'Disgraceful' failures of Tories led to jails crisis

Rishi Sunak and his former ministers are "the guilty men" who should be held responsible for "the most disgraceful dereliction of duty" by failing to address the prisons crisis, the lord chancellor has said.

- Rajeev Syal

As she set out plans to release thousands of prisoners early to ease the pressure in overcrowded jails, Shabana Mahmood said that the Conservatives "had left the country threatened with a total breakdown of law and order".

Writing exclusively in the Guardian, Keir Starmer underlined the severity of the problem. He said his first week in office had made clear to him that the Tories had been "arrogant, reckless and irresponsible to the very end... they'll go down in history as the government that fiddled while the country burned".

The prime minister's criticism came as Mahmood set out emergency measures to prevent the prison system from reaching the point of collapse. In a speech at HMP Five Wells in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, the justice secretary said jails had been operating at 99% capacity since the start of 2023.

"Those responsible - Sunak and his gang in No 10 - should go down in history as the guilty men. The guilty men who put their political careers ahead of the safety and security of our country. It was the most disgraceful dereliction of duty I have ever known.

"Time and again, they ducked the difficult decisions that could have addressed this challenge. Instead, they kept the public in the dark about the state they had left this country in," she said.

Thousands of prisoners will be released under the new scheme after they have served 40% of their sentences. The government will also recruit 1,000 probation officers to solve an overcrowding crisis that threatens "a total breakdown of law and order", the justice secretary has announced.

Mahmood described the policy as "the only way to avert disaster", saying if prisons were to run out of places, courts would be forced to delay jailing offenders and police would be unable to arrest dangerous criminals - a crisis that would leave the public at risk.