today, and they’ll tell her what they told me when I was the minister, which is that although it’s important that we do that work, it is not sufficient. You have to have a deterrent. Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper have surrendered to the smuggling gangs.
Jenrick claimed that scrapping the failed Rwanda scheme had made it “open season” for people smugglers to attempt to move asylum seekers across the English Channel.
Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, prime minister Keir Starmer told MPs:
Unlike the Conservative party, we will not waste money on gimmicks. That is why, within days, we ended the Rwanda scheme and announced the launch of the border security force, and we have been preparing legislation to introduce counter-terrorism powers to tackle gangs. In the first two months, we have removed on planes more than 400 people who had no right to be here. Compare that with the four volunteers sent to Rwanda, which cost £700m. This is a government of service, not a government of gimmicks.
The former head of the British Border Force, Tony Smith, has said that tackling people-smuggles using the English Channel as a route was like playing “Whac-A-Mole”.
He said that a concerted effort was needed in Europe and in the countries organising the trade, telling listeners of the BBC Today programme:
This is a very lucrative business for the smugglers. Putting a smuggling gang out of business, there’s usually another one waiting in the wings because the money is there. It’s a bit like Whac-A-Mole, really. So you do need a very concerted international attempt, both in Europe and beyond.
Smith left the British Border Force role in 2013.
Minister: government will announce head of new border security command ‘shortly’
Angela Eagle has said that the government will announce the appointment of the head of its new border security command “very shortly”.
The much-touted policy aiming to cut people crossing the English Channel to seek asylum in the UK has been at the centre of the new Labour government’s promise to smash people-smuggling gangs.
Speaking on Sky News, Eagle said:
We are very close to making that appointment. You have to go through certain processes to make sure you get the right person, give people time to apply. You can’t wave a magic wand. There’ll be announcements about that very shortly.
The border security minister would not be drawn on whether it would be as soon as next week.
Minister: ‘difficult’ and ‘complex’ to tackle cross-border smuggling gangs
Border security minister Angela Eagle has said that tackling criminal people smuggling gangs will be “difficult” and “complex” to do, but that should not stop the government attempting to tackle it.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme she said “I think that any state has got to ensure that criminal gangs who are profiting off human misery are tackled, disrupted, dealt with, put out of business – and if you have to put one out of business and another springs up, you have to spend your time having a go at that one as well.”
She continued “Just because something is very, very difficult to do, complex to do – something that you have to do by cooperation across borders, by a lot of communication along these supply chains of misery and exploitation – that isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be doing it, and that is what today’s summit is about, really.”
Rajeev Syal
Here is a snippet from Rajeev Syal’s report on today’s forthcoming summit on English Channel crossings:
Yvette Cooper will chair a summit aimed at apprehending criminal gangs involved in smuggling people across the Channel in small boats, as the Home Office disclosed that MI5 officers had been given a key role in operations.
Intelligence officers, Border Force staff and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) representatives will be present at the meeting on Friday at the National Crime Agency’s headquarters.
Cooper, the home secretary, will be joined by David Lammy, the foreign secretary, Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, and Richard Hermer, the attorney general.
On Tuesday 12 people died attempting the perilous journey across one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Another 257 people crossed the Channel in small boats on Wednesday.
Cooper said: “Women and children were packed into an unsafe boat which literally collapsed in the water this week. At least 12 people were killed as part of this evil trade.”
Read more here: Yvette Cooper to chair summit on tackling Channel smuggling gangs
Welcome and opening summary …
Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics for Friday. Recently appointed home secretary Yvette Cooper will chair a summit of senior ministers and members of the intelligence services and the National Crime Agency aimed at tackling criminal gangs involved in smuggling people over the English Channel in small boats. More of that in a moment, but here are your headlines …
What else is in the diary for today? Not much. The Lords are sitting, but the Commons isn’t, and there is nothing scheduled in Holyrood, Stormont or the Senedd. It is Martin Belam with you here. You can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com. I find it helpful if you gently point out typos, errors or omissions you spot.